Since I don’t have a secret, the only difference I can come up with is that I fertilize on a regular basis. I visited a friend’s “puny” garden the following day and asked her how often she fertilized. She answered, “I don’t.” That could very likely be the difference between big and strong versus puny and weak.

One person on the tour told me of a product she heard of called “Joy Juice.” It turns out to be a liquid fertilizer. It costs $8.00 for an eight ounce container. Many people use “Miracle Grow,” which you mix with water and spray on the plants and soil, another expensive solution. There’s even one fertilizer you can buy, “Osmocote,” which will last all season long, but it costs $6.00 for a small container.

What I’ve found works best for me and seems to be the cheapest and easiest way to garden is to buy a forty pound bag of 12-12-12 fertilizer, which you can usually pick up for about $7.00 at most garden stores. I spread it with my hand and don’t even try to mix it in the soil. I just try to sprinkle and throw it around as uniformly as possible.

I fertilize usually about three times during the growing season - about every six weeks.
April 15th, June 1st and July 15th seem to be good times for this area.

Since there’s a good chance fertilizer will land on some of the green foliage, I hand water the plants immediately after fertilizing them, to make sure the fertilizer is washed off the leaves and gets down to the soil.

Since I’m always watering some area, the fertilizer is usually readily available to the plants.

My secret it turns out, is basic gardening protocol, but one which many people seem to have forgotten. The cheap and easy forty pound bag solution seems to be the best. Give it a try.