Fertilize Now: Fall is the Perfect Time

Rumor has it we're in for a hard winter. So now's the time to help your plants make it through. Give them a shot of fertilizer and they'll be happy for months...

Yum Yum Mix® 'Winterizer' Organic Fertilizer
Item # 99811 		Yum Yum Mix® 'Winterizer' Organic Fertilizer

25 lb Bag $36.99
  • Topics: Fall Gardening, Fertilizing
  • Author: Cindy Bellinger
  • Keywords: soil, root system, fertilizer, fall, winter, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium,
  • Date: September 2006

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Rumor has it we’re in for a hard winter. So now’s the time to help your plants make it through. Give them a shot of fertilizer and they’ll be happy for months.

Once the cooler temperatures and shorter days begin sending signals to plants to slow down above ground, they concentrate on activity underground. All their energy goes into root growth.

Several years ago I spoke with Dirk Muntean, a biologist with Soil and Plant Laboratory, Inc. in Bellevue, WA. He said, “Roots take up nutrients in the soil throughout the fall until the soil temperatures drop low enough to inhibit root function.”

So it only makes sense to fertilize when all those little root hairs are slurping up goodies in the soil. But with so many fertilizers on the market, which ones do you use?

Look for the three hyphenated numbers on fertilizer products. These indicate the ratio of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. It’s a formula of percentage referred to as the NPK.

N = nitrogen
P = phosphorus
K = potassium (usually listed as potash).

With plants having different needs in the fall, fertilizers low in nitrogen is preferred. Nitrogen stimulates green above ground growth. What you want now is a fertilizer richer in phosphorus and potassium because these feed root systems.

Take Gro-Power® Flower and Bloom, for example. It has a 3-12-12 ratio, which means nitrogen is 3 percent of the nutrients and makes it a good fall fertilizer.

Other fertilizers we recommend for fall are Yum Yum Mix® Winterizer and Earth® Juice. Both are low in nitrogen.

The best time to fertilize is after a few light frosts. If it sounds odd to feed plants when they are shedding leaves, you’ll see the difference it makes next spring.