The deal with fertilizing

You know what's the #1 thing I see people do with their vegetable gardens that keeps them from having a badass harvest?

They don't feed their plants.

Me so hungry

Sure - they may add some compost or something when they put the plants in the ground in the spring time and you KNOW they're watering the ever loving hell out of that garden for oh a month or so anyway, but I hardly see anyone go back to feed their plants with even a general purpose fertilizer.

Feeding - or fertilizing - is a crucial element in the Growing Your Own Food process. Without feeding your plants, they're not going to have enough nutrients available through simply foraging in the soil with their root systems to produce the kind of big belly filling harvests that I know you want.

Now THAT is a harvest

Right? Don't we all put our vegetable plants in the ground expecting to be able to return with a big ol' basket to fill to the brim?

Yes. Yes we do. I can see you nodding your heads.

Let me put it to you the way that it was put to me:

Plants need food to make food. 

This harvest was not produced on water alone

Oh. Right.

Just like you wouldn't just give a kid glass after glass of water and expect them to grow up big and strong, your vegetable plants need more than just water to produce food for you to eat.

Not that I'm insinuating that you feed your kids so that you can eat them or anything - that's just weird - but I think you see what I'm getting at.

If you were a tomato plant, you'd be drooling at this compost tea right now

Fertilizing is important. It's how our hard working vegetable plants go from simply surviving to thriving and producing.

But how do you fertilize different vegetable plants? Do they all like the same things? Do they take their meals three times a day? How much time are we really talking about here? And, come on, does it really make that big of a difference?

I'm glad you asked.

How to fertilize different vegetable plants
So, you are totally right to wonder whether different plants want different fertilizers - they do. In some part.

I'll have my dressing on the side, please.

See, all vegetable plants need the same 16-18 macro and micro nutrients to carry out their biological processes. Some of these are macro nutrients, which they need more of (hence the "macro") for the more fundamental of processes like building cells and photosynthesis and some are micro nutrients, which they need trace amounts of to carry out more specialized processes like production of fruit and seeds and protection from stress.

A good way to go about feeding your plants what they need throughout the growing season, beyond your usual soil building and composting regimen, is to side dress (or apply to the soil around your plants) with a balanced organic vegetable-specific fertilizer, fertilizer tea or compost tea on a regular basis throughout the growing season in amounts based on the growth stage of your plants.

If you don't have access to worm castings to make tea, you can also make a fertilizer tea from a good organic vegetable fertilizer like Gardner & Bloome's Tomato, Vegetable & Herb fertilizer.

A bonus of using a good balanced and organic fertilizer is that it'll usually also have added beneficial soil microbes and mycorrhizae that will boost productivity of the root systems, fend off soil pathogens and other good science-y stuff that I won't weigh you down with right now.

Just know - you're probably not getting all this goodness with the synthetic stuff. It's the fast food cheeseburger of plant foods and it's not doing your garden any favors.

When to fertilize your vegetable plants
We like to side dress all of our vegetables, fruits and herbs with worm casting tea on a monthly basis throughout the growing season, starting with the first flower set or, in the case of vining plants, when the vines start to run.

Can you hear the dinner bell? Because we can.

Depending on the vegetable fertilizer you use, you may only fertilize once every 4-6 weeks. Take a read of the package instructions.

The crucial feeding times are when your plants are performing the most energy-sucking activities like producing flowers, sending out vines and setting fruit, so these are also a good reminders that it's time to feed.

Once you have the general purpose vegetable fertilizer going, you can focus on providing the specific nutrients that your individual crops need.

For instance, broccoli needs a little extra boron to form solid stems and tomatoes need calcium to avoid blossom end rot.

What kind of results you can expect
Fertilizing isn't a miracle or a cure all or any other kind of mystical magic silver bullet for your vegetable garden, but it is the difference between a so-so harvest and an awesome one.  It's also the difference between vegetables that look good but taste sorta bland and ones that knock you back in your chair with WHY DOESN'T ALL FOOD TASTE LIKE THIS?! flavor. It can also be the difference between plants that are attacked by pests and plants that are healthy and vigorous.

When you combine a feeding plan with soil building, companion planting, crop rotation and appropriate watering, your harvests will boom, your pest problems won't be so severe and your garden will thrive like it means business.

And business is gooooooooooooooood