How often should I feed my house plants?

Deciding on a feeding schedule for your house plants can be rather difficult. Our kids stamp their feet and ask for more, our furry pet’s paw at their bowls at exactly feeding time as if they have watches! Plants are more subtle in their feeding cues and are usually pretty famished when we can see it with our eyes.

What to look out for

Although we hope not to see these issues too often, sometimes our green friends get hungry. Luckily, when they do there are some clear visual indicators of which nutrients may be low.

Nitrogen – Light green upper leaves, old leaves yellow and shrivelled.

Phosphorous – Leaves are darker than usual and loss of leaves.

Potassium – Yellowish at leaf edges and dead leaf tips.

Sulphur – Light or pale green leaves

Magnesium – Lower leaves turn yellow from the outside

Calcium – New leaves are misshapen and stunted.

Manganese – Yellow/ brown spots develop on leaves, may cause holes in leaves in some plants.

Iron – Yellow leaves with green veins.

Zinc – Plant appears more pale, narrow leaves and short darker veins.

Natures little helpers

It goes without saying that nature is spectacularly amazing. Plants, bacteria’s and fungi have naturally evolved over millions of years to help each other out in lot’s of different ways. The main one for us is by helping to supply nutrients to plants and in return plants share some of the lovely sugars they make by photosynthesising. These friendly plant helpers live in the soil, on the leaves and even inside the plant. We can help out by ensuring the soil is nice and healthy by not over or under watering and by using either filtered tap water, rain water or by using one of our [+Antioxidant] range to remove chlorine, chloramine and heavy metals from tap water.

Methods of feeding plants

Plants take up nutrients from the soil through their roots and can also absorb nutrients through their leaves. As with all good things in life, balance is key and happy roots will absorb much more nutrients. Good plant feeding makes sure that there is enough water to keep the nutrients in solution to be absorbed while taking care to not over water and cause problems like root rot.

Adjusting to the seasons

In the summer when plants are growing quickly, they are much hungrier and will need to be fed more regularly. Nutrients like nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus are used as the building blocks for new growth. As a rule of thumb, you should feed your plants every other time you water them between April and September. They can be fed once a month in the winter.

Can I overfeed?

Just like us you can overfeed plants and just like us it can cause them to put on weight, get bloated and become more susceptible to diseases. Regenerative farming has caused people to rethink how we feed our crops. We know that nutritional balance is key to avoid attracting pests and diseases. In human health we have seen a much greater importance placed on gut health to reduce other diseases. In the same way we need to look after own gut biome, we need to encourage the good bugs that help plants access nutrients and naturally thrive!