Writing and reviewing a feeding plan

Early August in the small backyard. Like every case in this course, it is an instructional example, set in one temperate Northern Hemisphere city at about 40° N (USDA zone 7a). The household's two adults share the trees: one does a round of checks before work, the other a round in the evening. A week after rinsing the salts out of the trident maple's pot (Lesson 5), they sit down at the bench by the back door, where every can is mixed, and lay their feeding notes side by side.

The notes explain the trident. Since mid-June, when its paled older leaves and short shoots pointed to a shortage (Lesson 1), each of them has fed it the 8-4-6 at the label's outdoor line about once a week, each sure they were the only one. The label says every 14 days, so together they gave it about four times the label's supply (Lesson 2), except in their first two weeks of July away, when the neighbor only watered. By late July it had a white crust on its rim, brown leaf edges, and an afternoon droop in a moist pot.

The notes also show what is missing. The Chinese elm (Ulmus parvifolia), repotted in April into a free-draining mix of pumice and akadama and growing again since May, was meant to start on the 8-4-6 in June. Neither set of notes mentions it: each of them thought the other was feeding it, so for two months it has had nothing at all. The larch, which one of them restarted in June and has fed alone every 14 days, was fed exactly as its label says. And every can either of them mixed was measured correctly, at the strength its label gives. The arithmetic was never the problem.

On the west balcony, the owner leaves in a week for the two weeks away that come every August. The friend who will water every second day knows the checks and the watering card from last summer, and has never been asked to feed anything (Course 03, Lesson 6). The household and the balcony owner both have the label. This lesson turns it into a plan that anyone who helps can follow: the amount for your can and how to measure it, the checks that come before every feed, a record of every feeding, a review of the plan against how the tree grows, and a card that holds it all.

From label rate to a can

A feeding plan starts from one line of a fertilizer's label: the line for your use. For the household's trident, larch, and elm, that is the 8-4-6's line for outdoor containers: “Outdoor containers, including bonsai kept outdoors: 4 mL per 1 L of water, every 14 days while plants are actively growing.” Like every product label in this course, it is a fictional label made for this course. Its numbers belong to the exercise; your own product's label decides your rate (Lesson 2).

The line gives a rate: an amount of concentrate for each liter of water. The amount for a can is that rate times the water in the can, and mixing it is a dilution:

• The 2 L (about half a gallon) can at the outdoor line: 4 mL per 1 L × 2 L = 8 mL of concentrate.
• The same can at half strength: half of 8 mL, which is 4 mL. That is how the west balcony's trident began in late May: its first two feeds after its March repot were at half strength, before the full line from late June (Lesson 4).
• A powder: the 14-4-14's outdoor line is 1 level scoop (1 g) per 1 L of water, so 3 L of water in the 5 L can takes 3 level scoops (3 g).

Write the units at every step, because the arithmetic depends on what each rate is per. The 8-4-6's rate is per liter of water, not per can and not per pot, so a 5 L (about 1.3 gallons) can filled partway takes the rate for the water actually in it. Granules and cakes are measured against the pot instead, by its volume or its width, so read the base before you multiply.

Units, tools, and rounding

Measure with the tools Lesson 2 named, a measuring syringe or the bottle's marked cap for a liquid and the product's level scoop for a powder, never a kitchen spoon, and keep them for feeding only, stored with the product. Two more habits keep the arithmetic honest.

Know your can. A can sold as 2 L may hold more to its brim, and the household's 5 L can is often filled only partway. Fill each can once from a measuring jug, a liter at a time, and mark the lines inside it with a waterproof pen, so that the water in the arithmetic is the water in the can.

Round to what your tool measures, and write the rounded amount down. A US gallon of water, about 3.8 L, at the outdoor line takes 4 mL per 1 L × 3.8 L = 15.2 mL. A syringe in 1 mL steps measures that as 15 mL, as does the cap filled once to its 10 mL line and once to its 5 mL line, so the card says “about 15 mL”. A scoop measures only whole scoops, so with a powder, choose an amount of water the scoops divide evenly: at 1 g per 1 L, whole liters.

The arithmetic says how much, not whether

A correct sum answers one question: how much concentrate makes the label's strength in the water in your can. It cannot tell you whether this tree should be fed today. That comes from the card, the log, the tree, and the root zone, so check them before you measure anything, and let them choose one of the three feeding decisions (Lesson 4):

1. The card and the log (the plan card and the record this lesson builds). Which product and line does this tree get, and when was it last fed? A feed is due when the card's interval has passed since the tree's last line in the log, not when a can happens to be out. Until then, the decision is Not now: hold the feed.
2. The tree. Is it growing, with roots that are working? A tree resting for the season, a tree whose roots were cut back and that shows no new growth yet, or a tree under stress in a heat wave gets Not now: hold the feed too.
3. The root zone. Check it as you would before watering, with the lift test and a chopstick (Course 03, Lesson 2). At Moist, Feed as planned. At Drying or drier, the pot is due for water anyway: Feed as planned: water first, then feed the moist mix. Wet from rain or a recent watering: Not now: hold the feed until it drains back to Moist, later that day or the next. Wet for days in warm weather, standing in water, smelling sour, or drooping or browning at the edges in a moist pot is not a feeding question at all: Investigate before feeding (Lesson 5).

Only a tree that passes all three gets the can. The arithmetic says how much; the tree says whether and when.

Measure, mix, and apply

Once the checks say feed, the rest is a routine, and a routine is easiest to share when it is the same every time. At the household's bench:

1. Water first if the check called for it, thoroughly, with plain water, and let the pot drain.
2. Shake the bottle, as the 8-4-6's directions say, so the concentrate is even before you draw it up.
3. Part-fill the can with about half its water, from the source that tree is watered with.
4. Measure the concentrate with the syringe, or the powder with its level scoop, and add it to the water.
5. Top up to the can's line and stir, until a powder has dissolved and the feed is even from the first pour to the last.
6. Pour it slowly over the whole surface, through the can's fine watering rose, in passes, until a little runs from the drainage holes.
7. Clean up. Empty the tray, pouring its water away rather than back into a pot, since it carries feed salts too; rinse the can and the syringe with plain water, and wipe the scoop dry before it goes back in the tub; and put the product away closed, out of reach of children and pets, and, for the 8-4-6, away from frost, as its cautions say.
8. Write the line in the log before you walk away.

The first step is the label's own condition, for the reason Lesson 3 gave: poured onto a dry root ball, a feed runs past most of the roots by channeling, and what soaks in sits as a strong solution of soluble salts against the rest. Step 6 then carries the feed through the whole root ball, the way a thorough watering carries water (Course 03, Lesson 3). A little at the holes shows that it reached the bottom; a long pour past that point only rinses out what you just measured. Illinois Extension's container guidance gives the same two rules for liquid feeds: mix them with water according to the label, and apply them to moist potting mix (Container gardens: fertilizing).

One product per can, mixed fresh

The 14-4-14's label adds a caution of its own: “Mix it on its own: do not combine it with other fertilizer concentrates in the same can.” It carries calcium, and calcium meeting the phosphate and sulfate in other concentrates can form solids that settle out of the water, taking those nutrients with them; the powder's own phosphate figure is kept low for the same reason. Two feeds in one can also put two label rates into one pot. So mix one product per can, and rinse the can between products.

Mix each feed in the water its tree is watered with. In the small backyard that means hose water for the trident, the elm, and the larch, rain-barrel water for the household's ficus, and for the azalea its usual mix, mostly rain-barrel water with some hose water (Course 03, Lesson 5). It never means the indoor taps, which run through the house's softener (Course 03, Lesson 5): softened water is not used on the trees, with or without a feed in it.

Mix only what today's pots need, and mix it fresh each time. A can of feed left standing by the door is a can of unknown strength: the next person may water with it, top it up, or feed a tree from it a second time. Empty it, rinse it, and the next can starts as plain water.

Four cans for the household's trees

Mix the feed puts the household's plan card on their bench by the back door, one line at a time, in August. Each card names the trees, the product, and the can, and the cards can be done in any order. On the bench stand the tree in a pot drawn cut open, the can the card names, the 8-4-6 with its measuring syringe or the 14-4-14 with its level scoop, and a spare can of plain water; the household's feeding log hangs on a clipboard by the door. Then:

1. Choose a Card. Read Check the tree first: the root-zone moisture, the chopstick, the lift, and the tree's growth and history.
2. Read the plan's line, the label's highlighted outdoor line, and how much water is in the can.
3. Work out the amount: the label rate times the liters of water in the can, at the strength the line calls for. Set the plunger under Measure to it, or the count of level scoops for the powder.
4. Press Mix and feed to feed straight away, or Water first, then feed when the tree needs plain water before its feed. Watch the can mixed and poured, and where the feed settles against the dashed outlines that mark the label rate; Pause, Back, Next, Replay, and Skip to the end control the run.
5. Read the stamp, Right call or Not quite, the arithmetic, and the line the run writes in the log. After a Not quite, Mix it again lets you set the amount again and mix again. Mix all four cards to reach 4 cards done, whose stamp counts the cards that were right the first time.

The arithmetic was the same on every card: the label rate times the water in the can, at the strength the plan calls for. The trident's first feed after its rinse was half of 4 mL × 2 L, so 4 mL: Weaker than the label, as the plan says, and logged as Half the label rate. Two weeks later, 3 L in the 5 L can took 12 mL for the trident and the larch together, because the rate multiplies the water in the can, not the can's size. The household's ficus, its new leaves holding their color again since its saucer was emptied, took 2 level scoops of the 14-4-14 in 2 L of rain-barrel water, and the powder's calcium and magnesium made up for what the rainwater lacks. An amount that missed the sum showed it at once: a weaker can left some of the dashed outlines empty, and a can mixed Far stronger than the label crowded extra diamonds between them and left salt around the roots.

The elm's 8 mL was right too, but its pot was light and the chopstick came out dry along its whole length. Mix and feed poured exactly 8 mL onto the dry root ball, where the feed stayed in the top layer and the readout said “Feed poured on a dry root ball concentrates salts around the roots”. Water first, then feed watered it thoroughly from the spare can, let it drain to Moist, and the same 8 mL then filled every outline. Both cans were measured correctly; only the check made one of them right. Each feeding then went into the log in date order, so whoever feeds next can see what was given, when, and at what strength.

Record every feeding

A feeding record is one dated line for each feeding, kept in a log. It is the note that Course 01's starting point asked for: feed a healthy, growing tree at the rate and interval on its label, and note each feeding (Course 01, Lesson 10). Keep it with the watering log, in the same notebook or on the same clipboard, because the two are read together: a feed goes in with water, and every watering after it carries some of it out (Course 03, Lesson 7).

What goes in a line

Eight things, in the same order every time, so that the lines can be compared down the page:

• Date, with the time if more than one person feeds. The next feed is due one interval later.
• Tree: the tree fed, or both trees when one can feeds two of them.
• Product and line: the product and the directions line used, such as “8-4-6, outdoor line”. A wrong product, or a houseplant line in an outdoor pot, shows up here.
• Amount in water, with units, such as “8 mL in 2 L”: how the can was mixed.
• Strength, against the line for that use: At the label rate, Half the label rate, or whatever the can actually held.
• The mix before feeding: what the check found, in Course 03's words, and whether you watered first.
• Weather: the temperature and the sky, and any heat or rain spell, which change how fast a feed is used and how fast it washes out.
• Who fed: the line that stops a second can.

Solid feeds get lines too: the day cakes or granules go on and how many, so their timing is on the page with everything else. And a feed you hold gets a line, “Not now: hold the feed”, with the reason, so the next person knows the gap is on purpose.

Since early August, the adult who does the evening round has done all the household's feeding, so every line ends the same way. Three lines from the new log, the lines Mix the feed writes, each in the same order with a middle dot between the parts:

Write it before you walk away

Write the line at the bench, before you leave the tree, not at the end of the day from memory. The line is what the next person reads before they pick up a can, so it has to exist before they arrive: a feed given in the morning and written up that night is invisible to whoever picks up a can at 6 pm. Read the log before you mix, too. The tree's last line says whether a feed is due, and what the tree got last time.

Keep one log, where everyone who feeds will pass it. The household's log now hangs on a clipboard by the back door, beside the cans, with the watering log. On the west balcony it is the notebook kept with the can by the balcony door. A phone note works only if everyone who feeds writes in the same one.

A photo from the same spot

Feeding works slowly, through new growth over weeks, so the record needs a way to see growth too. Keep taking the weekly photo of each tree from the same spot and height that the watering log asks for (Course 03, Lesson 7), and once a month write a growth note beside one of them: the length of the longest new shoot, the color and size of the newest leaves, and any white root tips at the holes (Course 01, Lesson 14). Lesson 4 says what each of those shows; the photos let a review compare them month to month.

Review the plan with the record

Every four to six weeks through the growing season, read the log beside the growth notes and the photos, on a date written on the card. That is long enough for two or three feeds at a 14-day interval to have gone in and for new growth to answer them, and soon enough to catch a doubled or missed feed before it has run for long.

Read the record against the card first

Before you judge the tree, check what it actually got. Lay the log beside the card and count. A tree on a 14-day interval should have one line in each two weeks, with the card's product, line, and strength, and with the mix moist, or watered first, at every feed. Two lines in one week is a tree fed twice; a gap longer than the interval is a feed missed; another product, or another line's strength, is a wrong feed. Any of these is the first explanation to rule out, and the change it calls for is back to the card, not a new plan.

That is what the household's comparison found: the trident's two sets of weekly lines explained its salts. Once those were rinsed out by leaching (Lesson 5), the change was a return to the label: a first feed at half strength once its new leaves came out clean, then the outdoor line every 14 days, with one person feeding.

On a tree in refinement, extra feeds show in the growth too: long, soft shoots with large leaves, the growth its lighter feeding was written to prevent (Lesson 4). The change is still back to the card, and only that.

Then read the growth: the new shoots and leaves against what this kind of tree usually does at this point in the season, its vigor (Course 01, Lesson 14), and against last month's photo. If you read conductivity or pH from a pour-through test, as Lesson 5 describes, log each reading with how it was taken, so that one month's reading can be compared with the next.

One change at a time

When the review calls for a change, make one, write it on the card with the date and the reason, and judge it at the next review. Change the interval and the strength in the same week, or the feed and the watering, and the next review cannot tell which did what. A record shows what happened together, not why, so one change at a time is what lets it answer (Course 03, Lesson 7).

When the record matches the card and the growth looks right for the tree and the season, the change is none. Keep the plan, keep the log going, and write in the next review date. A good result is evidence that the plan fits, not an invitation to add more: more than a tree can use adds salts, not growth (Lesson 4).

When more than one person feeds

Shared care goes wrong in a few familiar ways, the doubled and the missed feed among them. Course 03 solved the same kind of problem for watering with a briefing and a card (Course 03, Lesson 6). Feeding needs the same, with one difference: a check decides each watering afresh on the day, but a feed must not be repeated, so whoever feeds needs to know what has already been done.

One card, one log, one person who mixes

The household's arrangement since early August has four parts:

• One plan card, where everyone who feeds will pass it: theirs hangs on the garage door, the side door where the products are kept through the growing season, with a section for each tree. It holds each tree's product and line, the amount for each can, the interval, when to water first or hold, and the next date, written in after each feed. Like the watering card, it answers the questions a helper cannot ask you (Course 03, Lesson 6).
• One log, by the back door where the cans are mixed, read before anyone mixes and written in before they walk away.
• The card names one person who mixes and feeds, with a stand-in for the weeks they cannot. In the household that is now the adult who does the evening round, which leaves time to check, water first, mix, and log. The other does the morning checks and the watering, and picks up a can for nothing but water.
• Everyone else waters only. The neighbor who waters for the household in July does just that, and so does anyone else who offers to help: the card says who feeds.

Time away: hold the feed, not the water

For a trip of a week or two, a healthy tree in active growth can skip a feed or two, so the simplest plan for time away is Not now: hold the feed while you are gone (Lesson 3 weighs the alternatives for longer absences). That decision has to live on the helper's card, because the helper is the one standing by the can. Brief them to water by the checks, as Course 03 taught, and to do nothing else with a can: no measuring, no products, no feeds, and nothing but water through a drip kit.

When you come back, check the tree and the root zone, and resume the plan with a single feed at the plan's rate once the check allows, counting the interval from there (Lesson 3). A missed feed is not owed. A double one to make up for it puts twice the label's salts into the root zone at once, more than the roots can use before the next waterings rinse it through (Course 01, Lesson 10), while the plan's interval restores the supply within a feed or two.

A month of shared feeding

Two people, one plan runs an invented month in the small backyard, Monday, Aug 31 to Sunday, Sep 27, with a heat wave in the first week: the household's problem as it might have gone on without a plan, with both adults still feeding by their own count and from memory. Two watering cans stand for the two adults, the Morning round in ink and the Evening round in red, moving between the back door, the garage, and four trees: the trident and the Chinese elm on the 8-4-6, the azalea on the acid-loving feed, and the new juniper on seed-meal cakes. Under House rules, turn on any of four: A feeding log by the back door, One plan card on the garage door, One person mixes, the other waters, and Feed on Saturdays only; the counter shows how many are on. Under Your call, answer How many of the five problems will this month bring? with None, One or two, or Three or more, or press Skip. Then press Run the month; Pause, Back, Next, Replay, and Skip to the end control the run. Each day's events are written beside the yard, The trees, up close shows each tree change, and The month, a four-week calendar, marks each day as it is reached; press a day to see it again. At the end, the result card gives each tree's feeds against its plan and what it shows, and says what each rule did. Try these:

1. Run the month with no rules on. Watch each can's trips, and read What the trees show at the end.
2. Turn on one rule at a time and run again. Which problems does each rule stop, and does any rule bring a problem of its own? The first three challenges count only with one rule on.
3. Find the smallest set of rules that stops all five. The simulation finishes when all four challenges are found.

With no rules, the month brought all five problems. Each adult fed the trident by their own count, two days apart, so it had four feeds where its plan has two; the elm went unfed for four weeks because each thought the other had fed it; the azalea got the 8-4-6; the trident, light and drooping in the heat wave, got the can of feed before any water; and fresh cakes went on the new juniper while the last set was only three weeks old. What the trees show then had a white crust and the first brown leaf edges on the trident, with a few browned root tips below, older leaves starting to pale on the elm, and a crowded, moldy surface on the juniper. The azalea showed no change yet, though the 8-4-6 does less than its own feed to keep its root zone acidic, and its iron may not help in a root zone still alkaline from hard water (Lesson 5).

The two written rules split the work between them. A feeding log by the back door stopped the two problems of who did what, the doubled feed and the missed one, because each of them could see what the other had done. One plan card on the garage door stopped the three problems of what and how: the wrong product, the feed poured into a dry pot in the heat, and the early cakes, because the card gave each tree's feed, line, and next date, with when to water first and when to hold. Only the two together kept the whole month clean.

The other two rules looked like safety and were mostly work. One person mixes, the other waters stopped only the doubled feed: one feeder no longer doubles up with a second, but can still miss a tree, reach for the wrong feed, feed a dry pot, or stack fresh cakes on old ones. Feed on Saturdays only stopped nothing and put a feed on the heat wave's Saturday, because a fixed day cannot see the weather or the tree. Added to the log and the card, neither prevented anything more. The household's card still names who feeds, as any card should, so that a helper knows to water only; the safety comes from the card and the log.

A one-card feeding plan

A card works when someone who cannot ask you anything can follow it, so each of its lines is a decision already made. Nine lines cover a tree for a growing season:

1. Tree and goal: the tree, its pot and mix, and what this year's growth is for.
2. Product and line: the product and the label's directions line for its use, copied word for word.
3. Amount for your can: the arithmetic done once, with the units and the tool, such as “8 mL in the 2 L can, by syringe”.
4. Interval: the label's, with the next date written in after each feed.
5. Start, taper, and stop: in growth stages, not dates, as Lesson 4 sets them.
6. When to water first, or hold: water first if the pot checks Drying or drier, and the conditions that mean no feed today.
7. Who feeds: one person, and who stands in.
8. Where it is logged: the log's place, so every line goes onto one page.
9. Review date: four to six weeks out, and the next one after that.

The year's calendar of care, with dormancy and winter protection, belongs to Course 06, Seasonal Care and Timing. The card holds only the feeding.

Two cards, worked through

The courtyard maple's plan from Lesson 4, written as a card, sits beside the household's trident's card from after its rinse:

The two cards share a product, a line, and an interval, and differ where the trees do. The maple's is written for development: the full rate through the season, with holds for weather and roots. The trident's is written for a tree coming back from too much: its start waits for normal new growth and begins at half strength, its first review comes early, its holds include the warning signs that sent it to Lesson 5, and it names the one person who feeds, because that was the line it lacked.

Write the plan down before the first can

This lesson completes Mineral Nutrition and Fertilizing: what mineral nutrients do and why a small pot runs low, a label read line by line, sources compared by when they release, feeding matched to a tree's growth, roots, and goal, the checks that come before feeding a struggling tree, and a plan and a record that anyone who helps can follow. Quiz 2 brings the whole course together, from reading a label to choosing the next check for a tree that is not growing well. After it, Course 06, Seasonal Care and Timing, now being prepared, will set this course's feeding window into the whole year of care, from the first buds to winter protection.