NPK Fertilizer

NPK fertilizer has the three main ingredients that healthy plants need. They are nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. We will talk about it today so you know exactly what your plants need. There are other things that plants need as well and we will mention them below.

NPK fertilizer helps all of our flowers look beautiful.

Here on this page, we are giving you information according to what we do on David's Garden Seeds® Farm. David has worked in gardens since he was a child. When he was 12, his parents moved away from San Antonio to a ranch in Leakey, Texas that his mother inherited. They built a home and had cattle, sheep, rabbits, and goats, even a large, stocked fishing pond. He loved living out there. While there, the family had a large garden with a 12 foot electrified fence to keep the deer out. David spent many hours each week working in the garden and learned to hate it. He left home at age 18 and joined the Army as soon as he graduated from high school. In fact, he told his father he would never set foot in a garden again! LOL!

Once we got married in 1987, David had a garden almost every year, making it his favorite hobby and he learned how to grow all sorts of garden plants. In 2009, he turned his love of gardening into a profitable business selling seeds and plants.

NPK Fertilizer - 4/10-4/16/2023

Monday, April 10, 2023

David is putting a new timer for our NPK fertilizer that will go to the raised beds around the Farm Store.

Good Monday to you! We had a great few days off for the Easter holiday. This morning I had bills to pay and now I am waiting on the accountant to finish payroll so I can write paychecks. I am also going to be cleaning out the pond in a few minutes.

David and I went to Tractor Supply for some NPK fertilizer supplies. While we were gone, we had a customer. Matt waited on him. It has stayed overcast all weekend long and today. There is just a whitish, gray sky with a few sprinkles.

I spoke with the guy from Trimlight Edge. Last fall, our decorative lights went out after a thunderstorm. They had to replace a part inside of the control panel. So this past Friday morning, after Thursday night thunderstorms, same thing. No lights outside and none inside the control panel. The guy said he would come either tomorrow or Wednesday. He says no one else has this problem. Maybe they did not install ours correctly...It is plugged into one of those surge protector plugs so there should not be a problem.

Last Thursday night, we had thunderstorms. Friday morning, our Trimlight Edge control box was dead, just like last fall. This is in the Farm Store.

I just finished cleaning out the pond. The water came out super dark brown from the filter. I have added de-chlorinator and I am waiting for the required 30 minutes before I can fill it.

The pond is filling and I had a sprinkle while I was outside so maybe we will get some rain. It is certainly a lot darker in the Farm Store than it was earlier.

Still no payroll but the date is April 10 so I am sure our accountant is super busy with tax returns. However, I need some money, at least $500, to pick up David's most expensive prescription and, yes, that is how much it costs every month.

The mailman came. Time to get new tags for David's truck.

The grow tower lettuce is starting to put out a bunch of new lettuce after I harvested it last week. The top row wasn't doing much so I bent the grow lights up just a tad and now those lettuce leaves on the top row are getting bigger.

David wants to go to Hondo this week, maybe on Thursday to get some more NPK fertilizers. We now have a Wednesday morning appointment to go to a doctor at 7:45am in San Antonio. That means we leave the farm at 6:45am. It is hard to believe we used to get up at 5am and leave the farm each morning by 6am to get to our store in San Antonio during covid back in 2020. This past Thursday, the rain was really coming down so we had to cancel a doctor appointment that we had made eight weeks before and now the receptionist won't let us in for two weeks. David texted the doctor personally so we are going in on Wednesday morning...It should be interesting...

NPK Fertilizer

Our grow tower has a lot growing in it. This was all fertilized with NPK fertilizers that came with the grow tower when David bought it about three years ago.

Fertilizers add what your soil does not have so you get healthy plants that produce good quality food. They also replace whatever nutrients were depleted from last year's garden. While we are on that subject, you should be rotating your crops every year so that your plants get the most out of the soil's nutrients. Different plants need different things in the soil.

Why NPK? NPK fertilizer was created by a scientist named Justus von Liebig back in the 1840s. Several other scientists perfected the idea over the next 60 or so years. Now, all fertilizers follow the NPK Fertilizer method because these are the big three ingredients that every plant fertilizer needs. Of course, there are other things plants need but in as big a quantity or percentage as the Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium.

If you plant a garden each year, planting the same vegetables in the exact same space every year, it is time to fertilize and to move your crops to different areas of the yard.

Tuesday, April 11, 2023

For the first time in many days, the sun came out!

Hello! The sun came out early this morning for the first time in a really long time. The baby chicks are doing well. I watered all of my plants. I helped David with some form so we can pay property taxes on our business, just after we paid our income taxes. Fun times.

It is lunchtime and we have our second customer of the day looking at plants. We are down to our last tomato plants. They are on sale now for $2.95 each or two for $5. That is just the tomato plants.

My peanuts have still not come up. I wonder if it is because it has been down in the 50s over this past weekend...

We have eggs in the refrigerator for sale. $5 a dozen for beautiful colored eggs. There are many places out this way selling them for $6 and $7 a dozen.

One woman came in and got 34 tomato plants today. She bought others as well.

NPK Fertilizer - Nitrogen

Hydroponics in the greenhouse. David fertilizes these about once a month.

Nitrogen is what helps your garden plants make protein. If your plants are yellowing or have turned a pale shade of green, they need nitrogen. They may have weak stems as well. If you give them too much nitrogen, your plants will produce a lot of beautiful, lush, green leaves but not put out any fruit or flowers. Nitrogen also helps your plants grow faster. Slow growing, unhealthy looking plants probably need nitrogen.

Wednesday, April 12, 2023

Some of the chicks in a galvanized tub next to the hot plate brooder. This is much safer than a heat lamp.

Hello! It is 11:55am and 72°. I just finished watering our plants out in the parking lot. Our watering outdoor guy is now not coming in until the end of the week and no one was watering them so many were wilting in the heat. It took me a while, but I got them all watered.

The sun rose while we were on the freeway going into San Antonio.

We left the farm at 6:45am when it was 48° Fahrenheit to get to the doctor by 7:45am. San Antonio traffic gets worse each time we go into town. It took us a whole hour with stop and go traffic on the freeway. I am so thankful to be out of there and living out in the country. Also thankful for a wonderful doctor who got us in so early. I was in some major pain. Whatever he injected in my foot, he needs to put in the other foot next week. I am feeling no pain.

After that, we drove to Hondo so David could get some NPK fertilizer from Medina. He also spoke to the owner about getting some compost starter for our very large compost pile to make it heat up and turn to compost faster. The sand does not do well to help our stuff compost because it does not heat up and it does not hold water or oxygen.

Then I did some stuff in the house and grabbed an early lunch. We had customers before I got in here. Also, the mailman already came for the day. It is a beautiful day, bright, sunny, blue skies, fluffy clouds.

An old photo of my grandmother, Elvina Yorgensen. She was a good cook, too. She didn't take charity when bad things happened. She got to work!

Today is my grandmother's birthday. Her name was Elvina Yorgensen and if she were still alive, she would turn 115 today. She taught me a lot about life. Grandpa Yorgensen died when I was six years old. She was an excellent seamstress so she got to work sewing clothes to make a living from her home. Word of mouth spread all over Duchess County and she was always busy with folks coming in and out of her home almost everyday. She had five sewing machines set up all over the house to do different functions. She made gorgeous wedding gowns, evening gowns, and every day clothes. She used to make coats for me when I was little. I was always dressed adorably with beautiful garments that she would make me.

Pole beans growing in the greenhouse.

NPK Fertilizer - Phosphorus

Phosphorus is what helps plants bud and set fruit. It also encourages good, strong roots and helps the plant make seeds. Phosphorus also processes the sunlight that the plant receives into energy that the plant needs.

Thursday, April 13, 2023

It had been clear but the fog moved in after 8am.

Good Thursday morning. It got down to 52°. The sun came up and it looked pretty. Then an hour later, the fog moved in. By 9am, it was pretty thick with fog out here.

The housekeeper is supposed to come this morning. Pest control is supposed to come this morning. We are having Brendon's birthday party this morning.

One week ago tonight, we had thunderstorms. Last Friday morning, I saw that the lights were out. When you pay over $5,000 for lighting for the front of the property, you expect it to work. This is the second time they have gone out. The first time was in October of 2022 after a thunderstorm. We got the lights last summer. Yes, they are plugged into one of those grounding plugs put in by the Trimlight Edge people. So on Monday, we contacted them. They say no one else has this trouble. Maybe our lights were not installed properly then because we have not touched them. I can't even reach the plug with a stepladder because they are up so high in the Farm Store.

Last time, they had to replace a part in the indoor panel. This time, they said they would come Tuesday or Wednesday. At 4pm yesterday, I contacted the guy and he said he was too busy. Now he says he is coming Friday morning at 11am. So the lights will have been out for a whole week and nothing has been done. I really think we were doing okay with the Christmas lights that we had hanging...

We have had several good sales this morning. Our outdoor guy is here planting seedlings in the garden beds. We celebrated Brendon with an early morning tres leches cake, which, by the way, is delicious. Our pest control guy came and we had a good visit. Our teen helpers were here and did a good job for us. I moved a bunch of plants up for sale from my greenhouse and I still have more to bring up. Some have to be transplanted. Our housekeeper brought her daughter along so they are moving quickly on the house. I finally got our medical claims filed. So much paperwork. I hate it. By the time I finished, I missed the mailman again as he came at 10:40am. So it is in the outgoing mail for tomorrow, all five ounces of claims for three people. I am glad that is done. Did I mention I hate paperwork?

Some have gone home for the day, others are at lunch, and Matt left for a dental appointment. All of our appointments are done for today and I am eating a late lunch. It is just after 1pm. The sun came out and it is 74°.

The chicks are doing well, starting to feather, and are constantly shoving wood shavings into their water. I emptied it out three times today so they could drink. It got pretty warm in the shed where we have them right now with the brooder. We had to open the window but this evening, I had to close it up again.

Free Seed Samples

Seeds in a counting machine are accurately counted. We almost always add a few just to make sure.

We recently had another request for free gear and free seeds this week because these people like our stuff. They say they have made a lot of orders to us but we could not find any orders in our records...We get requests like this all the time. We are not a big, wealthy company. We are a small business, built from a table in our home almost 14 years ago to a small farm store and some buildings on the farm we bought almost four years ago. David, Matt, and I work our tails off every day, seven days a week, including nights to get the work all done. We had to downsize last year because the sales went way down for many businesses, including ours. We do not have the money to give away our inventory and pay for free shipping for people who want us to give our things away for no money. Do they work for free?

We do not give out seed samples or our gear, even though we get asked by a lot of people. We are a for profit company because this is our job, our bread and butter. It is how we eat and it is how the families of those who work for us eat.

Seed sales are slow this year due to high prices of food, gas, and everything so people have less money to spend on seeds. Most of the seed company sales are down per what our friends in the business tell us. I also think weather is a factor this year. There is still cold and snow over much of the northern half of the USA.

The only gear we have now are our trucker hats and those cost quite a bit to make. They are not and have never been free. If you want one, you can purchase one here.

We also sell our chicken eggs for $5 a dozen. It costs a lot of money to feed and take care of a flock and $5 is not very much money considering all of the things we have to buy to take care of them. There are a lot of sellers out here who are getting $6 and $7 a dozen for their eggs so we feel that $5 for a dozen, good, organic, farm fresh eggs is a pretty good deal on great protein. That is about 42¢ per egg. The yokes are a beautiful orange and taste delicious.

NPK Fertilizer - Potassium

Large tomato plants growing in the greenhouse.

Potassium allows the plants to grow strong and healthy. Plants with low potassium content tend to be stunted and won't grow much, if any, fruit. It promotes disease resistance. Potassium also builds sugars and starches in plants so that fruits and vegetables form well and taste good. It helps with the movement of water in the plants.

Friday, April 14, 2023

This is our new brooder. It is not upside down. This is how this one goes. I know how to read and inside, the bottom says this side down...Yes, someone here told me it is upside down...LOL!

Well, here it is Friday morning already. It feels nice out there. I took Ethel out a few minutes ago. It is still dark. Everyone else is still asleep in the house. It is currently 62° Fahrenheit.

It is now 9:15am. It is overcast and misting. I unlocked the store, fed the fish and then went out front to take a photo of our gate with a gray sky. I noticed that our mailbox looked kind of funny. Somebody slammed into it and bent it. The door will no longer shut and it is all crooked. It looks drunk or like a drunk hit it in the night. I wonder what happened. Of course, it is not even on our property. The post office won't allow it so it is on the next property. They have to have mailboxes so many feet apart and the group of mailboxes on the other side, two lots down is too close for us to have ours by us.

Someone hit our mailbox...

Our mailbox is now very crooked and will not close. Not sure what happened.

Trimlight Edge is coming at 9:30am instead of 11am now. My peanuts still have not come up, probably because it has not been warm enough again with nights getting down to 48° and 52°. The baby chicks are doing well and getting big. The fish seem to be doing fine.

There is a nasty burning smell in the air, like someone is burning trash even though it is not legal to do so at this time.

The Strawberry Festival in Poteet started last night and runs today, tomorrow, and Sunday so I am not expecting customers. Last year, we did not have one customer at all while the festival was going in, even though we were running specials.

If anyone needs top quality, Non-GMO, heirloom seeds, we are here. We do not do a booth at the festival because they play constant loud music and because they demand we stay each night until midnight at the booth. No. We are too old for that. We used to do shows. If I make it until 9am.

The Trimlight guy showed up and had to replace the same part that was replaced last fall and it works again. He said there was some black on the wires inside of the Trimlight box but the outlet was still protected because it is grounded so the outlet worked. He is going to try to find out why ours keeps blowing but none of his other customers have these problems. He had it all fixed and set back up in 18 minutes.

I have gone over to the house twice now to get lunch and right after I get there, someone else comes. I guess it is a nice problem to have, but I am hungry. Our first customers came to get some tomato plants and then their car broke down so they are still here. The next ones came and left and now some more but the first one is still out there. I think he has help coming. Next door, they keep bringing in truckloads of dirt or gravel and there are noisy machines going. I have no idea what they are doing.

It is almost noon and I would love to eat but I am here. We have a skeleton crew here today and everyone but me is in David's building helping with getting seeds up to Amazon. I know David will want lunch soon so I guess then he will have to send someone. For now, here I am.

I finally got the chance to make some meatloaf sandwiches for David and me. I feel much better. The customers whose vehicle broke down, are still here. Matt gave them a jump, but it did not help. The guy thinks it is his starter. It is now 12:45pm and it is 74°, still overcast. The neighbors seem to be putting gravel down in their long driveway. I have been hearing trucks and a little tractor/dirt mover over there while working.

It is now 1:20pm and the customers with the broken down vehicle were able to get it going so they are gone.

I just cleaned out the pond and will be refilling it soon. Right now I am waiting the 30 minutes for the de-chlorinator to work. The water was filthy and I just cleaned it on Monday of this week. I am still cleaning pollen out of the pond. It is 79° and getting pretty warm.

Tonight, 111 years ago, Titanic hit that awful iceberg so we watched the movie Titanic to commemorate the tragedy. In May of 2019, we visited the Titanic Museum in Branson, MO. It was really cool to see. The outside looks like a ship and the inside is all done up like the Titanic.

All four dozen of my eggs sold today so I have to pack more for tomorrow.

NPK Fertilizer - Other Ingredients In Fertilizer

Garden vegetables ready to go into the garden beds. These were started in the greenhouse.

Calcium, manganese, magnesium, copper, sulfur, boron, zinc, molybdenum, chlorine, and iron are also needed by plants. They can be included as fillers in fertilizers.

It is best to add fertilizer in small amounts. Think of it like this: Less is more... With some ingredients, it is not good to add a lot. It can burn your plants and add unhealthy amounts of nutrients to your soil and to the water tables. Do not fertilize frequently. David fertilizes once the plant is established and then once a month only after that. He does test the pH of the soil with a kit he gets on Amazon. David prefers using liquid fish fertilizer and liquid seaweed fertilizer. Slow release fertilizers are the way to go instead of dumping everything on the plants all at once.

Saturday, April 15, 2023

I cleaned the pond filter but now it needs to be filled up again...

Good morning. I have been awake since 5:40am, trying to get things done like laundry, dishes, watering plants, taking care of animals, etc. I have four dozen fresh eggs in the store for sale plus a lot of beautiful plants including tomato plants, and we are opening right now.

It is noon and I have had a lot of customers so far. In fact, my feet hurt and I am tired. I made us some sandwiches for lunch and now I am waiting for the second wave of customers. Last year during the festival, not a single person came by but they are sure coming here today. I sold a few more tomatoes but so many want to grow their own. Even though I tell them they don't have time to grow tomatoes here now, they still buy the seeds. This is why we started tomato plants, because it is just too late to start them from seed. The tomato plants have flowers and tomatoes on them already.

Interestingly, no one bought farm fresh eggs today. You just never know when they are going to come in asking for them.

At 2pm, I closed the store and did not have anymore guests. I came home and pulled down all of the DVDs we have in the living room. We cannot find anything so they need to be organized. I also had to dust them all because no one ever dusts them when they come to clean.

At 5pm, I locked up and fed all of the animals. Matt came over a little after 6pm and grilled steaks for Svengoolie. It was a pretty good movie, but then I fell asleep and woke up for the ending.

NPK Fertilizer - The Numbers

Below are some examples taken off of some containers of liquid fertilizer that came with the Tower Garden grow tower we display in our Farm Store.

0-1-3 means zero nitrogen, 1% phosphorus, and 3% potassium are in this grow tower liquid fertilizer.

2-0-0 means 2% nitrogen, zero phosphorus, and zero potassium in this liquid fertilizer for my grow tower.

Every time you see a package of NPK fertilizer, there will be three numbers like 10-10-10 (10% nitrogen, 10& phosphorus, and 10% potassium), 24-0-0 (24% nitrogen, 0% phosporus, 0% potassium), or 5-5-5 (5% nitrogen, 5% phosphorus, 5% potassium). The first number always refers to the amount of (N) nitrogen in the fertilizer. The second number always refers to (P) phosphorus. The third number always refers to (K) potassium. It is always in this order.

Before you add fertilizer, you need to test your soil. Guessing is not good. Pick up a soil test kit at a local garden center (we do not carry these) or order one off of Amazon. Test your soil and then you will know what your soil is lacking. Testing will help you choose the correct fertilizer for your garden this year.

If you need the best heirloom, Non-GMO seeds, just visit David's Garden Seeds®.

Sunday, April 16, 2023

Well, good Sunday morning! It is quite breezy and a bit chilly but bright and sunny. My head hurt for most of the day, I guess due to the junk blowing in the air. I was going to transplant some plants but the wind was blowing too much. It would have blown dirt in my eyes. Been there, done that before on breezy days.

I got the TV side of the DVDs organized, mostly in the den. The Christmas DVDs were put into a separate cabinet. Now all of the movie DVDs have to be alphabetized and organized but this will be done on another day.

Matt came over this afternoon and we watched the 1953 version of The Old Dark House which was weird but more enjoyable than the 1931 version shown on Svengoolie last week. Then Matt went home and we did not do much.

Four of my peanut plants started coming up but the temperature at night keeps getting too low.

The baby chicks are getting big. We had to cover the tub with shade cloth because they were starting to fly out and they are only over one week old.

NPK Fertilizer - Animal Manure And Frequency

We dry out and then bag our rabbit manure and sell it as fertilizer for the garden.

Back when I was a young girl, my grandfather always had a huge garden, growing all sorts of vegetables that I never heard of as well as beautiful tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, etc. He talked about putting cow manure in the dirt. I always wondered why. Keep in mind I was very young and thought number two was throw away stuff, no matter where it came from, yet he talked about how it helped his garden. He would mix it in with the garden soil in the fall and grow the most incredible things the next summer. This was in upstate New York.

Here on the farm, we have mixed in some rabbit manure because it does not burn plants and because we have rabbits. We also compost chicken manure and add that in. But most of the time, we don't use manure to fertilize our garden. As I said previously, David likes to use the fish fertilizer in liquid form. When the hose is running with it, it smells like you are at the ocean.

You should fertilize your garden area once in early spring from March to April before you plant, in late spring in mid May when the plants are beginning to really take off and again in late fall once your crops are harvested. Here in Texas, by May, we have harvested most of our plants and it is about to get too hot for anything else to grow until fall. So for Texas, February is a better time for the first fertilizer application and mid April is a better time for the second. The last fertilizer application should probably be somewhere in late November or mid December, depending on when that first frost hits each year.

Return from NPK Fertilizer to Garden Ideas

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