-Gabrial House-
This week on the blog I wanted to talk about foliar feeding. If you’re not foliar feeding, it could be the missing link in the chain of a strong vegetative cycle. The healthier the vegetative cycle you have, the larger, more bountiful your harvest will be. It’s simple, easy, and hardly takes anytime to mix up and foliar feed your garden.
Foliar feeding is done when you mix up a diluted nutrient solution and mist it over the tops and, more importantly, the bottoms of the leaves of your plants. I always tell my customers that a foliar spray has been applied correctly when the entire plant is saturated with your foliar mix. I like to foliar feed my plants once a week 10 minutes before my lights turn off. I do this so that they don’t burn from the intense light shinning down through the water droplets, but also so that the water has a chance to evaporate from the leaves, reducing the chance of issues with mold or mildew.
My foliar feed recipe has been perfected over the years through trail and error, and I find that this recipe works great. You’ll want to add the following ingredients in the order they are listed, one at a time, to a spray bottle already filled with clean, preferably filtered, water. I like to use the 1.2L Mondi Deluxe Mist ‘n’ Sprayer because it creates an exceptionally fine mist and allows me to mix up 1 liter each time, the perfect amount for a small, personal garden. Make sure to stir thoroughly after each product is added to your water.
Foliar Feed Recipe:
- Dyna Gro: Protekt – Silica
- Technaflora: Thrive Alive B-1 Green – Kelp
- Nectar for the Gods: Athenas Aminas – Amino Acids
- Fifth Season Gardening: Fulvic Acid
- Spray-N-Grow: Coco-Wet – Wetting Agent
This foliar feed recipe is packed with stuff your plants will love. Silica strengthens the cell walls of the plants, allowing for strong stalks and stems, and thick, lush leaves that are strong enough to fight off pests and powdery mildew. Kelp is chock-full of B vitamins and growth hormones that make for a more vigorous and healthy plant. Amino Acids encourage rapid cell division, allowing for more node sites and foliage growth. Fulvic acid drives all the nutrients into the tissue of the plant, resulting in maximum nutrient uptake. Lastly, a wetting agent breaks the surface tension of the water and helps to prevent beading, allowing an even, uniform film of nutritional goodness to coat the leaves.
Apply this foliar feed solution once each week and expect to notice a healthier, faster-growing garden. Your plants will have the ability to naturally fight off stresses and pests, making for a great vegetative cycle and setting your garden up for an outstanding bloom cycle with bountiful yields.
Drew says
How many milliters per liter of each ingredient?
ashley says
Here’s the measurements, hope this helps! – Cheers, Gabe
Dyna gro Protekt – .25 ml per liter
Thrive Alive B-1 Green – 2.5 ml per liter
Athenas Aminas – 4 ml per liter
Fulvic Acid – 4 ml per liter
Coco Wet – .5 ml per liter
April says
Hi, I’ve been using this foliar recipe for about 2 months now in zone 10A. I’m spraying it on fruit trees, vegetables, and herbs.
Everything has handled it fine, no burning, and some of the trees have definitely recovered from nutritional deficiency (starfruit and lemon trees particularly).
My question: Should I be doing anything else to round out their nutritional uptake? I do mulch regularly and occasionally add our chicken coop’s old shavings to the mulch, or compost. I just don’t know if there’s anything else I need to think about.
Thanks!
ashley says
Glad that the spray has worked for you! If you are regularly topdressing with compost, that (along with the foliar spray) should give you a good base of nutrients for your plants. If you are noticing signs of deficiencies, we would recommend applying compost more frequently, or using an all-purpose organic fertilizer during the growing season.
Ryan says
What’s the final E.C. After all ingredients are added?
Thanks!
ashley says
I’ve not checked the EC of the foliar feed because I am spraying this on my plants, not adding it to my reservoir, so it doesn’t affect the EC of my reservoir. Hope that makes sense.
bkkchris says
Reviving an old post, but do you still recommend this foliar feed? Sounds promising and thinking about trying it on my fig trees next season. Are your recommended dosage of .25 ml/liter for the ProTekt correct – is that even an amount you can measure out? Thanks!
ashley says
Hi There! I’m not the person who wrote that blog, and I don’t put Silica in my foliar feedings, but at that small of a dosage it won’t hurt anything and could increase the structure of the leaves and stems. Other than that, the formula looks great. Kelp is the most beneficial in foliar feeding. We have pipettes that will measure out a 1/4 ml. And if you making up a gallon at a time you can just use 1 ml. Good luck with the fig trees! Cheers, Ryan
Kris says
Do you use this spray during flowering stage ? If so at what week do you stop ? Thank you for the post !
ashley says
Hi Kris,
You can use it in the beginning of flower, but we wouldn’t foliar spray anything past the 2nd week. Cheers!
Jim says
Gabrial:
I am dipping my hand into avocado growing and purchased a 3 ft tree that I recently repotted. I might have been a bit rough (in hindsight) with the roots as the LOWES gent suggested I unpack the compressed ball as I replant it. I’ve since learned the micro hairs don’t like that.
So my question: it’s recommend that I apply a copper, zinc, manganese and boron foliar fertilizer occasionally. Does your Ultimate Foliar Feed provide these? I guess I can look up each of the individual products’ MSDS.
Thanks Jim
ashley says
Hi Jim, If you really need that many micronutrients on an occasional basis, I’d just go with a pack of the BioAgTM7. It has every micronutrient available. But if you really do want to make the Ultimate Foliar Feed, all of those micronutrients are in it as well. –Ryan at Fifth Season Gardening