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Welcome to the Simple Garden Life Podcast, a program dedicated to keeping the yard

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of gardening simple, fun and always
rewarding. Now Here are your hosts,

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Jim and Mary Competiti. Hello and
welcome everybody to the Simple Garden Life Podcast.

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I am Jim Competti along with my
wife Mary and Mary. Today we

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are talking about fertilizing hanging baskets,
or more importantly, how to keep your

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baskets blooming. You know, hanging
baskets are one of the most popular ways

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to add instant caller to any outdoor
space. They really can. They can

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brighten up our patios. We use
them all the time. They bring life

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to back in front, porches,
you name it. They had a touch

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of class and beauty, you know, to anywhere you want to put them

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as long as they're blooming, absolutely
and keeping them looking great for an entire

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summer can be a huge challenge.
You can and that's exactly why fertilizing your

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baskets and the best way possible can
make all the difference. We'll get into

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today's topic in full in just a
minute, but as always, we want

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to take a moment to remind everyone
that you can always reach us via email

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at the Farm at Owgarden dot com. And boy, right now it's the

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heat of garden Sea and the emails
are flying in and we love it.

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We do. We get to answer
a lot. It gives us a lot

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of I guess content for our podcast
and also for our websites. But boy,

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you can always email us there at
the Farm at Owgarden dot com and

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you can also sign up to follow
us at simple gardenlife dot com, follow

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us on Facebook or your favorite podcast
app, and be sure to check out

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our Old World Garden YouTube channel as
well. Hey, j before we get

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started, I think we should tell
everyone about how we are sharing a little

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piece of the farm with some visitors. You know what, this is a

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pretty big announcements front fighting Oh we
are you know what. When we went

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around the country and did all the
states and got to see gardens and everything,

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experience everything, we use harvest Host
and harvest Host was really good to

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us. You can stay at farms
and wineries, breweries, you name it,

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golf courses and you know, you
pay an annual fee and you can

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stay at the place for free,
and we really enjoyed it. So for

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us, we decided, you know, we've built this farm and it's now

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at the point where we can start
to share it. So we became a

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Harvest Host and if you have a
self contained camper and you're passing through,

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you can spend a night here if
you're a Harvest Host member. That's right.

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It's absolutely free as a Harvest Host
member. Once you pay your membership

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fee. You can look us up
on the harvest a host app excuse me,

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or website. And you know,
I mean, it's it is fun.

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I mean, we've already had I
think we signed up last week.

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We've already had four campers stay here
already. We pretty much you know,

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have some bookings next few weeks.
It's great. It's just a great way

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for us to share the farm.
We get to meet people, we can

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do tours while you're here if you
want. But just a really cool way

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to experience old world garden farm.
Absolutely, you can even tour the gardens

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and see what we have to offer. That's right. So now let's talk

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about hanging baskets or more importantly,
how to keep them blooming, you know,

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strong and beautiful all summer long.
And to kick it off, let's

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get to the question of the week, because it really kind of sets the

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stage for everything. We get this
question more than any other about hanging baskets,

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especially this time of year. That's
right. So the question of the

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week is from Linda Crowley from Eugene, Oregon. Her question, I get

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so frustrated with my hanging baskets every
year. I could never seem to keep

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my baskets much later than the end
of June, no matter what I do.

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They start off so big and beautiful
in full blooms, but seems like

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as soon as summer rise, my
baskets just start to look awful. What

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can I do to keep them flowering? Linda, you are not alone,

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and there's a lot of things in
your statement that we're going to cover in

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today's podcast, a lot of factors
that complain to the baskets not lasting.

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So let's kind of just cover them
all. And I think, Linda,

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by the end of this podcast,
you're going to, I guess, have

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a better understanding of why and how
to keep those baskets. So for starters

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you mentioned, you know, my
baskets are always so big in the early

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spring. We talk about this all
the time. That is one thing you

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kind of want to stay away from, right Those baskets that are already huge

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in the spring, they're overgrown.
And you know what, as much as

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I love getting a hanging basket on
Mother's Day, you know those hanging baskets

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are huge and beautiful, but they're
going to be overgrown in a matter of

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weeks. Yeah. And the reason
that is is because a lot of these

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growers early on they want those to
you catch the shopper's eye. They plant

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those. I mean as far back
sometime there's November and December, and they're

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growing them in their greenhouses. And
it's great. I mean if you need

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instant caller and you're hosting a Mother's
Day brunch or you're hosting, but understand,

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those baskets, unless you replant them
into a very large basket later,

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they are not going to last.
The root structure is already too grown the

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nutrients from the soil garden, and
even if you start fertilizings, we'll get

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into a little bit their root bound
and it's impossible to try to save them.

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Right. And even if you plant
your own hanging baskets, you want

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to make sure you don't overcrowd them
and again use the larger basket sizes,

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so a lot of times in stores
you're going to see these ten and twelve

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inch baskets, and they can be
at a bargain price. There's nothing wrong

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with them, but understand when you
buy a ten or twelve inch basket,

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it's not going to be able to
last the whole year. A lot of

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times we've done this before. We
find a great deal on some hanging baskets

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and we'll bring them home. We
have our own fourteen, sixteen and eighteen

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inch baskets. That's really what you
want to say. I would say that

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sixteen inch baskets are perfect ideal.
Yeah, they can last all season long.

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They have enough soil if you grow
your planet slowly, that they're gonna

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flower all year. But I mean, no matter how rich and furtive your

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potting soil is, at the beginning
of the growing season, your baskets are

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eventually going to run out. And
even if you plant them in larger baskets,

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they're still going to take those nutrients. And when that happens, plants

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quickly fade into a mass of wilded
leaves, sparse blooms, and everybody's just

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really upset when they start to see
their baskets starts to fail. But how

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when and what you fertilize flowing baskets
with make a huge difference. Oh,

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they're critical. I mean, they're
critical factors and keeping your plants blooming and

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booming. And that is exactly why
we're gonna walk you through today's podcast.

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So let's talk about the art of
fertilizing, because it's not as simple as

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going out and just blasting your plants
with a lot of fertilizer. First of

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all, it's gonna matter what you're
using, as you said, Mary,

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and it's gonna matter how often you're
using. It's gonna matter the strength because

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just saying I'm gonna fertilize my baskets
with some giant, you know, huge

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boost of fertilizer, We're going to
talk about how that actually can really be

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an issue later on. You're absolutely
right, Jem. To give long lasting

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blooming power to your hanging baskets,
you really need to provide nutrients in a

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low and slow manner. Yeah,
I mean, if you if you don't

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fertilize your plants at all, they're
going to run out of energy. But

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if you give them too much,
and this is usually the problem, If

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you give them too much or too
large of a dose or two, you

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know, too often. That's right, your plant are gonna they're gonna spend

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all of their energy on growing.
So here's what happens. When a plant

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gets a huge dose of energy all
at once, or too much energy,

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you know, consistently, they stop
trying to produce blooms. What they do

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instead is they're like, I just
want to get bigger, and so that's

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at the expense of blooms. So
that's why just throwing a ton of fertilizer

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on is not always the answer.
No, and fertilizing is often as much

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of a problem for plants as well. It really is. I mean,

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it gives plants a few moments of
big, blooming glory and then only to

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have them become root bound and overgrown
because of again, all that growth,

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they just put it into it.
So what should you give your planners?

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You talked about it. It's low
and slow, and we're gonna get into

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that. But what do you mean
mean by low and slow. We'll get

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to that after we take a very
quick break. We'll be back to talk

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about how to feed them, the
duration you should feed your plants, and

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then also more importantly, how to
minimize the nutrients you're giving them so they

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don't grow too big, too fast. Okay, we are back and before

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the break we talked about the importance
of fertilizing and hanging baskets low and slow.

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But you know what do you fertilize
with to do that? For us,

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we really use a one two fertilizing
punch, and I mean it's worked

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for us. Mary, I'll tell
you what. We started probably doing this

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I don't know eight nine years ago
and fell in love with it because it

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is a low and slow, but
a consistent feeding that doesn't overpower plants we

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talked about to make them go root
bound, but at the same time it

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provides them just this perfect amount of
nutrients to keep those blooms coming on.

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Exactly what we call is the one
two punch. It's actually a combination of

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two different types of fertilizers that really
makes those hanging baskets look gorgeous. They

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are. And so when she says
two types, what she's talking about is

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one is a dry approach and for
us we use worm castings. They're they're

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fantastic. And then the other is
a liquid fertilizer and liquid fertilizers are gonna

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be a little bit more effective,
providing a faster energy boost to your plants.

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They can still be low and slow
depending on what you use. But

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you know, liquid absorbs through the
folier action the leaves, and it also

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absorbs to the roots where the granular
action, the dry action we talk about,

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absorbs only through the roots. So
what we do we use worm casting

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surprise. Yeah, they're just fantastic. And the reason we like worm castings

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for our hanging baskets is they won't
overpower. They don't provide too much nitrogen,

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which nitrogen is just gonna promote growth. It's not going to help you

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with this blooms as much. But
worm castings are fantastic. However, if

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you don't have worm castings or don't
want to use worm castings or purchase them,

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you can use a granular fertilizer and
all purpose. But again, you

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want to make it low. It's
got to be like a neutral five five

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five, a low base. You
don't want the nitrogen number to be too

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high. Before we get learning further
gent, let's talk about what the five

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five five means. Yeah, so
five five five good call americ because sometimes

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I just get so excited to start
talking. So we're talking about you know,

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the mp K, which is you
know, nitrogen, phosphorus, and

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potassium. So of those three numbers, that's what most fertilizers are made up

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the majority of They have a lot
of other trace nutrients, but the nitrogen

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in that number is for greening up, okay, greening and growth. When

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you think nitrogen, think of lawns. Lawn fertilizers use like thirty six and

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then two two in their NPK makeup
because they want to put a lot of

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green growth. So nitrogen important.
It's good, but too much of it

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promotes too much growth in the roots
and we'll green your plan up, but

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you won't have a lot of blooms. So what we're talking about with five

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five five, it's it's just five
percent, five percent and five percent.

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It's not a genormous amount. I
love that in term, but going back

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to my elf dates there, but
it's just going to give them a low

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and slow every month. But for
us it's worm castings. I mean,

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you don't have to worry about these
numbers. They're very low on all of

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those, but they just provide a
nice, steady approach every time you water

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those worm castings, they soak down
in exactly, So how much should you

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use per hanging basket? You know
what, that's a great question that a

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lot of people always want to know. So for us, we use a

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quarter to a half a cup of
castings on the soil surface once a month.

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Is that for a sixty inch basket
ten or twelve size? Matter?

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Yeah, I mean we do a
sixteen inch basket, So I would say

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we lean towards the half a cup. It's really about your plan. I

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mean I like that. You know, if it's a smaller basket, I

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would go a little bit smaller,
maybe a quarter cup. It's again,

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we always talked about this all the
time. Don't get so caught up in

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that perfection. It's about providing them
a set amount of nutrients. So somewhere

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between a quarter and a half cup. I would say a half cup for

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a sixteen to an eighteen inch basket. But work it in a bit.

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This is something you do, you
know, put it on the top of

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your soil. You can just use
a screwdriver or anything, just kind of

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scratch it in that surface soil just
helps it kind of get set. And

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then when you start to water or
if rains, if your baskets are out

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working rain, they're gonna go in. I mean, that's the big thing

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about worm casting, that's that slow
power that goes in. I mean,

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they're incredible. We use them everywhere
and every extra bit of power they give

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to baskets and even on our containers. We do the same thing with our

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container plants. It really is amazing
and you can see the difference. And

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I know we get this question a
lot also, jem is you know,

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can I put the worm castings too
close to the stem of the plants?

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No, not with worm castings.
You can with granular fertilizer. But worm

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castings are not going to burn anything. That's what makes them so wonderful.

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Again, we'll have a link.
We've had it on a link on most

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of our sites. You know what's
funny, we don't even we have no

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affiliation with worm castings. I'm just
telling you they work. They work for

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us everywhere, and when it comes
to containers and baskets, they really do.

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So that's the first part of the
one two punch. The second part

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of that punch is liquid fertilizing,
and we talked about it. Liquid fertilizing.

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You know, it's it's amazing because
it's going to give a boost of

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nutrients. And for this fertilizer,
you know, we talked about the NPK

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ratios nitrogen, the phosphorus and the
potassium, but this is the one that

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you're going to give your plants that
has very little nitrogen and it's going to

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boost it a lot more in the
phosphorus and the potassium to promote blooms.

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And you're talking about commercial liquid fertilizers
or like one compost T, worm casting

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T what it. Yeah, So
if you're going all organic, and I

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mean you can still get organic liquid
fertilizers too. Worm casting T and composting

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T are two of our favorites.
You know, you don't have to worry

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once again about the NPK. They're
gonna power your plants, they're gonna power

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blooms. You're not gonna have an
issue. But if you're buying a commercial

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product, even if it's organic,
whatever it is, don't get one a

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liquid fertilizer that has a higher nitrogen
number than your phosphorus or you know,

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or your potassium, because those are
what's responsible for blooms. And you want

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to higher number there. So for
us we fertilize you know, whether we're

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using compost T worm casting T it's
a little bit different. You know,

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it's once a month for every for
the dry materials the worm casting. But

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for us with the liquid fertilizer,
we like to do it, you know,

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every seven to ten days, right. And when we talk about using

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the liquid fertilizers, you know sometimes
the commercial bought ones, you don't want

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to use them at full strength.
No, no, So when you're using

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worm casting tea or compost t make
your tea, put it on every seven

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to ten days in addition to those
worm castings, and you're going to be

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fantastic. But if you're using a
commercial product where those numbers are higher,

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you know, for instance, Easy
Grow liquid concentrate, which we like.

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It's it's a great it's a great
natural way to do it. But it's

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a ten thirty twenty So you're talking
about ten parts nitrogen, thirty parts phosphorus,

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and twenty parts potassium. That's strong. If you give your plants that

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at full strength every seven to ten
days, you're gonna end up at the

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same problem. They're going to be
root bound. They might have a big

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blast of blooms, but they're not
lasting all season. So what we always

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recommend, Mary, is if you're
using commercial fertilizers and not compost t or

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worm casting tea dilute, that that's
a huge key to keeping your flowers looking

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great. You do. We're all
talking about low and slow fertilizing, you

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know, we want those baskets to
last all summer long, So you really

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have to take a low and slow
approach with both the worm castings and the

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liquid fertilizer. Yeah, and if
you're if it's if you see your plants

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are overgrowing too much, cut it
back to a third. You know,

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it's a good rule of thumb.
If you're looking at your plants and they're

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blooming great, and they're green,
and they don't show any signs of wear

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and tear, you don't have to
give them too much. You know,

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keep keep up your regiment, even
back off a little if you think it's

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growing too much. I really really
prefer compost t as as my actual liquid

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fertilizer. I think you do too. I think it's just the no danger

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zone. You're never going to over
your power plants. You're you're not going

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to overpower your plants too much.
But that to be said, sometimes you

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can't get composted to or you can't
make it, or you don't have compostor

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you can't purchase compost. And that's
where a good organic liquid fertilizer can help.

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But just don't put it on at
full strength. You read some of

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00:14:54,039 --> 00:14:56,440
those labels and they will tell you. You know, it's a pretty strong

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dose, right. You know,
when you go to purchase these, if

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you are purchasing commercial liquid fertilizers,
there are the numbers will be there.

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The NPK numbers will be on the
package, So take a peek at that

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before you just pick up the cheapest
one on the shelf or the most expensive

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one on the shelf, thinking your
flowers are gonna be great. Yeah.

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We talked about the Easy Grow which
is a ten thirty twenty and it's fantastic

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00:15:15,600 --> 00:15:18,000
and you can dilute that and it's
going to be great. But there are

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some out there. I'm one of
my favorites is Doctor Earth. They have

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a button Bloom fertilizer and here's a
great one. It's a one to one

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MPK you're talking compost t range.
You can use that full strength every seven

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to ten days and it's gonna do
wonders. But when it comes to fertilizing

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hanging basketball, I just can't stress
this enough that one two approach, having

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some worm castings or a granular fertilizer
once a month to do the topical approach

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and then seven to ten to fourteen
days with your liquid and at a reduced

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rate, or you're using a compost
t or a worm caste that is already

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reduced. That is the key.
I mean, we have this goes on

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all summer long. It does,
and we have done this I don't know

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since any of time for us,
and it just people always ask us come

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August, oh my gosh, how
do you keep your baskets looking so great?

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And it's not us, it's just
that fact that we've not overpowered them.

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We've purchased smaller baskets in the beginning. Even if you plant your own

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baskets, don't fill it so much
with plants. Allow them time to grow,

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because then you get late in the
season and they just look so much

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more. Promise they'll grow even if
you plant just a few plants in there

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and they'll be by the end of
summer, they'll be huge. That's right.

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So let's just kind of wrap this
up. I think we've hammered home

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the fertilizing. You know, you
start with bigger containers. Don't buy overly

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large plants. I mean, that's
a big key, more than anything else,

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to getting into last all season.
And then you fertilize regularly but with

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a light feeding. Yeah, it
keeps plants blooming but not overgrowing. I

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mean, you use a fertilizer with
a bit more phosphorus and nitrogen when you're

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getting into your liquids. And my
favorite as you use wormcastings once a month.

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They work. Yeah, and then
last but not least. I just

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I just want to throw this in
there. So let's say you get to

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right now or July, I August. We're sitting in mid June, right

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now here as we do this podcast. But if you get to that point

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and you realize your basket is overgrown, I mean you're pouring water on and

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it's pouring. Yeah, but don't
throw that plant away and don't put it

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00:17:15,559 --> 00:17:18,559
in the compass pole. A great
thing you can do. Okay, yes,

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00:17:18,599 --> 00:17:21,759
you can replant it. Replant it
in a basket. That's probably you

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00:17:21,799 --> 00:17:23,880
know. Thirty three to fifty percent
bigger, so you can make it last

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00:17:23,880 --> 00:17:26,720
a year. But sometimes you already
have a big basket and you're like,

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I can't find a container this big. Don't throw it away. Take it

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00:17:30,680 --> 00:17:34,200
out into a flower bed somewhere,
dig down and plan it like an annual

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plant, and fertilize a little bit. You will be amazed. We've done

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00:17:37,480 --> 00:17:42,400
this with petunia plants, marigold plants
that have gotten overly large. Within weeks

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00:17:42,839 --> 00:17:47,759
they will be the biggest showstopper and
your flower beds around. Yeah, they're

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00:17:47,759 --> 00:17:51,440
absolutely beautiful. It's a great way
to repurpose the hanging baskets that they're just

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totally overgrown. It really is.
So we probably beat fertilizing into the ground

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00:17:56,359 --> 00:18:00,000
here, get it. But anyway, I think it's time Mary and remember

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or whatever you do, find the
fun and gardening and gross uply beautiful.

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All right, until next week,
everyone, happy gardening. We hope you've

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enjoyed this episode. Subscribe to the
Simple Garden podcast on iTunes, Apple Podcasts,

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00:18:11,400 --> 00:18:15,039
Spotify, or most of your favorite
podcast apps. You can also head

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00:18:15,079 --> 00:18:18,400
over to simplegardenlife dot com, where
you can listen and read all of the

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00:18:18,400 --> 00:18:22,599
show notes to every episode and if
you have any questions, any ideas for

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00:18:22,640 --> 00:18:26,039
show topics, or if you want
to share your favorite garden tip, email

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00:18:26,119 --> 00:18:30,319
us at the Farm at owgarden dot
com. Until next time, Thanks everyone,