Linda,

My rose bed gets it once or twice a year - meaning that so do the iris and the rest of the perennials in that bed. The other raised beds get compost and mulch in fall. I usually don't do much more than that. The butterfly bed? Heh... now that gets nothing - except for some bulb food once a year where the lilies and tulips are. If it can't take it it shouldn't grow there. Ok, ok... it's not really quite that bad of me... I did do something different this year. I have all that prairie grass back there that *needs* to be burned off once in awhile only I can't do that safely there. What I did this year was take the grass tops I'd clipped off first thing in spring (all nice and dry from the winter) and burned them in our firepit thingy. I roughed up the tussocks of grass stubble to get out the worst of the dead stuff and sprinkled on the ashes from the fire. They look STUNNING this year :)

-Marie

Hi Linda. I am not consistent when it comes to fertilizing. But when I get it done I am always so happy I did it.

I fertilized about three weeks ago and I noticed results about a week ago. It's really easy to notice a change when it comes to the few annuals I have! Boy do they jump after a feeding!

I used Miracle grow attached to my hose and did all of my gardens....flowers and veggies. It states to do it every two weeks but that just won't happen here. I have made a note to get more though so I can get another feeding in soon.
Kristy :)

I use fish emulsion 2 or 3 times a year on all of my plants. The first dose goes on mid-may. A second dose in June and if I think of it another dose late in June or early July.

Yes, the fish emulsion smells but the plants love it. I've tried alfalfa tea this year for the first time on my roses and that stuff will make you gag. Plus, it seems to persist several days in the yard. The fish smell is gone by the next day.

I don't use miraclegro or any chemical type fertilizers because they don't do anything to improve the soil--which btw I learned in my soil chemistry class back in college that a fertile soil consists of 80% bacteria (alive and dead) by weight. It seems the fish emulsion improve my clayish soil.

I don't fertilize after the 15th of July. Even though it seems far off, its too late to push perennial plants to grow at this point of the season. I've read that if you push new growth late in the season by fertilizing you might end up losing some of your perennials over the winter.

If you are growing annuals, I image you can get away with fertilizing this time of year, but up here in zone 3 I doubt its would be worth the effort. Only 5 weeks left till fall.

Oh, and here are a couple of links that might be of interest:
"organic fertilizer fact sheet"
"Fish emulsion as a food base for rhizobacteria promoting growth of radish "

I dig in compost in the spring before planting, then side dress the really heavy feeders (like corn) with a nitrogen-heavy fertilizer in early June. In the fall, I dig leaves into the soil.

That's about all I do for the vegetable garden. Maybe once or twice a summer it will get hit with a little balanced fertilizer I use for the container plants. I try to give the container flowers a chemical fertilizer once a month, because the water leeches out the nutrients so fast.

From what I have found, the best gardens I have seen all have been made in well amended soil with plenty of compost worked in. That would be the biggest help in any garden!
From there- you should be selective about what you are going to fertilize- and then what you will use to do the job. Not all plants appreciate the addition of chemical fertilizers- and run off of excess into the ground water can damage ecosystems there-
I have in the past used a balanced granular fertilizer tossed over all of the garden beds in the spring- and one year again in the summer. It fed the weeds too(UGH), and although I thought I had healthy looking plants- I had a lot of winter kill that year- with not too bad of a winter, with plenty of snow cover- I sort of think the plants did not ready themselves for winter- and just kept on growing instead.
I have found that adding compost, composted manure and peat to my sandy black soil helps the plants develop healthy roots- by adding moisture retaining material, which helps them to look and grow better. For new beds- I turn it in- and as I can on the established beds- I have top dressed.
With the addition of a cypress mulch on some of the beds this year- I am really pleased with how well most things seem to be doing! I am quite surprised at how a good thick layer of compost helps my all too well draining soil hang on to the little amount of moisture it gets!
I do use a liquid "Bloom Food" product for the annual container plants when I get around to it- which isn't very often I must admit(only once so far this year- although- all of the containers have a HEALTHY dose of manure in them...)
I also will use a liquid fertilizer for the house plants once in a while-

I add composted manure to all my beds every spring, thin layer about 1/2". Cocoa bean mulch goes up on top as well as a few grass clippings. When I deadhead annual non-hardy flowers, most of them get tossed in as well if the bed is thick enough to disguise them.

Soil here is hard, compacted clay, so I figure the more organic material I add, the better.

Our pots and hanging baskets of annuals shamelessly get fed generous amounts of Miracle Gro Bloom fertilizer on a weekly basis. They're glorious and in their prime.

Oh yes, one perennial I feed with this stuff also is the delphiniums. They can't get enough food and are 5 feet tall and are thriving.

When starting a bed I till in about 6 inches composted manure and 6 inches of compost. I cover that with about 6-8 inches of wood chips. Then about once a year I'll toss in an inch or so of some compost and/or manure and cover with more wood chips.