Feed your crops one more time

Can you hear a pulsing hub-bub coming from my garden? My crops are clamoring just like teenage boys, “Gimme a meal! I’m hungry!”

“We potatoes put on most of our weight during these last three weeks of our life. Can we have some more food?”

“Yeah, we cabbages and broccoli, too. We’re doing massive bulking up. If you want us to maximize our potential, give us more nutrients!” The tomatoes in the greenhouse chime in, “Yes, we are running low — we’ve been producing heavily all summer. Give us some fuel to finish in style!”

Such are the boisterous demands of my willing crew out there in the veggie patch. Give them their requested mid-season boost. You’ll optimize their nutrient density, growth, health, yield, and sweetness.

Sure, you and I laid down a comprehensive foundation of fertilizers last spring. Those organic amendments have nicely fed the soil microbes that feed our plants. Yet I recommend you provide more organic matter and minerals now. Well, okay, I’m a bit late in advising this; late July would have been even better.

What and how? Here are several ways:

1. Worm castings. Put the worm compost in a bucket and add an equal volume of water to make a tea. Drench around each needy plant (especially cole crops, tomatoes, and potatoes).

2. Worm castings. Spread the solid worm compost as a mulch around plants.

3. Liquid fish fertilizer (such as a fish emulsion or hydrolysate, 5-1-1 or 4-2-2). Make up a measured solution according to jug directions and water the base of your vegetables.

4. Compost and compost tea. Apply the tea as a drench, diluted or not diluted. Use this and one fertilizer from #5. The combination is a winner.

5. Blood meal, fishbone meal, or fishmeal. Sprinkle it around base of plants, gently scratch it in superficially so as not to disturb the roots, and water well.

Now, can you hear those hungry boys chowing it down in gratitude? May you reap the hefty rewards when you harvest!

Ellen Vande Visse operates Good Earth Garden School and offers educational workshops through goodearthgardenschool.com.