Yes, you will need to supplement the nutrients contained in the soil for 'maters & zucchini, both heavy feeders. No amount of compost will do the chore. Both compost and manure (store-bought manure is of little value, usually listed as 1-1-1 as far as NPK content. Most good garden soils have the majors in that amount before amending) break down quickly and can impede drainage. Composted manure is often tiny amounts of manure mixed with fine sand. For that reason, I stay away from them in containers. I see that Schultz has a new fertilizer in at least 2 formulations that contain the minor elements (or many of them) It should be a good product for container gardeners, though I've not yet tried it. The reason I mention it, is minors can be an issue in container gardening. This product is probably a better alternative to compost or manure in container soils. For the two plants you mention, a balanced blend is good. Neither want large doses of nitrogen, as it can affect fruiting. Depending on how fast your soil drains and how often you water, (temperatures have an effect on how fast slow release fertilizers last, too) you should expect slow release fertilizer products to be effective for 1/3 to 1/2 of the length of time stated on the container. Good luck with the crops. ;o) Al

What you feed is dependent on your soil type, i.e. if you have clay, rocky, rich, etc... how fast your soil drains and what minerals make up your soil. i.e. is it high or low pH, calcium/magnesium based... generally you can tell your pH level by your water hardness, soft water means low pH, hard water means high pH. You can always add organic manure, mulch, peat moss etc... you're only going to have 1 shot at preparing that bed. I always toss in lime (calcium/magnesium grit) in mine because I'm in the North East, and a healthy dose of the cheapest 12-12-12 fertilizer when making a bed. Then each season I mulch and a couple times a season I add the slow release fertilizer in pelletized form because it's hard to burn with those granules. I'm pretty new to clems, but from readings, where they do best (i.e. england, northwest US etc...) they like a rich soil (high organic and nutrient) and plenty of water, as long as it drains. So fertilize away as long as you have good drainage, if you have clay, dig down with organics as far as you can, even just a bag of mulch mixed in to increase the organic matter can help (although not too much non-decomposed matter as it can rob nitrogen initially).

Amaryllis are almost like cockroaches unless larvae get into the bulb. Even then, I've had infested bulbs I literally cut back to the root plate and a few roots, dunked in a lt bleach solution then powdered with rootone (mainly for the fungicide) regrow and leaf out in 2 years. Forgotten bulbs in "dry" pots come back a couple years later after rain. I have one growing where Id dumped exhausted , leached mix for topsoil fill. For a while I grew them in 5 gal buckets with compost and a timed waterer, one mother bulb to a pot. I'd harvest and repot 8 to 30+ daughter bulbs from EACH bucket for the annual plant sale for the local hospice. On the other hand, random watering in zone 8b on a south exposure and brick behind them slows them down a bit, they'll survive, but will be weak.

Well, I have to amend the showed in my above Foliage pro label. I assumed that "tsp" is tablespoon (15 ml), but I was wrong, it is teaspoon (5 ml). By the way, it gave very logical values. So ppm N are much lower that those I wrote. The right data are (gotten from here): Maintenance (every watering): 1 part FP in 3000 parts water (1 ml for 3 Lts water) (30 ppm N) Production (weekly): 1 part FP in 1500 parts water (1 ml for 1.5 Lts water) (60 ppm N) to 1 part FP in 750 parts water (1 ml for 0.75 Lts water) (120 ppm N). I am currently astonished, because those ppm N are in my opinion very low for citrus growing. It is commonly assumed that an optimum N ratio for each watering for citrus are between 100 to 150 ppm N. Those recommended for Foliage pro are much lower. I have tested at home the EC of a 100 ppm N of Foliage Pro solution and (with tap water) it is 0.89 dS/m. It is a very safe value, much lower than the maximum recommended for citrus (1.70 dS/m). It would be perfectly possible to water with each watering in a FP/water ratio of 1:1000 (90 ppm N), and even we would be below the recommended N ratio for citrus. So here there is something wrong or I am losing anything.