Stone fruit is a bust this year.At least I’ll have a good citrus crop.
Dekopon
Meyer lemon. Second bloom of the year. This thing loves to be fed. ignore the spider mite damage, LOL
Mike
Meyer lemon. Second bloom of the year. This thing loves to be fed. ignore the spider mite damage, LOL
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Nice looking citrus Mr Smith, your Meyer Lemon makes me think maybe I should be feeding mine a bit more. When you say it likes to be fed, do you mean more strongly than your other citrus or more often? Good job on the Dekopon too, I have an Frost Owari Satsuma that I’m looking forward to.
Hey Dan.
I used to not feed that much and I learned I was why underfeeding. They just wouldn’t grow. They stayed healthy but I wanted them to put on some size. So starting last summer I feed all my citrus full strength every week a liquid fert. In the winter I feed once a month until January then twice a month to help with the first yearly bloom. Mostly it’s been foliage pro but lately I have switched every other week with miracle gro 30-10-10 or the 24-8-16. They all get flushed almost weekly and if not mid week I flush them right before fertilizing. So far they are responding nicely. I also have a miracle gro slow release that has mag and calcium in the pots.
lol Mr Smith it’s funny how your situation sounds almost exactly like mine, my Meyer Lemon leafwise looked really good and even flowered but it just would not put on any growth. Would the Miracle Gro be one of those shake and feed? I have some Osmocote that’ll probably substitute okay I think, and the weekly fertilizing sounds like a good idea. That’s for detailing your process. They seem to be productive when things are right!
Yes the regular shake and feed. If you look on it and compare to osmocote the have nearly the same minerals. I was surprised. I have always done weekly feeding but at 1/4 to 1/2 strength as recommended by most people on gardenwebs citrus forum. Giving them more is working great for me. Oh something I forgot is I add vinegar to the water at a rate that lowers the PH to about 6.5. For me it’s 3.25ml per gallon. That alone might help a lot.
Okay, I’ve definitely seen various forms of the Shake and Feed in local stores so I’ll have to check the packages next time to see if it’s a more cost effective option than the Osmocote (how long does the Shake and Feed usually last for you), probably is. And how do you test your water’s pH? I bought some pH tester strips to do that but they apparently don’t work in solutions that aren’t strongly ionized.
http://www.miraclegro.com/smg/goprod/miracle-gro-continuous-release-plant-food/prod70290. There is a link to the label PDF down towards the bottom.
That’s the one I use. And to be honest I don’t really know how long I usually sprinkle some in the the tub I use to mix soil then I’ll put some.on the top of the soil in spring and more later in summer. I’m not very specific with it. I have a swimming pool so I’m just use my test kit for it. You can buy a pool kit or even an aquarium kit to test PH more accurately than strips. Pool kit is going to be cheaper.
Oh okay great, I’ve definitely seen this one here. It says 3 months on the website, so I guess it’ll last 1.5 or 1 over here due to my heat.
Doh, where’s my brain? I have my dad’s pool kit that I can use to test pH yea, it’s just that I’m so used to thinking of anything pH related to do with blueberries (spent a loooong time trying to find something local that could test at pH 4.5-5.5, and the pool kit can’t) that I automatically block out the pool kit as a pH tester lol. Dunno why my mind applied that to this situation, since 6.5 is in its range…are you speaking of pre-fertilization irrigation or the pH it should be after you’ve added your liquid fert?