Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Basics of Choosing a Fertilizer for Growing Avocado on your Lawn

My lawn is naturally quite rich in natural fertilizers. That said, on most occasions, it's quite essential to add fertilizers manually if you're interested in increasing the harvest.

For instance, I have a couple of  Avocado trees and while I never thought of adding some sort of a fertilizer, one of my friends pointed out to me that he was able to increase the overall harvest by around 40% by simply adding a proper fertilizer!. While I don't have any commercial intentions, I have this one Avocado tree that hasn't been producing much, compared to its size (it's quite big actually).

So anyhow, if you're going to buy a fertilizer, and yes there are ones especially made for Avocado, any fertilizer however should consists of three basic substances it's actually their percentage that usually changes from plant to plant.

*. Nitrogen

*. Phosphorous

*. Potassium

Nitrogen helps to grow the leaves (mainly) while Potassium increases the efficiency of the growth. And Phosphorous is the key ingredient involved in growing the roots of the tree. It basically acts as what which promotes the cell division & the development of new tissues of the tree as well. So basically, out of the three, it's the Phosphorous that's the most important substance (that's not to neglect the other two by any means!). If the grow efficiency or the speed of the growth is slow and the tree leaves (the body included) have an abnormal dark-green color, that's usually an indication of a lack of Phosphorous.

For young (small) Avocado plants, it is recommended that you add 0.5 to 1 pound of Nitrogen per year. Also make sure when you buy a fertilizer, that it also includes Zinc as it's quite important to the Avocado tree growth as well (you should be able to find it in under ingredients). And just as with adding any fertilizer, make sure to water it often so the ingredients are broken down (have you known? Among other things, water breaks thing down) and are mixed to give the proper nutrition to your Avocado tree.

So basically, a fertilizer that's created specially for Avocado trees should take care of the percentages of the substances that are included.



Now I'm not going to spill all the details here. For instance, there are few things that you should consider before deciding to plant an Avocado tree. So if interested, you can get further information about planting Avocado (the proper climate, how and when you should add the fertilizer etc) from the below sources:

http://uccemg.com/Edible_Plants/?ds=530&uid=127

http://passel.unl.edu/pages/informationmodule.php?idinformationmodule=1130447043&topicorder=2

http://www.garden-counselor-lawn-care.com/fertilizer-numbers.html

http://ucanr.org/sites/alternativefruits/files/121293.pdf

http://www.daleysfruit.com.au/AvocadoMaintenanceSchedule.htm

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Had to Cut Down Rough Weed & Saplings Before Starting to Plant Manihot

Manihot is a very popular food in our country. Some people make a living entirely by growing it. While I have no such desire (mainly because these days it's very difficult to find people to work on fields, the new generation seems to feel that being a farmer is sort of a lower end job), but I have a small land (about 90 perches) which is currently filled with weed & saplings and other non useful plants which I have to cut down first (I'll have to use a brush cutter actually, yes they're very thick and something like one that is listed here will do it, nope, a grass cutter won't do), and after seeing some of the successes of few that I know of, I'll get it a shot.

Now this is not the first time I've attempted to plant in this piece of land that I own. It's surrounded by homes these days and it's the only land that's left actually in that particular area and I've received some complaints from the neighbors saying that there's a bit of a mosquito 'population' on my land they're concerned about their kids safety (yes Dengue is very common here) so I guess I have to act quickly here.

So anyway, coming back to the point, one of the reasons why I decided to go with Manihot is because it's easy to maintain (well, relatively speaking). Because I've previously experimented with Pineapples, but let me tell you, maintaining a half acres full of Pineapples plants is no easy task. They can be quite rewarding from a financial point of view (although, one also has to spend a lot for properly maintaining them as well), still, Manihot even if it's not that rewarding, for the ease of mind, I've decided to go with it.

From a nutrition point of view too Manihot is not a superior root, but it's also quite resilient to pest attacks as well. If interested, one should also consider the weather conditions as well. For my little experiment, I think I'll use some of the advice listed here. Wish me luck!.