Vegetable Garden Fertilizer
Tips for a Healthy Garden

Healthy, fertile garden soil is the foundation of having a healthy productive vegetable garden.

Learn the best vegetable garden fertilizer tips, such as using compost, and other organic  fertilizers.

Also, we offer great tips on how to build healthy conditioned soil using organic materials to add nutrients!

Choosing the right fertilizer is one of the most important decisions you make for your vegetable garden soil.

This page is part of our Soil, Fertilizer and Composting hub, where you will find complete guides to composting, mulching, making compost tea, using horse manure, and building the rich vegetable garden soil that productive crops depend on.

Add Compost and Mulch to Your Garden Soil

Soil, Fertilizer and Composting — complete hub for building rich vegetable garden soil through composting, fertilizing, mulching, and manure

How to Fertilize Vegetable Gardens

Organic vegetable garden fertilizer chart; click on image to download.

For best gardening results, there are two important steps to creating ideal vegetable garden soil.

Most garden soil will need to modified by adding organic materials including fertilizer.

1. Add nutrients--this is what the plants use for food.

Design Your Own Vegetable Garden Layout Using our Free "Vegetable Garden Planner" Software!

2. Add conditioners--these create the ideal soil conditions so that the plants can make best use of the nutrients.

Mulch, leaf mold, aged manure, and compost all help to condition the soil.

In addition to a slightly acid, loose, crumbly soil, vegetables require high quality garden fertilizer nutrients.

All growing vegetables need the naturally occurring elements: potassium, nitrogen, and phosphorous.

Healthy Fertile Soil with Baby Bean Sprout

Potassium is used by plants to make and move sugars, is necessary for root growth, and helps the plant to retain water.

Phosphorous is needed for fruit and flower development.

Nitrogen is vital for forming new cells.

By applying garden fertilizer regularly, you provide the soil with what it requires to remain in the best condition.

Gardening with Compost

Make your own compost at home graphic; click on image to download.

Garden fertilizer is beneficial to give your soil an extra boost or correct a soil deficiency.

• Composting and mulching are of great benefit to vegetable gardens by adding organic materials to help condition the soil. 

• Adding manures is a natural way to supply the garden bed with the three major nutrients the plants need. 

• Horse, rabbit, and sheep manure is considered hot due to its high level of nitrogen.

Homemade Compost is a Great Addition to Your Garden

Feeding Your Soil Between Seasons
Using Cover Crops

Using cover crops as fertilizer to enrich vegetable garden soil.

Fertilizer isn't the only way to build healthy soil. Cover crops are one of the oldest tricks in the book, and one of the most effective.

A cover crop is simply a crop you grow to improve the soil, not to eat. Planted in the off-season or between vegetable crops, it adds organic matter, prevents erosion, and in many cases adds nitrogen right back into the ground for free.

Clover and hairy vetch are both excellent nitrogen-fixers, making them ideal if your soil needs a real boost before next season's heavy feeders like tomatoes or corn.

Field peas do similar work while growing quickly enough for a short fall or winter cover. Rye, oats, and annual ryegrass are better suited to erosion control and weed suppression, especially over winter.

Buckwheat is the fastest of the bunch, ready to turn under in just four to six weeks, which makes it a good choice for a quick gap between spring and fall crops.

Mustard has the added benefit of suppressing soil-borne pests and diseases as it breaks down.

Timing matters with cover crops. Most go in during late summer or early fall, though a few work as a quick spring or summer cover too.

The key is turning them into the soil before they go to seed, usually by mowing, chopping, or tilling them under.

Left too long, a cover crop can become a weed problem instead of a soil solution.

Using a cover crop during any stretch when a bed would otherwise sit bare is one of the simplest ways to keep your soil improving year after year, rather than slowly wearing down.

Using Manure as Garden Fertilizer

Composting horse manure step by step guide for making vegetable garden fertilizer; click image to download.

Cow and hog waste is described as cold because it is wetter and lower in nitrogen.

Hot manures must be aged before being added to the site to avoid burning the plants.

Well-aged horse manure is often used as vegetable garden fertilizer. See chart above for complete horse-manure composting guide.

The urine of most animals contains higher levels of potassium and nitrogen than solids and can be collected as vegetable garden fertilizer in animal bedding if you keep your own livestock.

• Fresh farmyard manure can give off ammonia and scorch growing plants.  

• Age the vegetable garden fertilizer for 6 moths to one year in a compost bin before using.

Natural Vegetable Garden Fertilizer

Use Well-Aged Manure as Fertilizer

Well-aged manure can be added as fertilizer to the vegetable garden at any time.

As the garden site rests for winter in the fall, fresh cow and sheep waste can be dug into sandy soil.

Only use well-rotted manure on heavy soils.

• Seaweed is high in nutrients and helps unlock micro-nutrients from the soil. Use at any time as a plant growth booster.

• Straw combined with nitrogen rich grass clippings makes good springtime mulch for light soils.

• Powdered rock dust added solves some mineral deficiencies in the vegetable garden.

• Carbon rich peanut shells help aerate compost piles to be used as vegetable garden fertilizer.

• Fall leaves that have been stored for a year in a compost bin make great mulch.

Add a Layer of Compost to Garden Each Year

Green Manure from Plants

Vegetable garden mulching layers graphic; click image to download.

Planting cover crops to be used as green manure has been practiced for centuries.

This vegetable gardening practice provides a living layer of plants to fertilize the soil.

As the garden fertilizer plants grow, minerals are brought to the surface.

More nutrients are added to the plot after you dig the cover crops into the garden. Green manure crops also deter vegetable plant diseases, pests, and weeds.

Healthy Soil Makes a Happy Garden

Potash

Your Garden will Thrive in Healthy Fertile Soil

• For many moons, ash was used as vegetable garden fertilizer.

In more recent times, this technique has fallen by the wayside.

There was some concern raised about the toxic residues causing harm to the plants.

• It is recommended to use potassium rich greensand instead of coal ash if the soil is deficient.

Clover

Clover plants add nitrogen to the soil which in turn feeds the plants.

Clover planted as vegetable garden cover crop suppresses weeds and adds nutrients which act as fertilizer for the garden.

For example, mustard planted in early spring or fall, prevents weeds and fertilizes the following crop.

Vegetable Gardening Tips

• Do not let mustard go to seed or you will be forever pulling it from your garden! 

• Buy green manures by the pound to save money!

• Compost can be spread or dug in as vegetable garden fertilizer at any time.

For a thorough, research-based guide to fertilizing a vegetable garden — covering soil testing, NPK ratios, how to read a fertilizer label, application rates, and timing — the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service at agrilifeextension.tamu.edu has one of the most practical fertilizer guides available for home vegetable gardeners.

Texas A&M AgriLife Extension — Fertilizing a Garden — research-based guide covering soil testing, NPK ratios, fertilizer labels, and application rates for vegetable gardens

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