Vegetable Fertilization

Feed me, Seymour! Your plants may not need you to open a vein, but like Audrey in "Little Shop of Horrors," container garden veggies are hungry little beasts. Container gardening potting mixes drain water rapidly, so nutrients leak continuously even if you have prepared the soil with compost.

A container gardening tip: Compost regularly, even if your soil is all compost. The other solution to this constant plant hunger is to add fertilizer regularly. Create your container garden design so that you can easily draw up a fertilization schedule.

Five ravenous boxes may be as difficult to please as a plant hit with cosmic rays! Just as fish oil is good for you, fish emulsion is your friend in container gardening and particularly in container vegetable gardening. But if your plant starts advising you to become homicidal, it's time to toss the plants and take up stamp collecting.