Mandatory feeding after transplanting??

[huntsman]

After transplant, is there any mandatory feeding I should do, or do I leave well enough alone and only treat when a problem arises?

Someone suggested a foliar spraying of kelp would be a good thing...??

[robin303]

I use a weak water soluble fertilizer soon as I get a good set of leaves and every two weeks at full strength through out the season.

[Blueaussi]

Are you talking about transplanting into larger containers or into the ground? When I set my plants out, I usually mix some earthworm compost and a wee sprinkle of Espoma Tomato Tone or a Fox Farm starter fertilizer who's name escapes me at the moment, then I water in with half strength liquid kelp.

[huntsman]

I just wanted transplant info in general, Blue, not specifically pot or ground...

Thanks for the info so far...

[dice]

One thing that worked well for me when potting up from
the cells that the seedlings sprouted in into 4" pots
(or newspaper pots, similar size) was dropping a pinch
of high-phosphate gauno and a pinch of kelp meal into
the potting mix in each pot and mixing it around with
a chopstick before setting the seedling in there, topping
up with potting mix, and watering. Those seedlings thrived
with nothing else except water until transplanting into the
garden several weeks later. I have potted up seedlings with
nothing but water added, with some extra dilute fish emulsion,
with a tea made from dried alfalfa, kelp meal, dried comfrey,
and dried chickweed (sometimes dried nettles, too, depends
on what all I have around), with liquified kelp, with an emulsion
of clover from out in the yard liquified in a blender with water,
and so on.

All of those things worked to keep the seedlings healthy until
transplant, but the seedlings with the little bit of guano and
kelp meal thrived especially well. (One should wear a painter's
dust mask when handling guano, in case it has been harvested
from some cave somewhere and harbors spores of a particular
lung disease.)

People have also reported good results potting up into
high-end potting mixes (usually sold at nursery supply outfits)
that already have starter fertilizer in them, and with starter
fertilizers like Bio-Tone (
http://www.espoma.com/p_consumer/biotone_overview.html
) mixed into potting mix. (I do not know what comparable
products might be available locally in South Africa.) I like
the organic teas at this stage because they are mild, tend
to be impossible to burn seedlings with (they are broken
down gradually by bacteria and fungi), and I usually have
the ingredients around to make them anyway.

When transplanting into the garden or final containers, I mix
a handful of some organic fertilizer (4-4-4, 4-6-6, 4-7-10, some
N-P-K ratio like that) into the soil around the seedling, and
I usually water in with a mix of fish emulsion and liquid kelp
to get them off to a good start. Compost tea and earthworm
casting tea are also good choices for this.

A lot of farmers just use water, though, at the final transplant
stage, with decent results. If the soil is any good, if nutrients
are generally available to the plant in it, the plant, sunlight,
and water will do the rest. (We short-season home gardeners
jump through a lot of hoops to get plants off to a good start
that would simply be impractical for hectare-scale farming.)

[huntsman]

Thanks, dice - that clarifies the question perfectly.

I will learn how to make compost (etc) teas, as I have seen from scouring the forum that they are a vital part of organic gardening, and will keep an eye out for guano, though I doubt I'll find it over here...

Certainly sounds as if it's worth looking for!

[Blueaussi]

You know, I started some of my seeds in Happy Frog potting soil this year, and I was impressed with how they thrived. It's awfully expensive, but the end result was impressive.

[dice]

The Metro-Mix 360 that Craig uses is one of those high-end
potting mixes with starter fertilizer already in it. It is not
something that you find at big box stores like Home Depot
or Walmart. If you look at Sun Gro's web site, it is listed in
the "Professional Products" rather than "Retail Products":
http://www.sungro.com/products_displ...06&brand_id=17
(This is the sort of product that one typically needs to find
at a nursery supply business to find it at all.)

Home Harvest has begun offering some of these professional
soilless mixes online, so one can get some idea of typical
prices: http://homeharvest.com/pottingmixes.htm
(The Schultz product is more of a retail store item.)

Having a worm bin is an advantage at transplanting time.
Not only can you make worm casting tea for getting
transplants off to a good start, you can also mix a healthy
portion of worm castings into cheap, generic potting mix
to turn it into an excellent potting mix for starting vegetables
in the spring. One needs no starter fertilizer when the potting
mix that they are potted up into is 1/4 or more worm castings.
Dropping a handful into the transplanting hole under a seedling
is also a win.

[eyolf]

Has anyone noticed that the threadparent is from S. Africa? Mentions of product names might not do much good if they're not available there.

I really don't have any specific advice regarding your conditions, but one thing that I have noticed is that gardeners are usually good "learners from experience". In fact some of the best advice can only be had from one's neighbors. Perhaps Neighbours, for those speaking "British English", Ha!

Not to disrespect anyone here, but the closest climate we Yanks have is likely the southwest: Lets hope that some from Texas, New Mexico, or etc. chimes in, I'd suggest checking with local sources as well.

[dice]

True, stuff like Metro-Mix, Promix, or Fafard might not be
available in South Africa. (The real advice in that post is to
look for a nursery supply company if you want to find the
sort of products that local professional nurseries use for seed
starting.)

[huntsman]

Thanks, fellas -

I have found one product, from Holland, which is carried by a local wholesaler, and it's great for germination. Still looking for a product that I can fill the pots with one I pot up into outside pots. This stuff is just too pricey.

I recently found a worm bin thread which gets posted to me weekly at no charge, so hopefully I can get my bin running correctly. Certainly I will have a great Summer with the advice I receive here and at my pepper forum.

[dice]

I made one like this:

http://whatcom.wsu.edu/ag/compost/Easywormbin.htm

It was easy enough to do, but I find that I would like about
4 times as much worm castings as it produces. Still, having
any at all is a good thing, and I can always build more of
them.

A historical document, posted more for the insight into the
lifecycle of earthworms than for anything else (any commercial
advice would be many decades out of date):

http://journeytoforever.org/farm_lib...oliverToC.html

(The difficulty with a *big* wormbin is making sure that you
will always have enough food for them. No big deal on a farm
with animal manures, waste from crops, etc, around, but that
takes some planning on a small urban or suburban lot.)

[huntsman]

Goldarn, you have great links for just about everything, dice!

I agree regarding the required castings, but I think a lot of my problem has been incorrect maintenance of the bin. The fellow that runs that newsletter claims that you should seed a new worm bin every few months until you have the qtys you desire, citing that once conditions become cramped, the worms stop breeding, which makes sense.

This season I'll look after the colony, rather than leave it to it's own devices totally, though I will need a few more, in order to get the qty of castings up.

[dice]

One of the urban legends I remember from youth was talk
of African earthworms 12' long and as big around as a garden
hose. While those might be exclusively tropical rainforest
denizens, watch yourself out there.

[huntsman]

Heh heh!

I'll tie some rope to my waist before venturing out!

Actually our millipedes grow to around 9 or 10 inches and thick as a man's thumb. I don't believe they are any use to the garden, but I'm not certain.