What Is Starter Fertilizer And How To Use It?

If you’ve ever tried to care for plants, either casually or seriously, you know that there is much more to it than many expect. 

One great example of this can be found in a curious tool of the green-thumbed, namely, starter fertilizer, which you can use to prep the soil at a time when it would otherwise be fruitless to toil over your garden. 

Here, we will discuss what starter fertilizer is, what it is for, when to use it, and offer some tips on how to do so.

What Is Starter Fertilizer And How To Use It?

Starter fertilizer is primarily used when crops are planted in cold, wet soil in the early spring.

It is a way to effectively extend the productive season by allowing you to begin planting early, at a time when conditions would ordinarily forbid it.

The Benefits of Starter Fertilizer

The first and most important benefit of starter foods is that it lets you get to work earlier than mother nature would normally allow you to. 

Giving growers more time to tend their plants and allow their plants to flourish makes larger, longer yields possible. This makes agricultural installations more productive and profitable. 

But it can be useful for everyone, from the hobbyist grower to the serious gardener to the professional agriculturalist.

It also supplies the essential nutrients most plants need in abundance and many other important and beneficial vitamins and minerals to protect and bolster plants early in the growing season.

More than anything else, plants need nitrogen and phosphorus both in the earliest stages of development as well as for the entire lifetime of the plant. 

The abundance of these important nutrients that starter fertilizer provides protects and sustains plants throughout the growing season.

Corn is Especially Responsive

Agriculturalists who rely on corn for their bottom line know well the advantages of using starter fertilizer. 

Corn is used in many food products and has several industrial uses, making it one of the most profitable things a farmer can grow. 

The beneficial effects of starter fertilizer on corn are all but miraculous.

How Is Starter Fertilizer Used?

Starter fertilizer can be applied in small amounts near the location where seeds are to be planted to enrich the soil and provide help and protection to seeds early in the season.

Start In The Early Spring

When the weather starts to look spring-like, after the calendar-marked start of spring, that is the time to begin applying your starter fertilizer, when conditions are almost still too cold and or wet for normal planting to begin.

Your starter fertilizer packaging should have instructions on how close to your seeds and how much you should use. In general, it should be used anywhere new seeds are to be planted in the early days of spring.

Pour your fertilizer into a standard spreader and apply it evenly throughout the planting site. After the starter fertilizer has been applied, it should be tilled or worked into the soil between four and six inches deep.

Some experts recommend a liquid application of starter fertilizer rather than a granular mix. Either way, you will get the same amount of nutrients, but the liquid starter fertilizer can work into the soil easier.

If you plan to plant sod, it’s a good idea to use fertilizer before or after planting the seed.

Following these instructions and the instructions on the package your starter fertilizer came in, perform your plant, garden, or crop care as you normally would.