Feeding Your Fruits: Organic Fertilizer
Your plants may not always need fruit fertilizer. Always test the soil to see what nutrients may be lacking in the soil. When nutrients are discovered to be lacking, nitrogen and a phosphate fertilizer can be used to feed your plants. Nitrogen is helpful to young trees especially, and phosphorus encourages the development of buds and blooms in your fruit farming. However, too much of either can be harmful to your plants such as burning them or making it difficult for them to absorb micronutrients.
When to Fertilize Your Fruit Crops
The timing of when you apply fruit fertilizer is just as important as the nutrients you add to the soil. The best time to apply fruit tree fertilizer is just before a bud break when your trees are beginning their growth cycle for the year. If you’re unsure exactly when this is, you can apply fertilizer up to a month beforehand, or all the way up to June. It is not recommended you fertilize beyond this point into late summer and fall as any new growth added by this point can become damaged by frost.
How It’s Done: Fruit Tree Fertilizer
Before you add fertilizer to your fruit trees, you should test your soil. If you need to add fertilizer, it is important to figure out just how much fertilizer your trees need. Using too much can promote rapid and insubstantial growth which can lead to more greenery than fruit and may create weak branches that can break easier down the line. When applying fertilizer, begin spreading it about a foot away from the trunk and go all the way out to the drip line of the branches.
