Beginner Gardening: Help With Diagnosing Problem, 0 by tapla

tapla wrote:
The 10-10-10 is a MUCH better choice than the 15-30-15, but it still isn't as good as the 3:1:2 ratio fertilizers (24-8-16, 12-4-8, 9-3-6).

Rain water has so little in the way of dissolved solids that you can almost consider it as being distilled/deionized; which means there is nothing in it that can build up in your soil. If you're using distilled water, rain water, water collected from dehumidifiers, snow melt, or water that has passed through a reverse osmosis filtering system, you CAN water in sips w/o worry about accumulating solids with your water as their source.

I DO fertilize with a weak dose of fertilizer every time I water, but I also DO flush the soil every time I water, too. If your plants are in good light and putting on growth, you can fertilize every time you water if you're flushing the soil, but with rain water, it's not necessary, so I think I would fertilize every 1-3 weeks with a low dose.

You can see that some knowledge of your watering habits and the physical characteristics of your soil are required in order to offer any meaningful suggestions. The faster your soil drains and the better the aeration, the closer we get to an effective 'one size fits all' program for nutritional supplementation, but you can get away with more when using water that doesn't contain dissolved solids.

For example, I had this little dish garden (pic below) on the kitchen table for 4 years in the same soil/same pot with no drain holes, with no spoiled foliage symptomatic of salt build-up, because I was using distilled water.

Just remember that this whole triangle of 'heavy soil - over-watering - soluble salt build-up' needs to be reckoned with in some manner if our plants are going to be all they can be.

Al