hello friends I have several fruit trees in my backyard and some of you had requested
me a video on what kind of fertilizer schedule I have for my fruit trees
In today's episode we will discuss how to add fertilizer for fruit trees
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so let's see what you need to start for your fertilizer schedule firstly
you will need some kind of compost or manure in this case I'm using chicken
manure and steer manure and then you will also need the fertilizer that you're
using and also a cultivator you will use the cultivator to mix in the fertilizer
you need the fertilizer I'm using this fertilizer for a long time now it's a
great fertilizer organic red with beneficial bacteria and I'll provide a
product link to this individual description so that you can buy this
product
so the most important aspect of starting a fertilizer schedule is to make sure
that you start at the right time now I usually start my schedule in about
February or March when the plant starts showing some signs of growth as you can
see here very closely this plant has begun to show some signs of growth and
this is the perfect time to start your fertilizer schedule
now in my zone which is Zone 9B, I start my schedule in February so what do you
do is just take the fertilizer and sprinkle it around the base of the plant
and remember you can do this same procedure for fruit trees that are there
in either containers or on the ground so let's start by looking at how you add
fertilizer to containers and then what you do is once you add the fertilizer
you top it off with the compost or manure in this case I'm using manure
you can also use homemade compost the more compost you add to the soil the better it
is for your plants compost has a lot of life in it and has a lot of beneficial
bacteria that will really help your plants grow and even our organic
fertilizer has a lot of beneficial bacteria so that should also help now
what you do is just make sure you mix it in the soil around the base of the plant
and if you have a little shallow roots do not worry you can just remove them
from the surface the roots that develop deeper into the soil are the ones that
are better as you can see here we just removed one and make sure there are no
weeds around the base of the plant and most importantly once you add the
fertilizer you need to water thoroughly so for this container size we are looking at
at least four gallons of water that you need to water the plant with so that
the plant starts getting the nutrients and you also avoid any kind of
fertilizer burn by watering your plants well
and let's see the same procedure again this is for the Meyer Lemon Tree we're
gonna be sprinkling the fertilizer around the base of the plant and then mix in
the compost or manure now what you can also do is mix the fertilizer and manure
together and then spread along the base of the plant but just so that I show you how
much fertilizer to use I just separated these two steps and as you can see here
we are using probably about two or three cups of fertilizer for plants of this
size if you have bigger plants you might want to use more fertilizer but no
matter what do you do if you are using about 3 cups or 4 cups of fertilizer
that should be sufficient for most of the plants and we do the same thing now
we rake in the soil we use this cultivator the handheld cultivator to mix in the
fertilizer into the soil and eventually this fertilizer will get in deeper so do
not worry about that once you start watering the plant and we are going to follow
the same step we're gonna water this plant thoroughly and once that is done your
fertilizer application is completed now I do not recommend using synthetic
fertilizers for mature trees if you're seeing that you're plants are not going
very well you can use of synthetic fertilizer and I'll also provide a link to
that fertilizer product in the product link but remember that it's not an
organic product so if you're ok with it you can go out and use it, there are absolutely no
problems you can still go ahead and use it but it's up to you what you want to
use for your plants
and now we're gonna see the same procedure but this time our plant is in the
ground
Now this is our Washington navel orange and what we gonna do here is I'm gonna mix
in the fertilizer with the manure or the compost you can use either one of
them so once you mix it in you just spread it on the base of the plant and
this is a smaller plant I mean its a smaller tree if you had a larger tree you can
spread along the drip line which is basically the outermost part of the plant
where if you had to water the plant the water falls down towards the base of the plant
that the outermost ring of the plant and make sure you add the fertilizer from
all sides and if you have any leaves, if you have any kind of mulch already
present just cover it back
and that should eventually decompose and
add even more nutrients to your fruit trees
And this is our fertilizer schedule remember that the most important
part is to start when the plants are just beginning to show some signs of
growth and then follow the schedule that you see on your screen
So after about 7 to 10 days of applying your fertilizer you should see a lot of new
growth in your plants and that's an indicator that the fertilizer is working
and your plants are growing well and if you follow this schedule you'll be able
to grow healthy plant that produces a lot of fruit
delicious fruits that you will enjoy
so I'd like to know from you
do you follow a fertilizer schedule right now or were you looking to learn how to
add fertilizer to your fruit trees so that you can get started and I'd also like to
know over whether you use organic fertilizers or synthetic fertilizers and
what do you prefer I'll see you again soon
I'll see you again soon
Happy Gardening