Some form of nitrogen will generally help trees in average soil establish more quickly, but a quarter pound of actual N. for a small tree could be damaging to the tender roots, I'm guessing. However, I am not speaking from the experience of this particular mistake- I have only damaged more sensitive plants with surface applications of excessive N- never fruit trees. Depends in part on texture of soil, in sandy soil your are more likely to scorch the roots- especially if the tree isn't mulched. Heavy watering can leach out the fertilizer in a hurry.

What is "enough" organic matter. Well that's a good question. There is no real way to quantify an answer. As organic matter is constantly decomposing perhaps it would be more meaningful to try to indicate what percentage of the growing soil is organic matter. Even then it depends on whether the goal is simply conditioning the soil (aeration, water retention,drainage etc.) or improving it's fertility for a succession of crops. Every year, I put down more chicken manure (composted) and compost, and Espoma fertilizer (I know it's not entirely organic, but I use their bulb food on most everything, not just bulbs) so I can up the phosphorus and potassium levels. I also use the leaves that fall in my garden - I just leave them there, and if I plant something, I just crunch up a few leaves to add to the mix. It seems that over the last couple of years, the worm population has been increasing, too. This is all terrific. The espoma is a fertilizer and isn't really 'organic matter' in the usual sense although it is certainly true that much of the fertilizer materials are considered organic. There simply isn't any 'bulk' to the fertilizers. The compost is terrific, but most of it will disappear in a season or two. Along the way it does wonderful things. The wood mulch is longer lasting and when it breaks down it leaves a lot of humus material which lasts a long time in the soil and does wonders for loosening it up, holding water in sandy soils and improving drainage in clayish soils. But, I also use cedar mulch, and I know that eventually depletes the soil of nitrogen, no? Also, it has to be stirred up every now and then to prevent compaction and thus, allow water to penetrate the plants' roots. Wood mulches do not deplete soils of nitrogen. Wood, as it breaks down will require a nitrogen source, but wood on the surface of the soil won't take nitrogen from the soil. Rain contains nitrogen, the air contains nitrogen. It is theorized that the first plants to grow on the planet were fertilized by nothing more than rain. The wood mulch will decompose quite readily from the rains and even irrigation water although cedar lasts a bit longer than most. Kimmsr - what "stuff" destroys the Soil Food Web? I'm just trying to understand what everyone is talking about. I am willing to try the Neptune, and also thought about ordering some Yum Yum Mix. What do you think? This is controversial. Some would say synthetic fertilizers destroy the soil life. They don't. If over applied it will, but it isn't all that easy to over apply when following label instructions. If synthetic fertilizers are used exclusively (no organic matter) then the soil life won't thrive as it has nothing to eat. In my opinion we can all get carried away about our 'soil life' and be worried that it will die off if not cared for just right. I believe a little organic matter takes care of the problem in most cases. Even golf courses, dosed with every chemical known to man, due to the high amount of organic matter in the soil are filled with worms. I have not tried Yum Yum mix, but do use Neptune's products. I like Neptunes for a couple reasons, one of which is I can't find a source for a combo fish and seaweed product locally. I can find either separately, but having them together is easier for me. I have tons of hackberry and elm trees around the perimeter of my partly shady-shady backyard. I think the trees take up a lot of the nutrients that I put down. They most certainly do, but unless the feeder roots are near the surface they are taking nutrients that would otherwise be lost from deep in the soil. If the leaves they drop are being recycled on your property then the trees are 'digging up' nutrients for your yard and garden.

When you get down to it, there are really only about three basic types of fertilizers. Acidic, where nitrogen is the highest nutrient, significantly higher than the other two (citrus, camellia, azalea, rhododendron, gardenia and lawn); "tomato type" (rose and flower food, vegetables) where the phosphorus (middle number) is highest to stimulate flowering (other things, too, but primary one is flowering); and all purpose where all three are pretty even across the range. A 15-30-15 is fine for most vegetables and flowering plants which don't require the acidic pH. Acidic food, say 10-5-5, would be fine for acid loving plants as well as palms, grasses, bamboo, citrus and other acid lovers. To be able to sell more product, manufacturers make the all purpose which works fairly OK on most everything. Altering any one of the numbers gives extra stimulation to encourage various performances, but usually really aren't required. A Super Bloom, 0-10-10 promotes more flowering and fruiting at the expense of growth where nitrogen would stimulate growth. Read the guaranteed analysis, including the various trace minerals and you will see just how similar most are. Some of the higher priced ones may perform a bit better due to what the source of the nutrients is, but for the most part, unless you're feeding something sensitive to the type of nutrient (for instance, Phalaenopsis orchids and blueberries which are sensitive to particular forms of nitrogen and require specific types) it honestly doesn't matter a whole lot where the nutrient is derived. Find out the specifics for the plants you're feeding and you can eliminate most of the types of fertilizers you buy. "Specialization" permits marketers to formulate and sell half a dozen products tailored for specific plants, when all you really need are the one or two types for most situations. And, most often, paying less for them won't materially alter the performance you'll see in your garden. Kim

The Schultz product supplies far more P than plants want or can use, which is reason enough not to use it, but it also lacks many important nutrients (Ca, Mg, and several micronutrients), and it gets it's N from urea, which tends to promote coarse growth and long internodes. It really is a poor choice as your 'go to' fertilizer for houseplants. The Foliage-Pro 9-3-6 is a FAR better choice. Even Miracle-Gro 12-4-8 which lacks the same nutrients missing from the Schultz 10-15-10 is a superior choice because the ratio (3:1:2) much more closely mimics the ratio at which your plants actually utilize nutrients. Also, Superthrive = snake oil. The question regarding the value of Superthrive as a miracle tonic for plants is often bandied about in horticultural circles. Over the years, I had read claims that ranged from, “I put it on my plant, which had never bloomed, and it was in full bloom the next day.” to, “It was dead - I put Superthrive on it and the next day it was alive and beautiful, growing better than it ever had before.” I decided to find out for myself. If you look for information on the net, you will probably only find the manufacturer’s claims and anecdotal observations, both so in want of anything that resembles a control. Though my experiments were far from purely scientific, I tried to keep some loose controls in place so that I could make a fair judgment of its value, based my own observations. Here is what I did, what I found, and the conclusions I made about any value the product Superthrive might hold for me. On four separate occasions, I took multiple cuttings of plants in four different genera. In each case the group of cuttings were taken from the same individual plant to reduce genetic variance. The plant materials I used were: Ficus benjamina, (a tropical weeping fig) Luna apiculata (Peruvian myrtle), Chaenorrhinum minus(a dwarf snapdragon), and an unknown variety of Coleus. In each instance, I prepared cuttings from the same plant and inserted them in a very fast, sterile soil. The containers containing half of the cuttings were immersed/soaked in a Superthrive solution of approximately 1/2 tsp per gallon of water to the upper soil line. The other half of the cuttings were watered in with water only. In subsequent waterings, I would water the “Superthrive batch” of cuttings with a solution of 10 drops per gallon and the others with only water. The same fertilizer regimen was followed on both groups of cuttings. In all four instances, the cuttings that I used Superthrive on rooted and showed new growth first. For this reason, it follows that they would naturally exhibit better development, though I could see no difference in overall vitality, once rooted. I can also say that a slightly higher percentage of cuttings rooted that were treated with the Superthrive treatment at the outset. I suspect that is directly related to the effects of the auxin in Superthrive hastening initiation of root primordia before potential vascular connections were destroyed by rot causing organisms. In particular, something I looked for because of my affinity for a compact form in plants was branch (stem) extension. (The writer is a bonsai practitioner.) Though the cuttings treated with Superthrive rooted sooner, they exhibited the same amount of branch extension. In other words, internode length was approximately equal and no difference in leaf size was noted. As a second part to each of my “experiments”, I divided the group of cuttings that had not been treated with Superthrive into two groups. One of the groups remained on the water/fertilizer only program, while the other group was treated to an additional 10 drops of Superthrive in each gallon of fertilizer solution. Again, the fertilizer regimen was the same for both groups. By summer’s end, I could detect no difference in bio-mass or vitality between the two groups of plants. Since I replicated the above experiment in four different trials, using four different plant materials, I am quite comfortable in drawing some conclusions as they apply to me and my growing habits or abilities. First, and based on my observations, I have concluded that Superthrive does hold value for me as a rooting aid, or stimulant if you prefer. I regularly soak the soil, usually overnight, of my newly root-pruned and often bare-rooted repots in a solution of 1/2 tsp Superthrive per gallon of water. Second, and also based on my observations, I no longer bother with its use at any time other than at repotting. No evidence was accumulated through the 4 trials to convince me that Superthrive was of any value as a “tonic” for plants with roots that were beyond the initiation or recovery stage. Interestingly, the first ingredient listed as being beneficial to plants on the Superthrive label is vitamin B-1 (or thiamine). Growing plants are able to synthesize their own vitamin B-1 as do many of the fungi and bacteria having relationships with plant roots, so it's extremely doubtful that vitamin B-1 could be deficient in soils or that a growing plant could exhibit a vitamin B-1 deficiency. Some will note that I used more of the product than suggested on the container. I wanted to see if any unwanted effects surfaced as well as trying to be sure there was ample opportunity for clear delineation between the groups. I suspect that if a more dilute solution was used, the difference between groups would have been even less clear. It might be worth noting that since the product contains the growth regulator (hormone) auxin, its overuse can cause defoliation, at least in dicots. The broad-leaf weed killer Weed-B-Gone and the infamous “Agent Orange“, a defoliant that saw widespread use in Viet Nam, are little more than synthetic auxin. See what Linda Chalker-Scott PhD says about it. Al