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Vegetable Gardening

Jobe's Organics Fertilizer Spikes

14 years ago

Has anyone used Jobe's Fertilizer Spikes. I am using them on my squash in an effort to get my squash plant to stop aborting the fruit.

After reading the following advice in the FAQ section, I hope I am correctly guessing what the problem might be.

"Additional causes of aborted fruit are excessively hot daytime temperatures, plant stress from improper watering, lack of nutrients, too much nitrogen, or the plant simply being too young to support fruit. In these cases, the plant may drop unopened female blossoms; correcting any stress, or waiting for the plant to mature, will stop the bud drop. Ã "

We've had a heat wave so I might suspect that to be the problem, but the female blossoms and fruit were falling off well before the heat wave hit. I also suspect over-watering so I am going to significantly reduce how much I water. As for too much nitrogen, I used a spritz fertilizer and a fertilizer you hook up to the hose. I fertilized using one of these two methods three times in four weeks. Not sure if that is too much fertilizer, but it doesn't seem like it to me. Hopefully Jobe's fertilizer spikes will do the trick.

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Comments (5)

madmantrapper
14 years ago
I tried them last year and did not like the results. They did not perform well compared to using normal fertilizer and normal methods. Just another gimic.
veggiefaery
Original Author
14 years ago
Sorry to hear they didn't work for you. Did the spikes break down like they are supposed to, or did they just stay in their solid "spikey" state?

Maybe if I tried grinding up one of the spikes and dissolving it in water to apply to the soil around the vegetables. Just a thought.
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User
14 years ago
Spikes are a pretty ineffective way to provide nutrients, imo.

You're better off getting a granular, pelleted, or powder fertilizer. If saving time (time-release) is what you're looking there's some good pellets on the market that decompose predictably according to temperature/moisture conditions (usually 1-3 months). I don't know of any organic ones on the market...not because they don't exist, but because I've never looked for any. I imagine they exist, though.
gardener1908
14 years ago
Fertilizing 3 times in 4 weeks sounds a bit much to me. Depending on the crop I may only do it twice over the crops life.
ancfan
14 years ago
Veggie, are you sure it isn't a pollination problem? My squash did that and I had to hand pollinate them until the bees started coming around

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