Liquid fertilizers and other solutions

Question

I am searching for organic/natural ways to feed the soil & the plants and to let beneficial microbial and fungal colonies thrive. What I am not good at is timing, and the exact recipes of solutions. What is the best solution recipe recommended for

1. Foliar growth(nitrogen rich)?
2. Increasing flowering rate and quantity?
3. Increasing the size of fruits/crops?

And when to introduce these solutions?

Answer 1

For the organic gardening that you're planning, you'll want a mix of both slow-release fertilizers that's incorporated into the soil and water-soluble nutrients for your drip line. Mixing in a liquid nutrient system with the drip line is called fertigation and it is used to some extent in organic farming, but not terribly common as far as I know. Search for "organic fertigation" and you'll have plenty to read up on...I'll go through some basics here.

Slow-release fertilizers take time to break down and aren't readily available by the plants, but they're important because they help feed the soil. If you want a good microbial and mycelium community, you need to feed the soil in addition to the plants. Better soil is better for your plants and saves you from losing your water soluble fertilizers to runoff. Common examples are: compost, manure, bone meal, blood meal, rock phosphate, dolamite lime, gypsum, guano (dry).

Water soluble fertilizers are nice, but you run into the problem where most organic fertilizers are emulsions or basically dissolved rock. You'll end up having to do some sort of filtering system to prevent clogs. If you look up organic fertigation, you'll get a lot more tips and tricks. You'll need to consider what level of organic you want---some of the best water soluble fertilizers are rocks/minerals that are mined. Some people don't consider it organic, but they are natural...

As for specifics to your questions, there are some general recommendations, but different crops will need different proportions and amounts. Organic farmers are able to make do with just slow release fertilizers without exact timing, so I wouldn't worry too much as long as you're not relying entirely on water soluble mixes. Check the NPK.

1. Foliar growth - nitrogen sources: liquid fish / bat guano.
2. Flowering rate/quantity - usually phosphorus and potassium, with a decrease in nitrogen. The water soluble ones I usually find as rocks. There are water soluble crushed ones available in OMRI listings.
3. Fruit ripening/set/size - this is very species dependent but it'll be dependent on previous growth up to the fruiting stage and flavor can be affected by micronutrients.
4. When? Timing is very species dependent. You can look up nutrient absorbtion charts for your crop and try to match it.

Answer 2

It really depends on how strict you mean by "organic" and "natural" I mean, blood meal and bone meal are "organic" (they come from animals) and "natural" but they're byproducts of slaughterhouse so I don't know if you would consider that "organic organic"

Blood meal has a NPK of 12-1.5-0.5, whereas Bone meal varies.

Here's a great link if you want to learn more. https://www.epicgardening.com/blood-meal/

Also if you looking for a natural liquid way to boost nitrogen, this is something most people don't talk about - human urine (but of course this depends on how comfortable you'd be in using something like that in gardening)