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Bone meal, Blood Meal, Plant-tone, Fish Emulsion, Miracle grow.... AHHH Help?!!!?

H

halo_players_junkyard

Current Setup:
I start my seeds using a mix of miracle grow potting soil, jiffy organic seed starting mix, miracle grow perlite,and a 6 month fertilizer. I usually eyeball it but if i had to guess (10 4 1 .25) mix.
Currently all i am using is for extra fertilize it miracle grow, i think 24-18-6 not sure tho. and i use it very sparingly.


I am getting ready to transplant a bunch of my peppers, and am thinking about adding bone meal and/or blood meal to the potting mix. I think I might be slightly calcium deficient so that would mean adding the bone meal would be a good idea. And from my understanding is that a little extra nitrogen isn't bad for starting out, so that would put the blood meal in the good idea list as well.
I have heard a ton about people using plant-tone and fish emulsions i know they are high in nitrogen but not real sure about what else they would accomplish.

I got a Expert (appears to be cheap miracle grow) 15-30-15 today for right after transplanting because Phosphorus encourages root growth along with some Epsom salts to start a bi-weekly feeding with. I put in an order for some superthrive as well.

I also found Miracle Grow Organic fertilizer which is 12-0-0, any thoughts.

I am slowing figuring this all out but havn't tried anything yet, other than the MG which is all i used last year. I am looking for some serious improvement over last year. Other than the calcium thing and being small compared to most plants I have seen on here, Everything looks healthy and is growing steadily, but slowly. I would like to get a good weekly, bi-weekly routine going, but not to sure where to start. Please help.
 
Well people have had success with MG, but I personally don't like using anything that is pre-treated with ferts and they don't tell you the strength or how much. You basically loose all control over how many ferts your plants are getting. If it where me I would not use MG and would just make a soil that has NO ferts in it so you can control what your plants are getting yourself. Also I would not use a fert over with a ratio of over 10 in ANY of the NPK ratings as peppers are not like orchids and they don't need a ton of fertilizer. In fact I only use a small amount of fertilizer every 4th feeding and my plants did very good. Also I wouldn't add any "extra" stuff like bonemeal or bloodmeal unless the plant shows signs of defiency and they actually need the extra stuff. The worse thing you can do is give a plant a bunch of things it doesn't need and "over dose" it by mistake. This may or may not be the best route for everyone, but after reading a ton of stuff on growing peppers and books it seemed to be the suggested way by most of the information I've read. Plus you should look into foiler feeding as it's suppose to be 80% more efficiant and the plant intake is immediate if it does need a boost of something.
 
halo_players_junkyard said:
What about Organicare Seaplex for foliar feeding?
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Can't say I've never used that product before. I use Flora Blend and on occasion I brew up a batch of compost tea. I've noticed a HUGE difference in my plants from last year by adding compost tea to both my root and foiler feeding schedule. I picked up a worm farm last winter for about $100 and now have 3 trays of worm compost that works as a great addition to the soil, but most of it I use to make tea with and just foiler feed them once a month with that.
 
I remember those days. Wanting to pick up every type of fertilizer, additive, amendment, nutrient I could find. Make my peppers super peppers! Do yourself and your wallet a huge favor and slow down. First figure out what you want to grow your plants in. Most of us around here use peat based mixes. Add some perlite, vermiculite, coco coir, soil, compost and you're good to go. Very few use a mix that already has fertilizers in it for the reasons LGHT mentioned--no control.

Get a basic fertilizer, something in the 10-10-10 neighborhood and follow directions. Monitor your plants for deficiencies, yellowing, leaf curl anything that doesn't look right. When these things occur figure out what the problem is, bringing your problems here is a great way to get started on a cure, and then figure out what you need to do to correct it.

Simple.

Best of luck to you Anthony.
 
LGHT said:
Can't say I've never used that product before. I use Flora Blend and on occasion I brew up a batch of compost tea. I've noticed a HUGE difference in my plants from last year by adding compost tea to both my root and foiler feeding schedule. I picked up a worm farm last winter for about $100 and now have 3 trays of worm compost that works as a great addition to the soil, but most of it I use to make tea with and just foiler feed them once a month with that.
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I have seen this compost tea on here in a couple places, but what exactly is it, and how do you make it?
 
Compost tea is pretty simple to make. Just run water through your compost pile and boom! Depending on how much time the water spends with the compost you may want to dilute it before using it. Best of luck.
 
patrick said:
I remember those days. Wanting to pick up every type of fertilizer, additive, amendment, nutrient I could find. Make my peppers super peppers! Do yourself and your wallet a huge favor and slow down. First figure out what you want to grow your plants in. Most of us around here use peat based mixes. Add some perlite, vermiculite, coco coir, soil, compost and you're good to go. Very few use a mix that already has fertilizers in it for the reasons LGHT mentioned--no control.

Get a basic fertilizer, something in the 10-10-10 neighborhood and follow directions. Monitor your plants for deficiencies, yellowing, leaf curl anything that doesn't look right. When these things occur figure out what the problem is, bringing your problems here is a great way to get started on a cure, and then figure out what you need to do to correct it.

Simple.

Best of luck to you Anthony.
Click to expand...

Well. . . . I was at the store with a list a mile long of things i wanted to get, And just before I left the whole burning thru my wallet become a bonfire I came home and posted this. So I am trying to take it a bit slowly but restraint isn't one of my strong points. lol

According to the Miracle Grow website.
The soil's Fertilizer Analysis: 0.21 - 0.07 - 0.14

But that really doesn't mean a lot does it?
 
Everyone has their own ways, but I think you are overcomplicating things a bit. For starting the seeds, I would use just the seed starting mix and not the other stuff. It may do more harm than good. May work this year, but next year could be a catastrophe. I recommend getting a well balanced fertilizer and use just that. For in ground plants I like the Espoma Tomato-tone. Tomatoes have about the same needs as peppers and this worked well for me. May have to go to a nursery though. In my containers this year, I will be using Botanicare Pure Blend Pro. It is for hydro or soil. A little pricey, but a little goes a long way. I would not use blood meal for peppers at all. It is not just a little nitrogen to kick start the plants, it is a LOT of nitrogen and that means lots of leaves, not a lot of peppers. If you need a quick boost of nitrogen, I would use fish emulsion. I do think that bone meal is a pretty good addition though. Not just for the calcium, but it is a slow release supply of phosphorus too. Just don't overdo it. It is easy to micromanage the plants, but may be better to just let them grow.

Hope this helps. Good luck!
jacob
 
halo_players_junkyard said:
I have seen this compost tea on here in a couple places, but what exactly is it, and how do you make it?
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Here is a good article that shows you how to make worm tea from the place I get my worms from.. MAKING WORM TEA! I usually use a bit more worm compost, but other than that I follow the directions. Pretty simple to make if you already have the worm compost on hand. It doesn't keep too long so I only use about 1 gallon of water to try and get a thicker reacher tea with more microbes instead of a lot more with less microbes. I usually water the plants heavily and just let the excess absorb into the soil.
 
High quality bonemeal, like Espoma, should have a good quantity of Nitrogen as well along with Phosphorus.

The other Espoma products, like Tomato-Tone, Garden-Tone, or Plant-Tone, are all well balanced and mostly organic.

The Neptune's Harvest Fish/Kelp Emulsion is also well balanced and good to use as a foliar feed.

That Miracle Grow Organic 12-0-0 is just blood meal.

For my in-ground plants I amend each hole with a few shovelfulls of composted cow manure and a half-cup of balanced organic fertilizer. It may or may not be necessary to side-dress with more ferts later in the season. Side-dressing with more compost can never hurt though.
 
Funny thing....

The first time I grew lots of habs in pots they grew fantastic....I don't recall using ANY ferts......

Then I went to Osmocote time release and learned the hard way about over fertilizing...

Now I'm reading and reading and reading.......choosing the best consensus and carefully watching what the plants are telling me....

My advice is let them grow and make slight adjustments if they seem to be lacking something...

My 2 cents
 
Using fertilizer a little less is definitely better than to much. Using too much, the plant will be most surely dead. The other way around, there are ways to react.

I know some guys, using different fertilizer for the growing, flowering and ripening phase. I use a fertilizer with 16+8+22(+3 Mg) over the whole year, giving some powdered limestone in spring and late summer. Got pretty cool results with it. If you found the right dose you could use nearly every tomato fertilizer.

But using a fertilizer with 10+10+10 is really suboptimal IMO
 
Overdoing it is one of the worst things you can do, chiles need very little nutrients from my experience. Personally I use mostly compost, worm castings and manure as well as the occasional shot of 20-20-20 or other well balanved fertilizers, and something a little higher in phosphorous in the fall like 15-30-15. Don't let the higher numbers in the ratio scare you, its just a ratio so 10-10-10 would be the same as 20-20-20 but you just may need less. Bone meal and blood meal are good organic sources of nutrients although some people worry about e-coli and even madcow disease(totally unproven)
You may also want to do a search on superthrive, some like it some don't. Personally I try to avoid using any growth hormones/auxins
 
Wow, there is a ton of information here. Thanks again everyone.

Dose anyone know where I could fine some good pictures of different deficiencies? Like, mild, moderate, severe for each one? I have a good understanding of most of them, but it could be helpful.

I know there is a lot of concern about over fertilizing and I agree it could be a easy way to kill a mess of plants, but even if I was slightly on the heavy side with the fertilizer now, wouldn't a lot of the extra fertilizer leach away from the plant once it was put in the ground, assuming I don't reapply more. I am not trying to argue, just curious. Our gardens are mostly composted horse manure, well establish, only occasionally do we add more manure or some lime, and usually done first thing in the spring.
 
POTAWIE said:
Overdoing it is one of the worst things you can do, chiles need very little nutrients from my experience. Personally I use mostly compost, worm castings and manure as well as the occasional shot of 20-20-20 or other well balanved fertilizers, and something a little higher in phosphorous in the fall like 15-30-15. Don't let the higher numbers in the ratio scare you, its just a ratio so 10-10-10 would be the same as 20-20-20 but you just may need less. Bone meal and blood meal are good organic sources of nutrients although some people worry about e-coli and even madcow disease(totally unproven)
You may also want to do a search on superthrive, some like it some don't. Personally I try to avoid using any growth hormones/auxins
Click to expand...

The MG bone meal is from a non cow source according to the package so that kinda eliminates the mad cow stuff.
I think I am going to try some bone meal for this transplant, cause they do look calcium deficient. And I think use the 15-30-15 solution fertilizer intermediately following to encourage root growth in the bigger pots, do you think half or full strength? Then go from there, probably just Epsom salts and Miracle Grow, sparingly. Until blossom time the 15-30-15 again.
 
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