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fertilizer Quistion on a liquid fertilizer

Zokambaa

Zokambaa

I have some of the Schultz's brand 10-15-10 Liquid fertilizer (with 0.1% iron, 0.05% manganese and 0.05% zinc) I use it with my other plants and were wondering if it would be appropriate to use on the peppers too...

My peppers are mostly indoors and will be outside on my condo balcony in pots or buckets when they get big enough and when it gets nicer at night but will it hurt anything to use this stuff?

Should I supplement anything else to make up for any shortcomings this all purpose stuff would have?
 
I used some of it early in my plants growth cycle and it seemed to work out alright. The only thing it obviously lacks is calcium, so you'll have to use something else for that. Not sure if the magnesium content is sufficient either, but that's easily corrected with a little epsom salt.
 
Right now the plants are not all that large.. maybe 4 inches or so... I've heard people say you shouldn't fertilize too soon... how much growth should be there before I start applying the fertilizers and Epsom salt? I've only added a little of the liquid fertilize once a week to the water when I watered them so far but the rest of the time I's just been whatever is in the potting mix and plain distilled water.

I often rinse out beer cans/bottles and pour the water into a jug that I water my regular plants with... someone once told me I should do that... and it seems to be working out alright on my house plants... granted there is not much in the bottom of a can when I am done with it... but perhaps it would work on the peppers too... I don't think I'll run out of empty beer cans any time soon :beer: hahah
 
10-15-10 should be fine IMO - just use it one quarter strength. Peppers aren't that picky on nutes and don't need much. Less is more. What soil are they in? If the soil already has nutes such as Miracle Grow, don't add anything. 4" tall seedlings are big enough for a very dilute mix of nutes.
 
I usually wait until they are about 6" tall to start (dilute) fert.

That fert should be fine, as I recall that was the same stuff I started-out with when I first started growing peppers! :)

For peppers, you want a fert that is higher in the middle # (Phosphate) than the first # (Nitrogen) - watch out, many ferts have this the other way around! This is because unlike most plants, peppers don't need a lot of excess Nitrogen.;) If you give a pepper plant too much Nitrogen, it just encourages it to expend all it's energy growing leaves, instead of producing peppers! :rolleyes:

You will also find if you start growing a lot of different varieties, that some peppers love fert (like most habs), but some kinds of peppers (particularly some of the wild ones) are overly sensitive to it, and you have to fert at 1/2 or 1/4 normal strength to keep from harming the plant!
 
Yeah, the nice thing about this stuff being liquid, it also washes out pretty easily if I run a lot of water though the soil

So when it gets closer to the flower/fruiting stage, would help to increase the K/(potash) a little?

I never can keep it straight... what part does what for the plant... I thought the N was for the foliage, the P was for the roots and the K was for the flowering/fruiting is that right?
 
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