What do you fertilize your trees with…if anything?
Any other nutrients / minerals you may apply?
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Jacks 25-5-15, grass feed 28-0-4, Grass feed 20-0-10, ammonium sulfate 21-0-0-blueberries, and anything on sale
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If the tree is the size I want it and growing fine already bone meal, mulch as it breaks down, and that’s about it. If it’s growing weakly some 15-30-15.
New ones I want to put on some size 20-20-20.
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I sow white clover in autum which grows and captures some little amount of nitrogen and then in spring it flowers when my fruit flowers and attracts bees, during this time i also start destroying the clover again releasing back nitrogen and demolishing de clover before it seeds. If this all works and benefits the fruits?i have no clue and no proof;) yet i love of it Furtermore i feed my growing plants with nettle tea and compost tea.
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This year it’s Feather meal + no name 5-5-3 organic granular for in ground trees with compost. For potted trees, fish emulsion and 20-6-16.
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Here is a good thread on the same subject which i thought was answered nicely by Alan and others.
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Pee.
I add biochar and wood chips, but neither one is actually a fertilizer.
John S
PDXOR
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I plant new trees with a backfill consisting of a mixture of 15-20% clay, 15-20% river sand, 20-30% compost and after planting I cover this with about 3-6” of woodchips our to the drip line, allowing no other plants beside clovers inside the drip line. In early spring before bud swell I spread a few handfuls of 3-15 around the drip line. During swell I apply frost protection foliar spray that has a number of fruit setting nutrients.
Dennis
Kent, wa
Talking about fertilizer, I just done my trees today. It’s what ever I can get my hand on for cheap. I still have my Jungle Juice since 8 or 9 years ago. Yeah, the super big bottle and not the tiny one. It consist of Grow, Micro, and Bloom. At that time buy 3 and get 1 free. Then, I use Miracle 20-20-20 solution mix. It’s not 100 organic, but it was on clearance. The Bromeliad Tillandsia 17-8-22 got at OSH when they was going out of business. May mix Neptune fish sauce or Alaska fish sauce. That’s my mixture for today.
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I personally plant straight into the ground with nothing added. Trees grow plenty fast in my spot without fertilizer.
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The last few years I have been using organic plant tone… for general fertilizer for fruit trees, berry bushes, cane fruit, vines, etc.
It is 5 3 3 on NPK
5 1 1 on Ca, Mg, S and has some other nice organic stuff in it.
I use the Holly Tone version on my blueberries and they have grown very nicely with it.
When I dig a hole for a new fruit tree… almost always remove several rocks… some quite large from the red clay layer deeper in the hole. I replace that volume with compost and mix it with the remaining soil… after planting the tree… i put down a 3-4 inch deep layer of compost in a 3-4 ft wide circle around the tree… then i cover that with a 3-4 inch layer of wood chips.
In the large majority of years… i water a new fruit tree 1 time during that initial planting.
I add more wood chips each spring. I have had no complaints… everything grows very well.
TNHunter
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It may be worth it to get a soil test done. In my case the area in the garden where I grow fruit has plenty of phosphorus and potassium and only lacks nitrogen. I have added wood chips over many years in this area. Where I am starting a vegetable bed lacks nitrogen as well as potassium. This way you will know what exactly to add and not add things unnecessarily. In Texas the state Ag university does soil testing and a basic test costs about 15 bucks and about 8 bucks to ship the sample. Here is the report you get back for the basic test.
One ton of 5-10-15-1-1 for pecans.
Has zinc and magnesium. I’ll apply about half ton of nitrogen in the fall.
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Rocky Mountain foothills here.
My years long habit of heavily mulching the trees for water conservation purposes has acidified the soil. So I’m liming . Just like a gardener Back East. Also planting a Blueberry because what the heck.
I overfertilized with phosphorus in such a big way years ago before I knew better that I probably never have to add any again. Not short in our soil anyway. So I avoid all purpose ferts.
I prevailed on the landscape supply store to sell me a couple of bags of Potassium Sulfate a couple of years ago ( they want full pallet special orders now) so I use that. Not commonly sold in my area. I make a point of adding that several weeks ahead of any N application. I want the more mature trees to default towards fruit production rather than vegetative production.
Except for a handful of N-only fertilizer before the growing season,N is on an as-needed basis and pretty minimal for mature trees.
I spray the trees with a strong cayenne pepper tea and Dr. Bronner’s hippie soap as a sticking agent from time to time during growing season to discourage deer. I started spiking it with a tiny bit (1/4 tsp per gallon) of Monopotassium Phosphate to encourage flowering. Again, what the heck? I’m spraying anyway. Based on the bloom this year, that worked surprisingly well.
A laundry scoop of Peters STEM (trace element mixture) dissolved in a bucket of water doled out one quart per tree per year. Maybe twice some years.
I also use the -Tone series, Tree-Tone on trees (or Plant-Tone if I can’t find Tree-Tone) and Holly-Tone on the blueberries. For trees that are struggling I add some slow-release pellet fertilizer to give them an extra boost… Osmocote I think is the brand.
I put down way less than the recommended amounts, just a handful or two on each tree of the 5-5-5-ish kind of stuff.
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Im moving this year, so Ill be getting a soil test done as soon as I close. USGS soil survey says ill have 2+ feet of well drained silt loam, so I dont expect any crazy deficiencies.
Im planning to plant Symphytum around my younger trees. Its roots reach untill 4 meters down were it takes nutrients and water from soil were fruit trees roots didnt reach yet. Then i winter the leaves die of, putting that nutrients back on top of the soil, once estabished you can cut it down twice a year or more to keep piling nutrients. Part of the roots will die off, leaving space for the roots of fruittrees.
Compost, wood chips (generous amounts) for everything…
Plant tone for fruit trees, bushes, cane fruit, vines, strawberries…
Holly tone for blueberries at spring bud swell… then as last berries are harvested… holly tone again + high N miracle grow type water soluable fertilizer… i give each bush 2 gal a couple times as soon as last berries picked. Get some nice late summer and fall growth.
When I plant something new… in addition to a little plant tone… custom mix of bone meal, gypsum, epsom salt, greensand, blood meal.
That is what i used for many years before these nice organic fertilizer mixes were available.
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When I ‘get to it’ I sprinkle Tree Tone under the drip line of my fruit trees. But, for the last couple of years I didn’t make it around the entire orchard. Sometimes I’ve used a little 10-10-10, instead of the Tree Tone.
I don’t notice much difference with - or without - fertilizing.
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While it is true that a lot fruit trees are somewhat shallow-rooted, you may or may not get much deeper root penetration from comfrey or other “deep-rooted” plants. Up to a point, deep rooted temperate plants like comfrey, baptesia, clove currents, bunch-type grasses, etc, and most arid-zone plants will root more deeply than fruit trees, they are ultimately limited in how deep they can root by the soil’s physical chemistry. With the exception of wetland species, which are mostly shallow-rooted anyway, it’s extremely unlikely for anything to root far into the permanent water table. If your water table stays a foot below the surface, comfrey isn’t going to root much deeper than that. Similarly, hardpan, which can be formed mechanically by cultivating the same depth or from excessive traffic, or formed chemically from mineral reprecipitation (more common than you’d think, if your area has low precipitation, or if there are any big pH changes across soil horizons, or for other reasons, minerals dissolved form the surface rainwater and irrigation can precipitate out at a certain depth, forming what’s effectively a layer of natural concrete), will generally highly restrict or prevent entirely any root penetration.
In no way am I saying don’t plant comfrey, just saying that it’s not a sure thing whether or not it’ll actually do you any good. And unfortunately, it’s usually very difficult to impossible to substantially change your soil’s physical properties.
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