Author Topic: Lemon Fertilzer  (Read 1006 times)

Digeroo

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Lemon Fertilzer
« on: March 02, 2010, 12:49:56 »
My Lidl Lemon bush now has five flowers and one it showing signs it actually has a lemon.  So I decided it needs feeding.  But a miniscule bottle of lemon fertilizer was £2.99 so I bottled out. 

Can anyone tell me how to make cheap lemon fertilizer?

Do they hate lime?

Vinlander

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Re: Lemon Fertilzer
« Reply #1 on: March 03, 2010, 00:46:55 »
Citrus need 20:20:20 in winter and a higher-nitrogen feed in summer.

They don't have root hairs so they need careful and regular feeding.

Don't use tomato feed - a balance too much towards potash is counter productive with citrus (weird, I know).

Chempak used to make two perfect mixes that only needed a bit of extra foliar feed to boost the trace elements to perfection - not sure they still do.

It used to be possible to get an ericaceous fertiliser with extra nitrogen but that's probably gone too.

Basically use a balanced fertiliser feed and alternate with an ammonium sulphate or dried blood feed in summer. Trace elements and chelated iron are fairly easy to source.

Citrus do best on a capillary mat watering system - easy to set up with trays, slates, whatever. If you do this use a plastic pot to make a good connection. If you don't do this use a clay pot to help reduce over-watering (still risky).

Cheers.
With a microholding you always get too much or bugger-all. (I'm fed up calling it an allotment garden - it just encourages the tidy-police).

The simple/complex split is more & more important: Simple fertilisers Poor, complex ones Good. Simple (old) poisons predictable, others (new) the opposite.

 

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