Hardy Tropicals UK

I'm sick of miracle grow, although its readily available and cheap, it stains everywhere blue, if you spill any, get it on hands etc

Any amazon or ebay fert you can buy in bulk 5kg or 10kg tub, which is easy to mix in watering can and good for fert loving plants, aroids, ensetes, ricinus, tender big leaf growers basically

Chicken pellets.

Get your Mrs a bejewelled nose peg.

cordyman wrote:Any amazon or ebay fert you can buy in bulk 5kg or 10kg tub, which is easy to mix in watering can and good for fert loving plants, aroids, ensetes, ricinus, tender big leaf growers basically

Phostrogen is probably pretty much a like-for-like swap for Miracle Gro - except that it won't die your fingers blue!

You might like to look at the Chempak range; T & M recently bought the company (dunno if that will turn out to be a good or a bad thing) ... and they have a special offer on at the moment, but you'll have to buy at least 3 [mixed will do] packs to get the discount.

http://search.thompson-morgan.com/search?w=chempak

(Might not look that cheap, but worth comparing how much made-up volume a packet will make)

scotts lawn builder lawn fertilizer .... has an NPK of 22-5-5 with a bit of iron .... a large bag will last several seasons and can be bought for approx £25 ..... just make sure that you get the one that does not have the weedkiller, as there are a few varieties

http://www.lovethegarden.com/product-de ... n-food-2kg

I use fish, blood and bone (6-6-6) plus some extra dried blood (15-0-0). FBB is not soluble but is cheap at £20 for 25kg delivered from eBay. I just sprinkle it around pots and planters, the nitrogen in blood is very fast and should wash into the root zone easily.

Vagetarian wrote:I use fish, blood and bone (6-6-6) plus some extra dried blood (15-0-0). FBB is not soluble but is cheap at £20 for 25kg delivered from eBay. I just sprinkle it around pots and planters, the nitrogen in blood is very fast and should wash into the root zone easily.

I was admiring one of Will Giles' Brugmansia in his garden last September, it was a deep green with huge leaves (much better than mine) so I asked him what preparation/feed he gave it. He said handfuls of FBB at planting time and that was it. He uses it by 50kg bags. I haven't got around to buying it, but if it works as well for me as it does for Will, that good enough for me. I spoke to him about using seaweed extract on Aroids and he said he may try that this year, as mine generally got bigger than his.

Edit: It actually BFB Blood, Fish and Bone

Edit : again.... they are selling it as FBB and BFB so take your pic

Dave Brown wrote:with huge leaves (much better than mine)

I have got massive leaves on two of mine this year. They were from cuttings last year, and about waist high now. I have no idea what I have done that they like! but I did put a reasonably generous helping of Hundreds and Thousands slow release in when I potted them on (in 5L pots at the moment). Perhaps the slow release is the answer (I remember that Alan Grey at East Ruston Old Vicarage said he used that). Other Brugs in the same conservatory are looking "normal" by comparison.

Yeah sorry, I always call it FBB for some reason.

At the end of the day nitrates are nitrates, phosphates are phosphates, etc. It really doesn't make much difference to the plant whether they're from dead cows, farmyard manure, crude oil or some exotic creatures faeces. I like BFB simply because it's cheap and it's organic, which is usually better for the environment and it encourages the microbes which are required to break it down into the inorganic forms ready for plant uptake. Other than that, the nitrogen is very fast acting for an organic fertiliser and it also contains micronutrients. I find that my tomatoes go absolutely crazy early on in the season when I use BFB, I put it down to the quick acting nitrogen.

Seaweed is also available by the 25kg sack, I put a handful here and there and it lasts forever.

Vagetarian wrote:Yeah sorry, I always call it FBB for some reason.

At the end of the day nitrates are nitrates, phosphates are phosphates, etc. It really doesn't make much difference to the plant whether they're from dead cows, farmyard manure, crude oil or some exotic creatures faeces. I like BFB simply because it's cheap and it's organic, which is usually better for the environment and it encourages the microbes which are required to break it down into the inorganic forms ready for plant uptake. Other than that, the nitrogen is very fast acting for an organic fertiliser and it also contains micronutrients. I find that my tomatoes go absolutely crazy early on in the season when I use BFB, I put it down to the quick acting nitrogen.

Seaweed is also available by the 25kg sack, I put a handful here and there and it lasts forever.

I use BFB as well, but being a vegetarian I have to forget about where it comes from...

Yorkshire Kris wrote:I use BFB as well, but being a vegetarian I have to forget about where it comes from...

lol, well in that case your dedication is very impressive.

Do you add BFB to the planting holes or add to the soil surface after planting?

I've read on several forums that bonemeal interferes (and is not good) for Mycorrhizal Fungi .... an old chap at a garden centre also told me not to use the stuff ....

I used to add a handfull in each planting hole when I planted trees and shrubs

and a quick google finds this article (lots more bad reports about bonemeal if you search google):

http://puyallup.wsu.edu/~linda%20chalke ... nemeal.pdf

Personally, I just sprinkle it around the soil surface and let nature do the rest but I'd probably put a little dusting in the planting holes if I remembered.

I sometimes use it as a base fertiliser in potting mixes. After experimenting with quantities on tomato plants, I use 0.5-1.0% by volume (with uncompressed compost). 0.75% was enough to make a young tomato droop, although they grow like mad.

EDIT: Dim, that article is really talking about phosphorous in general. It's aimed at bonemeal because bonemeal is clearly many gardeners source of phosphorous. The point of the article is to suggest that piling excess phosphorous on your soil without first having it tested can actually be quite detrimental. Any balanced fertiliser contains phosphorous and there is absolutely nothing wrong with having bonemeal in BFB as a source of P. It results in an overall NPK of around 6-6-6 which is not ridiculously high in P by any means.

Having said all that, it should definitely be true that most of our soils are very rich in both P and K and that annual N applications are really all that is truly required. In pots I use a lot of BFB but on the soil I try to add much more N than I add P or K.

Thanks guys!

so bar seaweed which I can look into

just fish blood bone, applied round the base of the Alocasia/ensete/musa/ricinus etc every two weeks and watered in?

cordyman wrote:just fish blood bone, applied round the base of the Alocasia/ensete/musa/ricinus etc every two weeks and watered in?

That will be good cordy, but FBB is 6-6-6 and you would probably be best with a high nitrogen fertiliser. As mentioned above, I personally add extra dried blood to my fish, blood and bone for bananas, etc. A 50/50 mix of the 2 should work out to around 10-3-3.