With humidity and heat reaching extremes most people prefer to sit and look at the garden
during the wet instead of working on it.
But there is one job you can and should do during the wet.
The first job is fertilise! Growth rates are best in the wet so your plants need
fertiliser to match the growth potential. Fertiliser is also essential to make sure the
growth is balanced and not short lived.
Balanced means the three key elements Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium should all be
present in roughly equal portions. In the tropics all 3 elements should be high. A good
example is Tropigro
10-97. The NPK is 10% Nitrogen, 9% Phosphorus and 7% Potassium. In fact 10-97 is
probably the strongest general purpose garden fertiliser on the home garden market
Australia wide!
In addition 10-97 has high levels of sulphur and other trace elements. Sulphur is often
deficient in Darwin and contributes to yellowing often seen in palm fronds. Sulphur
deficient palms often hang on to their dead fronds. You will notice them hanging down the
trunk
Many people have told me they don’t fertilise in the wet because the rain will
only wash the fertiliser away. Well, there is a chance of that, but since it rarely rains
daily you have plenty of times suitable to apply fertiliser. If you’re smart you will
place the fertiliser under mulch and this will prevent the rain from washing it away. In
fact even throwing it on top of mulch will give you a bit of a slow release effect.
Now what ever you do don’t rely on the rain to wash your fertiliser in. You can be
sure you will actually make that storm turn away if you are relying on it to water in
fertiliser you have hastily applied!
It’s better to wash the fertiliser into the soil with a hand held hose. You should
do it within 20 minutes of application. Having watered the fertiliser in it will, of
course, now rain!
Here’s a fertilising guide in brief.
Feeding plants is just like feeding people. Plants need regular feeding and vary the
diet between mineral and organic solid fertilisers. You can supplement the diet with a
soluble fertiliser and the trace elements are just like vitamins. |