I am starting up a home garden and was wondering if anyone has experience and what are the best fertilizers to buy at the garden center. Is liquid better than granular? What brands are the best? Any advice would help.
I find that if I must buy fertilise the organic granular ones are easier to use and last longer with good results. More importantly, start a compost bin and compost your weeds, lawn mowings, old newspaper and computer paper, kitchen trimmings, egg shells, tissues etc.. Turn it every 2-3 weeks and you will soon have a good supply of nourishing compost for free
A lot depends on what exactly you're growing; different plants have different needs. The main difference between liquid granular is how fast it reaches the plant's roots. Liquid is adsorbed much faster, but can be messy, time-consuming, and expensive. Granular, while slower, is usually a bit cheaper, and I personally find it much easier to deal with. And don't forget about natural fertilizers-- peat moss, compost, and animal manure. I don't plant anything without giving it ample quantities of all of the above. Someone else mentioned fish emulsion, which is also a good natural fertilizer. Another benefit to natural fertilizers is that they are almost never harmful to plants, where too much chemical fertilizer can burn leaves roots, and possibly even kill a plant. Ideally, though, start with a mix of all of the above. There is no one magic fertilizer that produces amazing plants. I grow roses, and I use everything. About every 3 weeks I feed granular, I'm always adding more compost natural fertilizers, and when we have dry weather, I mix liquid fertilizer in while watering.
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I like fish emulsion liquid; you can buy it concentrated and dilute it. There's also a worm casting tea concentrate that's sold in recycled soda bottles, which is great. But the best fertilizers are the ones you don't have to buy - old tea, coffee, flat soda, stale beer, fruit juice that's gone off, water from cooking veggies, the bloody liquid from meat packaging (diluted until you can just barely see the pink) - all of these liquids have valuable nutrients and it's a shame to waste them by pouring them down the drain. Sprinkle used coffee grounds all around your garden - the worms love them! Start a compost pile and make compost tea to water your garden.
Compost is the best. I was able to get loads and loads of it for free from a horse farm. (Don't take the fresh manure: it stinks. Take the well-rotted stuff. Just shovel it in to your garden. I've been amazed at how my garden has taken off since I added the compost. The best part about compost is that it's idiot proof. Unlike any chemical fertilizers, you can never burn your plants or screw up the timing. (Last year, all of my tomatoes got blossom end rot because I continued fertilizing after they started producing fruit).
