You not only can, but should fert your container plants in the heat of summer. Plants are like children. When they go through a growth spurt, their nutrition needs increase. When they are in a lull, their needs decrease. There are cool season plants that generally die or go (semi)dormant in the summer and any plant that is going dormant shouldn't be ferted, but any plant actively growing needs to have it's nutritional needs met. I suspect that most, if not all of your container plants are warm weather plants that do best in warm temps. If so these will require food during their 'growth spurt' for optimal performance.

Some ponds are never cleaned and the ponds and its occupants survive very well. However, a large number of ponds are created with high fish densities or are built in locations were the pond receives a great deal of debris over the year. Even if you start out with just a few fish initially, in a healthy pond they will breed to the point that the number of fish will push the environmental limits of your pond and biofilter. The debris may be the result of leaves blowing into the pond, the die-back of vegetative pond plants as well as fish wastes. It is these latter types of conditions that will necessitate you cleaning the pond eventually. The two most likely time points for cleaning are in the fall, to reduce the amount of accumulated muck on the bottom of the pond as you head into winter, or in the spring to remove material accumulated over the winter from leaves blowing into the pond, accumulated fish waste or catkins and similar materials shed by trees as they leaf out. Cleaning in the fall reduces wastes in the bottom of the pond which may turn anaerobic if sufficient oxygen is not available, creating a breeding ground for harmful bacteria, or which may decompose, releasing ammonia and other dangerous chemicals that can be trapped under the ice. The build-up of these pollutants can lead to fish kills over the winter months. While keeping a hole in the ice over winter will help alleviate the accumulation of gases, cleaning the pond before winter sets in will reduce the overall potential for problems. Cleaning the pond in the spring may help reduce diseases and parasites that often occur as the pond and its biology warms up for the summer, as well as reduce the overall availability of nutrients that stimulate algae growth. The following are a few approaches that have been successfully used to clean the pond. 1. If the pond has a bottom drain periodic changes of water (typically 10% per week) have been used to evacuate the accumulated debris from the bottom of the pond. This simple approach minimizes the amount of material that is removed at any one time as well as adds water to the pond on a periodic basis. Care must be taken when adding water to be sure that you have minimized the addition of chlorine and chloramines typically present in many municipal water supplies. This can be done either by pre-treating the water with dechlorination agents or by using a whole-house water filter with an activated carbon cartridge. 2. Using a net such as used in swimming pools is helpful for cleaning out large materials that have settled to the bottom of the pond. However, if there is a very large amount of debris in the pond you should be careful to either remove the fish or use supplemental aeration to avoid creating significant oxygen deprivation due to stirring up anaerobic or large amounts of oxygen-consuming muck. If you notice a rotten egg smell this indicates the presence of hydrogen sulfide. You should immediately stop stirring up the bottom and get the fish out of the water as soon as possible before continuing with the cleaning. 3. You can use a variety of devices for vacuuming the bottom of the pond. Some of these use a garden hose to create a suction through a venturi device. The potential problem with these devices is that the pond may fill up with too much water during a prolonged vacuuming and you may have a potential problem of adding chlorine and chloramines to your pond if you do not pretreat the water. Wet/dry shop vacs, specially those with an attachment for a garden hose to provide a continuous drain, have also been used. These devices may drain a large amount of water from the pond in a short time and therefore it is necessary to either replace the water or use the garden hose to add the water back into the pond through the biofilter. Care must be exercised in reintroducing water taken from the bottom of the pond in that it may be depleted of oxygen as well as have very high suspended sediment levels that may create problems for the fish. A third approach is to use a pump capable of handling a moderate level of solids (such as a sump pump) to pull water from the bottom of the pond and pass it through a device to strain out the majority of the solids and then recirculate the water back into the pond. Filtering materials such as old sweaters, panty hose, etc. have all been used with some success in this approach. In any of these approaches, if using an electrically powered device running on house voltage make sure that you have it plugged into a GFI protected circuit for your own safety. Ronaye, Steve and David

There is often debate over whether it's necessary to filter a pond, and always a few people who claim they have great luck with letting the pond "go natural" with no human interference. A man-made pond, though, is not a natural environment, and will only benefit from some form of filtration or at least aeration. Filtering keeps the water cleansed of organic wastes that can cause cloudy, smelly, murky, or even toxic water. It simplifies maintenance, conserves water by cleansing and recycling it, and can help create "gin-clear" water that allows optimal viewing of the pond and its inhabitants. If you plan on creating a water garden and keeping only plants in the pond, you should be able to get away with little or no filtration, depending upon the type and number of plants you grow. A small pump used with a spitter, fountain, waterfall, or similar feature, should create enough movement to keep the water from stagnating, and diligence in keeping dead plant life from accumulating in the water will help maintain water clarity. However, most people find that, once they've created the pond, they want to add fish, and this is when filtration becomes vital. The more fish you have, the more filtration is necessary to keep the water and the fish healthy. Fish produce ammonia from both their gills and kidneys. Ammonia is also produced from other organic matter decaying in the pond. Whatever the source, ammonia is toxic to fish and must be removed from the water. Frequent water changes and ammonia binding water conditioners will help temporarily, but the addition of a biological filter is the best and easiest way to deal with this toxin. Briefly, a biofilter works by creating a suitable living environment for certain types of bacteria which do the cleaning for you. As pond water is slowly pumped though the biofilter, Nitrosomonas bacteria consume the ammonia, turning it into nitrites (which are also harmful to fish.) Nitrobacter bacteria then oxidizes the nitrites into nitrates, which become food for the plants in your pond. Although these "good bacteria" are present on every surface in your pond, they are not usually there in large enough numbers to reliably cleanse the water of these compounds that are so deadly to fish, and so biofiltration is strongly recommended when there are fish in the pond. Mechanical filtration (that which removes solid waste) is always beneficial, but simply keeping the water clear of solids does not guarantee fish-safe water. Ammonia and nitrites can not be seen except through the use of water test kits. Ideally, water will first pass through some type of mechanical filter that removes solids prior to entering the biofilter, where the toxic compounds are oxidized to nitrates and sent back to the pond where the nitrates will be absorbed by the plants therefore keeping the pond healthy for both your fish and plants. These beneficial bacteria cease to function at temperatures below fifty degrees, so running the biofilter all winter is futile if you're in a cold winter area. The fish will not be eating and producing their usual amount of waste during the winter, so the biofilter will not be needed anyway. Once the autumn temperatures are below 50 degrees Fahrenheit, clean and store the biofilter until spring returns. If you're lucky enough to live in a warm climate, it should be kept running year round. Start the filter up again in the spring as the temperatures get into the upper 40s to low 50s. The nitrogen cycle takes about four to six weeks to establish once the bacteria begin colonizing in the warmer temperatures, so be diligent about testing your water for ammonia and nitrites if the fish are eating. It would take far too many pages to describe here all the types of filters available. Research and ask questions of more experienced ponders, and join several of the informative forums on the Internet. Do not always believe a manufacturer's advertisements, and if tempted to buy something being touted by a salesperson, research it before making an investment. There are many plans for do-it-yourself filters that are simple to make, produce excellent results, and are much less expensive than most of the commercial filters available. And remember - you can never have too large a biofilter! Ronaye, Steve and David

Hi tropicbreezent, I live in Boynton Beach west of the Turnpike, I have never had my soil tested. Realistically that would be the logical thing to do to determine what type of nutrients and ratio to put back into the ground. My trees produce very well and the varieties I grow are delicious. I would fertilize monthly from March - October perhaps a quarter of the reccomended amount each month up until October at which time I would apply a larger amount with a heavier ratio of potash. TB, my thinking is that I probably only need to fertilize the trees 2 or 3 times a year and water as needed and cutting back on watering from October to February. This winter we had near record rainfall in Palmbeach County. I don't know how that extra rain will affect production this year. I often feel that I throw everything at my trees but they would do just as well with less. I'm trying to find the right balance of fertilizer and schedule to go by. In my surrounding area there are several of us that grow mango trees. Our fertilization plans are all almost the same except one neighbor who does much less but yet has high productivity and very tasty mangos. tropicbreezent thank you for responding and giving your advice, I certainly appreciate it.