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Fertilizing and Rain

Q. Can you give me some reasons that it’s not good to fertilize when it’s raining?

A. Walking on heavy soil when it is wet can compact the soil, but other than that caveat what’s wrong with taking advantage of rainfall to fertilize with organic fertilizer all the things that need it now, like roses (if you did not fertilize them in January according to the directions in my book), broccoli (after taking off the central head to keep the side sprouts growing), citrus trees (late January is the time to feed even with sythetics), cool-season lawns (fertilize with organic fertilizer now; it takes time to work) , and avocado’s (February is the month to begin fertilizing these.) What’s the difference if it’s raining?

Many times in my book I have said to fertilize just before a rain or “if rain is inadequate, water in thoroughly”. So does it not make sense that if you wake up in the morning and find it already raining and you had been planning to fertilize anyway knowing it was going to rain that afternoon that you would go out in a rain suit and fertilize even though it was raining so you would not need to irrigate afterwards? If you are an organic gardener, or even if you are not, you should have already fertilized your citrus trees in late January. If you did not do this, do it now, but what a shame you did not do it before or during the rain.

I have often fertilized in the rain while wearing a rain suit, so I wonder why you got the idea that it’s not a good idea to fertilize when it’s raining? That sounds like the advice of someone other than me. It also sounds like advice I heard from a weather man on one of the news channels. Several weather men give garden advice and goodness knows where they get some of their information. They often say things that are not true or incomplete and thus misleading. When I heard a weather man saying “Don’t fertilize now because there is too much rain.” I wished I could pop up onto the screen and say “Hey wait a minute! That is not entirely correct!” The only really negative aspect of fertilizing with ORGANIC fertilizer in the rain is that the fertilizer gets wet and so do you and some of the fertilizer inevitably gets on your clothes and might ruin your rain suit. (I keep an old one for this purpose.)

Now if one is talking about SYNTHETIC nitrogen fertilizers—that is, manmade fertilizers— that may be a different matter ( though this does not apply, as explained above, to citrus, avocado, and those veggies that need fertilizing now.) Synthetic fertilizers such as sulfate of ammonia and urea, are completely soluble, thus fertilizing when we have very heavy rains will wash them into the ground and perhaps even right through the root zone and down into ground water too rapidly. This is why March is usually considered to be the classic month for fertilizing the basic landscape when using synthetic commercial fertilizers. But I am not espousing any of these synthetic, man-made fertilizers.

I recommend organic fertilizers, and these should be applied early since they take time to work. (Consult my book for some of the products and homemade concoctions you could be using (and see the chart of generic organic fertilizers on this website.) Organic fertilizers must be in contact with the soil in order to become activated and then they become an integral part of the soil and continue working in the ground. All this process takes time. For example, gardeners who add a mulch of horse manure in fall ahead of the rain are allowing time for the manure to age on top of the ground as well as allowing the winter rains to wash the nutrients into the ground. This process will greatly improve garden soil with great benefit to garden plants. Heavy rains are a benefit to the manuring process since they will wash away any salts. (Do not mulch succulents or California native plants with manure.) Additionally, partially rotted organic matter actually works with the soil as it rots further in the ground. The wondrous fact is that as it decomposes and becomes humus it creates nitrogen in the process and releases it to plant roots, but it needs moisture for this to happen. So these heavy rains we are having will only help the process. Get out there and take advantage of the rains instead of waiting until later and then needing to waste our precious irrigation water to do the job that could have been done by rain.

Comments

  1. thanks for the the advice

  2. I think it’s funny how you said that some people get their garden advice from weathermen on the tv. Going to a more authoritative source seems like a much better way to understand the benefits of garden fertilizers and when to apply them. My wife and I will have to look around and get some info because we definitely need some of that.

    • Thanks for your comment. I wrote that long piece on fertilizing before or during rain several years ago and at that time there was a weatherman in my area who gave garden advice, much of it incorrect. Unfortunately, he died, which was a sad thing since he was a nice guy and much too young to have died. If you need advice on gardening I recommend purchasing a copy of one of my month-by-month books from Amazon.com and reading each monthly chapter during that specific month of the year. The two editions I recommend are “Pat Welsh’s Southern California Gardening, A Month-by-Month Guide, Completely Revised and Updated” published in 2000 by Chronicle Books or “Pat Welsh’s Southern California Organic Gardening, Month by Month” published in 2009 by Chronicle Books. (The first edition which was published in 1990 and I still meet people who adore it, but please don’t buy it since it is way outdated. Some plants I discussed in it are no longer grown today. Others that are really important are not even mentioned.)

    • Perhaps listening to me talk you might have misunderstood what I meant. Several years ago there was a weatherman in San Diego County where I live who branched out and gave gardening advice as well as weather forecasting. He had a huge property and was interested in gardening. Also he hire a woman to help him with facts. Unfortunately at times his facts were not totally correct. As far as advice with fertilizers is concerned, I recommend my books which are available on Amazon.com and cover care of plants year-round, month by month. Just read and follow the advice in each month as you live through that particular month. Everything, including edibles such as deciduous and tropical fruit trees, vines, citrus, avocado, vegetables and herbs, flowers, climbers, shrubs and trees are covered in very practical ways. For advice on organic fertilizers, read “Pat Welsh’s Southern California Organic Gardening, Month-by-Month” (Chronicle Books, 20010). For advice on both organic and chemical fertilizers and IPM, read “Pat Welsh’s Southern California Gardening Month-by-Month, Completely Revised and Updated” Chronicle Books (2000).

  3. Fertilizing when its raining might not work becuase the water will just wash away the fertlizer. I also love gardening and you can check mine at https://www.gardenloka.com/apply-fertilizer-to-your-lawn/

    • Thank you for your comment. I looked at your website and note you suggest a slow-release fertilizer, which means a chemical fertilizer coated on the outside in such a way that the inorganic compounds within the pellet are released slowly into the soil. To explain a little better: Coated fertilizers are not organic. They are chemical fertilizers, such as urea or sulfate of ammonia covered with a plastic coating. Once spread onto the lawn, they lie on top of the ground under the grass blades and release a little fertilizer every time the lawn is irrigated or when rain falls.

      I am an organic gardener. Organic fertilizers work more slowly and need to be in the soil in order to take action. When one is using organic fertilizers, such as chicken or horse manure, bone meal or blood meal to name only four, rain is beneficial since it washes the organic fertilizer into the ground where it can feed the roots without burning the grass blades.

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