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Fruit trees and shrubs spend their whole lives in one place, we cannot transplant them into richer soil. So, we must ensure that the soil in which they grow is not depleted. To do this, you need to regularly fertilize it. Caring for a garden involves creating comfortable conditions for all its inhabitants; in return, they will please us with wonderful harvests and a luxurious appearance.
How is the first feeding
Every year, all garden trees and shrubs should receive at least 2 top dressings. The first is held in the spring, when the plants are just starting to grow intensively, they need strength to build up a green mass, to prepare for laying flowers (and therefore fruits). Therefore, nitrogen fertilizers must be applied in the spring. All trees and shrubs need many micro and macro elements for development, including manganese, boron, sulfur, calcium, and many others. But the most important are nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus. It is they that provide growth, metabolic processes, all the functions of the plant organism, it is them that plants pull out of the soil in large quantities.
After the ripening of the crop (August-September), the period of secondary root growth usually begins in the vast majority of fruit crops. Then they need top dressing with phosphorus, calcium, potassium, the supply of which will help them survive the winter more easily. But in the spring it is advisable to apply mineral and organic fertilizers, mainly containing nitrogen. Its deficiency will make itself felt by the loss of a bright green color, because the amount of chlorophyll will decrease, the function of photosynthesis will be disturbed, the result will be a poor harvest and an increasingly weakened plant prone to most diseases. If the trees and shrubs have been well fed and watered since autumn, then the first spring feeding is carried out in May.
For young bushes
For planting fruit bushes, as well as trees, they are usually prepared in advance: they fertilize the intended planting site, dig a hole, lay mineral and organic fertilizers that will nourish the plant for several years, mix them with the soil so as not to burn the roots. This will satisfy the need for basic elements for the coming years, until the plant bears fruit. It will be enough for him to spring fertilize with nitrogen-containing fertilizers with a small amount of potassium. In fruit bushes, most often it is currants, raspberries, gooseberries, grapes, the bulk of the roots are shallow, root dressing can be combined with irrigation using liquid fertilizers. Grapes perceive foliar top dressing well – they simply spray it with a solution with a low fertilizer content – no more than 5%. But if the soil was well prepared for him before planting, then for the first 3 years he has enough liquid dressings in spring and in the first half of summer.
Dry matter must be embedded into the soil at a shallow depth – nitrogen can evaporate if it is not associated with moist soil. The same applies to fruit trees, only taking into account the depth of the roots, the necessary mixtures are usually introduced into the near-trunk circle a little deeper. But it’s not worth deepening too much: nitrogen will easily move to the roots with water after watering or rain. Raspberries in the first 3 years of life require only nitrogen fertilizers in the spring. After the snow melts, up to 100 g of nitrogen fertilizers per 1 sq. m landings.
Ornamental plants do not need intensive nutrition, but if the soil is depleted, bushes and trees also need top dressing. It is introduced in the spring, when the plants have already begun their enhanced growth. Flowering crops, such as roses, need to be fertilized before flowers are planted to ensure vigorous, long-lasting blooms.
Video “Council for fertilizing shrubs”
An informative video where an expert gives advice and recommendations on plant nutrition.
For adult shrubs
Adult fruit-bearing shrubs will need more nutrients, they are fed several times. For the first time in the spring, a complex mineral fertilizer with a high nitrogen content is applied when the leaves begin to bloom. Gooseberries are fed until flowers appear 1 time in 2 years, if the soil is not too depleted. Currant loves to receive top dressing from urea, calcium and ammonium nitrate every spring. If the bushes were not fertilized in the fall, then in the spring you can add slurry. All this can be shallowly patched up in the holes under the bushes, then watered abundantly. Currants respond well to spraying the bush with diluted mineral fertilizers with nitrogen and potassium, this is done in the spring before the flowers appear.
Raspberries grow well on light sandy or loamy soils, fertilizers must be applied to the ground after loosening. Urea, ammonium nitrate can be applied in May before flowers appear, and mulched with sawdust on top. Such a mulch will protect raspberries from weeds, will not allow moisture and volatile nitrogen compounds to quickly evaporate, and over time it will turn into an excellent natural top dressing. Mulching with sawdust may well change the structure of the soil, make it lighter, more breathable, and provide shrubs with slow, constantly flowing fertilizer. Adult plants, in addition to nitrogen, also need potassium salt, superphosphate and organic matter.
Grapes are fed with organic fertilizers 1 time in 3 years. If manure has been applied since autumn, then in the spring it is better not to use mineral fertilizers. When organic matter was not used in the fall, then in the spring it is worth fertilizing before the bush opens. Later top dressing is repeated before the appearance of flowers and after flowering. Rose bushes also need to be fertilized in spring if you want to admire the lush flowers. Special mixtures of long-term exposure have been developed, which are applied in the spring 1 time, then potash or organic substances can be added in the fall.
Which fertilizer to choose
Fruit trees and shrubs should receive both organic and mineral fertilizers. The main organic fertilizer can be manure or bird droppings. Mullein infusion is diluted 1:6, poured 1 bucket per 1 sq. m. Bird droppings must be handled even more carefully so as not to burn the plants. It is diluted 1:15, per 1 sq. m pour half a bucket. Chickens are often kept in home gardens and summer cottages, their droppings are collected, providing a garden (or vegetable garden) with very high-quality fertilizer.
But horse manure and mullein are not very easy to get, such a substance is very expensive. Specialty stores offer organic blends in concentrates that can be used on trees, fruit bushes, or perennials. To make the soil suitable for growing fruit crops, it is fertilized with mineral mixtures, which must necessarily contain phosphorus, nitrogen, potassium, calcium, and other micro and macro elements. All crops have different needs, in order to determine what and how much needs to be applied, they take into account the condition and structure of the soil, the age of the plant, the season, whether the garden is irrigated. As a rule, in spring, all plants require nitrogen, it is applied along with potassium. You can use ammonium, potassium nitrate. Potassium-phosphorus and organic fertilizers are used only if they were not applied in the fall.
An irrigated orchard with mature fruit crops requires more nitrogen because it is washed out with water during irrigation. The first dressing may include 10 g of ammonium nitrate per 1 sq. m. The second top dressing is carried out after 20 days, for fruit-bearing trees and bushes, nitrophoska or nitroammophoska (20–25 g) is used, chloride or potassium sulfate is added (10 g per 1 sq. M), which depends on the ratio of the plant to chlorine.
In the spring, up to 50 g of urea should be applied under each bush of currants, flowers, and after 4 years of life, top dressing is reduced to 30 g, applied 2 times. The first time – in early spring, the second – after flowering. In summer, organic and potash fertilizers are removed to affect the quality of the crop. Coniferous ornamental shrubs require other dressings; complex mineral fertilizers will not benefit them, for example, azophoska can harm them. They need more magnesium than nitrogen. Nitrogen will cause accelerated growth of young shoots that will not have time to get stronger until autumn, they may not survive the harsh winter, and then destroy the entire plant. For coniferous bushes, there are specially selected mixtures that can be selected in specialized stores.
Video “Instructions for feeding the bushes”
Video instruction on how to feed shrubs in the spring season.
