Wow! That’s great. I cannot figure it out.
I am heading out to Loews in a bit. So far I heard bone meal, phosphorous, potassium, egg shells, bananas, various composts.
Question, at what point are the plants beyond help as far as producing?
When the are dead and brown mostly. However some plants will produce from what is left in the ground, as we found out with our Goji plants.
FERTILIZING QUESTION:
I just got a bag of phosphate and also planning to use some of the blue Miracle Grow on my tomato plants that I grew from seed which are growing nicely. However some of these have been blooming and not forming fruits and some of these are not blooming at all. I also have osmocote which I could use but hesitate in doing.
Would a small scatter of phosphate and a little of the blue stuff be a good treatment, then in a few days scatter out some osmocote?
Same thing seems to be going on with my squash plants. I’ve gotten ONE lovely squash from my straight neck yellow bush. Lots of blooms, no squash. [Also, no evidence of bugs since I treated with the neem/eucalyptus/dish soap stuff.] Would that proposed fertilizing treatment mentioned above be a possible good thing for the squash as well as tomatoes? I understand that too much nitrogen discourages fruit development, but had not known that phosphate helps with fruiting. In writing this, I realize that other than the blue stuff, I might be leaving out the potassium. *sigh*
Darlin says I need to feed the plants, and I agree, but have no idea what they are hungry for! Someone here mentioned I should consult our ag agent. Wouldn’t that be cheating??? LOL! I wanted to ask you guys first. I know just enough to be very dangerous, and my plants are probably quaking when they see me coming!
TEXOKIE’S BUG SPRAY
What I did was boil 2 qt of water and threw in 2Tbsp of chopped dried eucalyptus obtained from health food store. After boiling for a good 30 minutes, I let it sit for several hours. [Believe me, aroma was stiff! - and don’t ever taste the pure neem oil...it’s vile!] Then I put 2 Tbsp of pure neem oil into my 24 oz squirt bottle along with 2 Tbsp Palmolive dish soap. Topped the eucalyptus tea. As I used the contents of the squirt bottle, it would not after it gets down to a certain level. Because the neem and dish oil were still visibly present in the bottle, all I did was top off the bottle with the tea until it was used up.
Greeneyes, I only read your recipe after I came up with the above. I think the next time I squirt (which may this evening because of the recent rains) I will add the cayenne!
Went out to squirt the plants and you should have seen the few that were there run! I was admonished to do my squirting in the evening because the bees do their gathering in the morning and daytime and the fresh neem is apparently harmful to them.
My plants are drying out and withering, so there is no expectation of continued production. If they are still green and producing flowers, you should be able to coax something out of them.
Phosphorous is a good bet. When I plant tomatoes, I dig a hole, drop in a handfull of 3% rock phosphorous, then bury the plant up to it's crown. For other veggies, I broadcast the 3% rock phosphorous and water it in by hand.
What is your soil like? Are you using raised beds?