146 Houseplant Fertilizers. No Beans?!?

Master Gardener and Professional Houseplant Expert Lori Ann Asmus of Emerald City Interior Landscape Services talks about the pros and cons of fertilizing your houseplants, as well as problems you might face using some tap waters on your houseplants. 

College Horticulture Professor (retired) Debbie Flower sheds light on one listener’s dilemma: great looking pole bean plants, but no beans this year! Debbie lists several possibilities that could be the culprit.

Podcasting from Barking Dog Studios here in the Abutilon Jungle in Suburban Purgatory, it’s episode 146 of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, brought to you today by Smart Pots. 

And we will do it all in under 30 minutes. Let’s go!

Pictured:
A variety of pole and bush beans, including Bingo, Early Riser, California Buckeye 46, Black Coco, Tiger's Eye, and Cannellini Lingot

Links:
New! Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Newsletter
Smart Pots

House Plant Fertilizers and supplements mentioned on this episode:
Dynagro 7-9-5 plant food
Protekt 0-0-3 nutritional supplement for plants
pH Down nutritional supplement for plants

Cover Crop Solution Guide from Peaceful Valley Farm Supply

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Chapters

• 1:16 Houseplant Fertilization Tips
• 12:08 Garden Basics Newsletter. Subscribe!
• 13:21 Smart Pots!
• 14:27 No beans?!? Here's Why.

Transcript

GARDEN BASICS WITH FARMER FRED #146 Houseplant Fertilization Tips. No Beans?!?
TRANSCRIPT
23:23

Farmer Fred  0:00  
Garden Basics with Farmer Fred is brought to you by Smart Pots, the original lightweight, long lasting fabric plant container. it's made in the USA. Visit SmartPots.com slash Fred for more information and a special discount, that's SmartPots.com/Fred. Welcome to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. If you're just a beginning gardener or you want good gardening information, you've come to the right spot. 

Farmer Fred  0:32  
Master Gardener and professional house plant expert Lori Ann Asmus talks about the pros and cons of fertilizing your houseplants, as well as problems you might be facing using some tap waters on those plants. College horticulture Professor (retired) Debbie Flower sheds light on one listener's dilemma: great looking pole bean plants...but there's no beans this year. Where are the beans? Debbie lists several possibilities that could be the culprit. We're podcasting from Barking Dog Studios here in the Abutilon Jungle in Suburban Purgatory. It's Episode 146 of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, brought to you today by Smart Pots. And we'll do it all in under 30 minutes. Let's go. 

Farmer Fred  1:19  
We're here at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center. We're talking with Master Gardener and houseplant expert Lori Ann Asmus. About fertilizing your houseplants...

Lori Ann Asmus  1:29  
fertilizer, oh, crap fertilizer. Well, fertilizer is easy, okay?

Farmer Fred  1:34  
Crap is fertilizer. But if you apply it in the house, it just stinks. 

Lori Ann Asmus  1:40  
Really not good. Kind of like fish emulsion, same kind of thing. Whatever you have as fertilizer, there's many different complete fertilizers on the market, use half of whatever is recommended. So if it says one teaspoon to the gallon, use half a teaspoon to the gallon. Plants would prefer to have a smaller meal more often, than a lot all at once. It's easier for them to absorb and use for their photosynthetic processes. We fertilize from March through October, and from October to March, we do not fertilize. And it's because the plants are really more or less dormant at that time, even though they're indoors. And this seems a little bit counterintuitive. They're not really very active. And a lot of it has to do with the shortened days not so much the temperature which we control, of course, so the shortened days drive this. And genetics, of course, drive this kind of semi dormancy so the roots aren't growing, the leaves aren't growing, they do not need fertilizer. If you fertilize in the winter, you're taking a big chance; and plus, you're not watering as often so you're not leaching out the soil, you're taking a big chance on building up soluble salts in the soil, which will eventually accumulate in the leaf tips and cause that leaf burn that we love so much.

Farmer Fred  2:52  
I would think one would use a fertilizer labeled for house plant use. You would follow label directions, and how often would you apply it, according to label directions?  I guess, theoretically, if it's a weak enough solution, you could apply it with every watering.

Lori Ann Asmus  3:08  
Yeah, a lot of times they'll say put it in your water or they'll say do it once a month or whatever  they say on the directions. And they're different from from product to product. And that's why I don't want to really say exactly, I usually only fertilize once a month, unless I have a plant that's in like a Western or a southern exposure full sun where it's really active, and it's really using a lot of water. In which case I might fertilize a little more often. 

Farmer Fred  3:37  
Oh, we have a question coming in. It's from Fred in Folsom. And he says, "I don't fertilize my houseplants, and they look fine."

Lori Ann Asmus  3:44  
You're not the only one.

Farmer Fred  3:46  
How do you know it's from me? It could be any Fred in Folsom. 

Lori Ann Asmus  3:48  
Fred is not the only one who doesn't fertilize. And in fact, a lot of times people are like, "Oh, I don't fertilize" and they feel so guilty. And they act like oh wow, they're just this bad person because of that. No. Fertilization is not the most important part of indoor plant care. It really isn't. There are a group of people in our industry actually who believe that fertilization is just not necessary, that it's a waste of money and primarily because fertilization encourages growth, which a lot of times in our job we don't want. We want the plant to go in, meet our design needs, and stay that way for a very very, very long time. Now what I have experienced too, though, is that I don't get the performance that I want out of the plant, in terms of greenness, green coloring, and possibly blooming which is just it's kind of it's not a regular thing, but with orchids and bromeliads and stuff like that. It seems like fertilization has also a little bit of a protective capacity. In other words, the cells are a little bit stronger and they're a little more resistant to disease and insects. And one of the reasons that I suggest that you only use half is not just because of the buildup of soluble salts but also because the plant really doesn't need that much just to maintain its health without major growth. If you're looking to have something grow like a foot or two feet, like this month, okay, it's probably not going to be healthy growth to begin with, but you may want to fertilize a little bit more.

Farmer Fred  5:14  
What are the NPK numbers you look at when shopping for houseplant fertilizer, single digits, double digits? What's the N-P-K, nitrogen phosphorus potassium content?

Lori Ann Asmus  5:23  
No, those numbers for houseplants need to be single digits. Absolutely. And I mean, you know, we might use something like 5-3-2 or something like that. The numbers are very low. And really, that's a better bet. If you do make a mistake and use too much, you're not going to be doing too much damage. The other thing is, there's a lot of micronutrients and it really is important to to to make sure that you've got some of those micros in your fertilizers as well. I love the Dyna-Gro.

Farmer Fred  5:51  
I was going to ask you: among the professionals who take care of houseplants for a living in commercial buildings as you do, what are some of their choices in the way of fertilizers?

Lori Ann Asmus  6:01  
Well, I don't really know about other people because... 

Farmer Fred  6:03  
you're a hermit? 

Lori Ann Asmus  6:05  
No, I just don't care what they do so much. 

Farmer Fred  6:08  
So you use Dyna-Gro. 

Lori Ann Asmus  6:09  
I use Dyna-Gro because I've tried a lot of different products and this is the one that I like d y n a dash g r o. You can find it online, it's fairly local. I think the guy's like in Richmond or something like that. A genius guy. I mean a lot of the orchid growers use them, they have an orchid formulation. He also has something called pH Down which is a product that will bring the pH down just a tiny bit under seven, which limits fluoride uptake, which is a huge problem in our area and causes a lot of problems with some of my favorite houseplants. And so pH Down is good. And then there's another one called Pro Tekt,  which is a silica based product, and it helps beef up the cell walls and makes them more cold and heat tolerant and also more resistant to insects that might suck on the cells or whatever. 

Farmer Fred  6:58  
I think they're called sucking insects. 

Lori Ann Asmus  7:00  
Sucking insects, those sucking insects. Yes, thank you very much. 

Farmer Fred  7:05  
All right. You've been recommending Dyna-Gro and protekt for 20-30 years now and that's fine. So I think it has passed the Lori Ann Asmus seal of approval for houseplant fertilization. For those of you that do fertilize your houseplants, that's a good thing.

Lori Ann Asmus  7:19  
It doesn't stain.

Farmer Fred  7:20  
All right, fluoride in water, tap water. Should I be using municipal tap water to water my houseplants? Or should I start buying gallons of distilled water?

Lori Ann Asmus  7:32  
That really depends on how many plants you have and how committed you are. Now, distilled water is really not necessarily the best answer because of course you don't have any minerals you don't have anything in that.

Farmer Fred  7:43  
 You have water. 

Lori Ann Asmus  7:44  
Yeah, that's true, but you would have to modify my fertilizer recommendations a little bit, because you have to add everything in. You know, the plant's getting nothing from... well, a little bit maybe from the soil, but even not much from soilless mixes. As far as that goes. I don't generally recommend distilled water unless it's a very tender plant say you've got something that you're going to take and enter it into competition at the fair or something like that. Or you're going to enter an orchid or or as I say like a bromeliad or something that's very tender that you're trying to take really good care of. But if you've got as many plants as I do, you're not going to go buy you know, 10 gallons of distilled water every week that's not going to happen. For it is a problem there's a couple things you can do about it. One is you can lower the pH. Even lowering the pH from seven, which is neutral, to like 6.8 or 6.5 will limit the fluoride uptake which is really important. Reverse Osmosis. if you decide that you want to do something with the water that you already have, will take out about 60% of the fluoride. The other thing that you can do is you can increase calcium. You can actually add calcium in. There's a lot of different forms. I mean what outdoors, what would you use?

Farmer Fred  8:53  
Whatever comes out the hose?

Lori Ann Asmus  8:56  
Yeah, adding calcium to the soil mix, small amounts of calcium will also limit fluoride uptake. It binds with the fluoride. So there's some things that you can do. 

Farmer Fred  9:07  
Can you boil the water? 

Lori Ann Asmus  9:08  
No. In fact, leaving the water sit out like what you do for a chlorine abatement just concentrates it (the fluoride). It is a heavy element and so it's not going to off-gas like the chlorine will., It just concentrates it so that's not going to help. Boiling is not going to help.

Farmer Fred  9:25  
Is there a water you recommend buying? 

Lori Ann Asmus  9:29  
Even just a spring water that you know what's in there. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Farmer Fred  9:32  
 Don't leave us in a vacuum here, okay.

Lori Ann Asmus  9:35  
But here again, in a vacuum, a fluoride vacuum. Anyway, the thing is, is that if you go and buy a spring water, you want to make sure you know what's in it, because you don't want to be fertilizing with something that's...

Farmer Fred  9:47  
 Have you looked at a spring water label lately? It just says "bottled at the purest source."

Lori Ann Asmus  9:53  
You have to look it up online. Yeah. And hope that it's true. 

Farmer Fred  9:56  
This is hard. 

Lori Ann Asmus  9:57  
 I probably go through 60 or 80 gallons of water a day in my job. So I don't think about any of that. I just try to work with what I have and amend accordingly.

Farmer Fred  10:13  
What about if I get the Brita water pitcher out from the refrigerator and use that water that's been filtered? Is that a better choice? 

Lori Ann Asmus  10:23  
You know, I don't know the answer to that. 

Farmer Fred  10:24  
Okay. Fair enough. I know it takes chlorine out, but I'm not sure what it does about fluoride, for example.

Lori Ann Asmus  10:31  
I don't know the answer to that. Other thing that you can do, that's probably a little bit easier. If you don't have too many houseplants is to just make sure that you leach out the soil on a fairly regular basis. Because what happens with fluoride, it builds up in the plant tissues, as well as in the soil. And so the spotting and the tissue die back that you get is basically from the fluoride building up in the tissue of the plant and the plant can't get rid of it, it doesn't break it down. It doesn't get rid of it, it just  interferes with all the normal processes of the plant. And that's why you get those that spotting, especially on older foliage, and on an older plant.

Farmer Fred  11:14  
So by flushing it out, though, as you brought up several minutes ago, is better for the plant's overall health because you are saturating the entire root ball when you're flushing out the old water and putting in more new fluoride.

Lori Ann Asmus  11:26  
Well, at least it's flushing through and it's not building up. That's the problem. That's what what really causes a lot of problems because it is a highly charged ion and it sticks around, you have to do something in order for it not to just be in quantities that are harmful to the plant. So the leaching process helps it pull some of that stuff out so that there's room for something else on those soil particles and thus absorbable by the roots.

Farmer Fred  11:55  
Lori Ann Asmus, Master Gardener, Emerald City Interior Landscape Services owner, houseplant Queen, thank you for all the good information.

Lori Ann Asmus  12:04  
You're very welcome. It's been a pleasure.

Farmer Fred  12:08  
 There was an unanswered question in that segment about fertilizing houseplants: does a Brita water filter remove fluoride, which may be harmful to houseplants? We have that answer available, in the latest Garden Basics with Farmer Fred newsletter, on Substack. Also in the latest newsletter edition, more information about Lori Ann’s favorite houseplant fertilizers as well as more about using inoculants when planting nitrogen fixing cover crop seeds.  As the newsletter grows, so will the subject matter. So, yes, it will be a good supplement for the Garden Basics podcast, but there will be a lot more garden related material, pictures and maybe a mini-podcast or video garden tips, as well.  It’s the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Newsletter on Substack. And best of all, it’s free! There’s a link in today’s show notes. Or, just go to substack.com, and do a search for Garden Basics with Farmer Fred. That’s substack.com slash garden basics (one word).  Think of it as your garden resource that goes beyond the basics. It’s The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred newsletter. Did I tell you it’s free? It’s free.  

Farmer Fred  13:24  
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Farmer Fred  14:28  
We answer your questions here on the Garden Basics Podcast. There's a lot of ways to get those questions in, as you know. You can go to speakpipe dot com slash garden basics and just talk to your computer or your smartphone and  it'll get to me. Phone? Sure. Call 916-292-8964 and leave your message. 916-292-8964. if you have pictures to send in, well, text us that very same question with the pictures at 916-292-8964. Email? Sure. Fred at farmerfred.com You can also leave a message on the Get Growing with Farmer Fred Facebook page or @ FarmerFred on Twitter. And on Instagram it's Farmer Fred Hoffman. A lot of ways to get your questions in. And Melody sends us an email. Melody lives in Sacramento and she says, "I'm asking why I'm getting no beans from these plants. They look so healthy, and they have tons of blooms. They are Romano pole beans, planted from 4-inch containers back in April. I water them with a drip system every day for about 45 minutes. Do you recommend getting my soil tested for next year because I'm getting no beans?" What's the beans on this one, Debbie Flower our favorite retired college horticultural Professor? Those plants do look healthy.

Debbie Flower  15:50  
Oh, they sure do. They're climbing up a trellis and they've got great green leaves. She says I have lots of flowers, I take her word for it. I can sympathize. Actually, I grew Kentucky Wonder beans and went a long time early in the season without any beans on the vine, so  I just sort of gave up and said it's pretty plant I guess I'm not going to have a bean crop this year. So I as I said I empathize with Melody. What I believe happened to mine and is probably happening the same to Melody because she doesn't live very far from me, is that the pollen is dying. Young pollen is alive and it is only ready to pollinate the flower and make a baby, which would be the bean in this case, for a very short period of time each day. That's typically in the morning, and as the temperatures get hotter and hotter, the pollen dies. So beans typically do not pollinate when temperatures are over 90 degrees Fahrenheit. We've had a lot of hot weather here and I believe that is why  I have not gotten a lot of beans off of my plant. Another thing to consider, a couple things really, but another thing is all plants go through a juvenile phase. "Juvenile" meaning they cannot reproduce, they can't make flowers and fruit and seed, and that is when the plants are young. So she and I, as well, may have been expecting beans a little too early on the plant. It's a pole bean, they get very tall. And it may be that we expected beans when it got to four feet tall and that plant was still a juvenile, it had not reached maturity yet. So that's one possibility then when it did get tall enough, old enough got into its sexual reproductive phase. So it flowered and hers are flowering, it was too hot, and then they don't set beans when they're too hot. The other thing is 45 minutes of water every day. Seems like a lot.

Farmer Fred  17:45  
It's drip, but even so, if it's one gallon emitters, that's still three quarters of a gallon every day.

Debbie Flower  17:51  
Every day. Yes, I would drop back to every other day at least. And I know for me if I grow beans next year I'm going to go back to bush beans because now I am getting some beans but they're way up there I have to get a ladder to harvest and so I'm just letting them go. That's the other thing. If you do get a bean and her plants are close together as are mine, and when I did start getting beans some of them were so covered by the foliage on the outside I didn't know they were there. And then a bean plant, if you've got a bean on the vine, the plant stops producing other beans, it's done its job. It's made its babies and so it doesn't need anymore. So you have to harvest beans all the time very regularly. Pole beans are a little difficult that way because  the beans are now above our head.

Farmer Fred  18:38  
I would think they would be Hungry Hungry Hippos, too.

Debbie Flower  18:41  
 Meaning? 

Farmer Fred  18:42  
Meaning that  they're going through all that reproduction and production of beans. I would think that beans would be heavy feeders.

Debbie Flower  18:51  
Beans are nitrogen fixers, though. So I have not given fertilizer at all to mine. I have fertilized my cucumbers, and my squash, my tomatoes, but I have not fertilized my beans. The nitrogen fixing is a natural process that they do with a bacterium that they coexist within the soil. If your soil has never had beans in it before, you may need to inoculate your seed when you plant it and you can buy the inoculum. It's a black powder, usually at wherever you buy your seed and when you go to plant the seeds, you just dampen them slightly. Shake them in a bag of the inoculum and put them in the ground. And that's the bacterium. The bacterium gets food sugars basically from the bean plant and in exchange, it fixes nitrogen. Fixing nitrogen means that  the nitrogen reacts with another element, oxygen is a possibility, and creates a little nodule on the roots and stores it there and that can be used actively by the plant. When you go to take the beans out, maybe there's excess fixed nitrogen on the roots of those beans, and so you want to leave those roots. Or if you're curious, dig the roots up and look at them and see if you've got nodules on those roots.

Farmer Fred  20:13  
So basically, at the end of the season, don't yank out the plant. Just cut it off at the base. 

Debbie Flower  20:18  
Exactly. 

Farmer Fred  20:19  
Alright. I have a question. 

Debbie Flower  20:20  
Yes. 

Farmer Fred  20:21  
How do bacteria live in a bag, sitting on a shelf in a nursery, for who knows how long?

Debbie Flower  20:25  
It's in a dormant state. Yeah, yeah, it's a product. For a while, nurseries weren't selling it because it has a shelf life. It can't live forever. And people weren't knowledgeable about the inoculum so they weren't buying it so the nurseries were losing money on the product. Then you started talking about it on your radio show, and I noticed it started showing up again at nurseries. So if you don't see it, when you buy your beans, ask your nursery person. Let them know that you would like to inoculate and it's a specific inoculum for beans.

Farmer Fred  20:57  
Right. And usually it is also applied to beans that are cover crops this time of year. You coat with that inoculum in order to really improve the nitrogen in your soil.

Debbie Flower  21:07  
Right. Increase the amount of nitrogen that those plants are going to put in the ground. If you're growing it for a crop, there's going to be a lot of what those bacterium has stored in the roots of the bean will be used to make the bean seeds themselves. When you're doing a cover crop, you typically cut the cover crop down before it flowers and fruits, just as it's beginning to flower and more of that nitrogen stays in the roots and so you do enrich your soil with those cover crops.

Farmer Fred  21:33  
The other the other thing I learned about cover cropping: when you go to cut down the cover crop after or before it gets to 50% bloom, is when you hack it back into small pieces, don't let it just lay on the surface. Cover it with something because the nitrogen can escape.

Debbie Flower  21:49  
Yes. Nitrogen can volatilize which means it become a gas.Tthat's where most of the nitrogen exists on earth, as a gas in the air, so  for plants to get it, it it has to be fixed. It has to be attached. The nitrogen atom has to be attached to something else, to make it heavy so the plants can get it.

Farmer Fred  22:06  
Where do you store bagged bacteria at home? I mean, a bag of inoculum if you're going to plant beans to eat, you're not going to use very much of it.

Debbie Flower  22:14  
You buy a small bag. It's not a very big bag. Yeah, you use it. You wait to see that your crop came up. I would store it in the refrigerator. You use it and wait to see if your crop came up you got what you want. Then you sprinkle the rest of it on the ground and walk away.

Farmer Fred  22:27  
Okay, so yeah, don't throw it away. Just put it back out. Yes, who knows who's still alive

Debbie Flower  22:32  
Spread it out, and don't keep it for next year because it won't last.

Farmer Fred  22:35  
Another good reason to date everything you buy at a nursery and make sure that what you have isn't too old and that's especially true of garden chemicals. We learned a lot about beans today, Melody. I hope that helps you out and bean your flowers come to fruition.

Debbie Flower  22:53  
Yeah, good luck. I feel your pain.

Farmer Fred  23:00  
Garden Basics comes out every Tuesday and Friday. It's brought to you by Smart Pots. Garden Basics is available wherever podcasts are handed out. And that includes Apple, Iheart, Stitcher, Spotify, Overcast, Google, Podcast Addict, Cast Box, and Pocket Casts. Thank you for listening, subscribing and leaving comments. We appreciate it.