Go Go Juice, and when a liquid beats a bag of pellets

A liquid and a bag of pellets do different jobs

The question we get more than any other in the garden section is which fertiliser to buy, and the honest answer is usually that the customer is holding two things that do different jobs and trying to pick a winner. A bag of pellets goes into the soil and releases slowly over weeks, so it is the thing you set a bed up with. A liquid goes on through a watering can or a hose and is available to the plant almost straight away, so it is the thing you reach for when something needs help now.

Go Go Juice sits at the liquid end, and it is a biological rather than a straight feed, which means the point of it is the soil life rather than a nutrient analysis on the back of the bottle. You are watering microbes into the root zone so that what is already in your soil gets broken down and made available, instead of adding a big dose of nutrient and hoping the plant catches it.

When a liquid is genuinely the better call

There are four situations where I would go liquid rather than granular. Planting out seedlings, where you want to settle the roots in and get them moving without a strong feed sitting against them. A plant that has had a hard time, after a heat run or a transplant, where the roots are damaged and cannot chase much. Pots and hanging baskets, where there is no soil reserve and everything leaches out the bottom. And any bed where the soil is biologically flat, the sort of ground that has been cropped hard or built on and has no worms in it.

Where a liquid is not the answer is setting a new bed up from scratch. That wants compost, a pelletised manure and a few weeks for it to work. A liquid is a top up on a system that already exists.

How to actually put it on

Shake the bottle first, because a biological product settles and the part that does the work is not evenly spread through it. Dilute it to the rate on the label, and I would say read that rather than guessing, because the rate is different for a soil drench than it is for a foliar spray and different again for seedlings.

Then water it into the soil around the base of the plant rather than over the leaves, unless the label specifically tells you to go foliar. What you are trying to do is get it down where the roots are. Do it late in the day rather than the middle of a hot one, so it soaks in instead of evaporating off the surface.

Water the bed with plain water first if the soil is dry. A drench that lands on bone dry ground runs off or channels straight down a crack, and none of it ends up where you wanted it.

How often, and when to stop

Every few weeks through the growing season is plenty for most gardens, and there is no prize for going harder. A biological is not something you can force a result out of by doubling the rate, because you are feeding a population rather than dosing a plant, and that population grows at the speed it grows.

Ease off in the depths of winter when everything has slowed down, and go back to it as things start moving in spring.

Store it properly or it does nothing

This is the bit nobody mentions and it is the reason a bottle sometimes seems to do nothing at all. A biological product has living organisms in it, so it does not like being cooked. A bottle that has spent a summer on a shelf in a tin shed is not the same product it was when you bought it.

Keep it somewhere cool and dark, out of direct sun. Use it up within a reasonable time rather than keeping it for years. If you are only treating a few pots, the smaller bottle is the better buy for that reason alone.

Which one do I want

The concentrate is the cheaper way to do it if you are covering any real area, because you are diluting it yourself. The ready to use version costs more per litre and saves you measuring, which suits somebody with a courtyard and a few pots.

If you are standing in front of the shelf and none of that helps, ask us. You can read about it for an hour, or you can ask us and be doing it in ten minutes.

Shop related products

• Go Go Juice 1 Litre. The concentrate, for anything bigger than a few pots.
• Neutrog GOGO Juice 2L ready to use. No measuring, for pots and small beds.
• Popul8 1L. Another liquid biological from the same range.
• Seasol Seaweed Concentrate 1L. The seaweed tonic people reach for when transplanting.

Did you know we also keep a few liquid lines in store that are not on the website, including Strike Back for Orchids, the Sudden Impact liquid in the 2L, and Nincompoop. Give us a ring on (08) 8536 4333 to check what is on the shelf.

The Neutrog range we have listed is in Neutrog garden products, and the rest of the garden centre is in garden products. Anything heavy can go on our local delivery, which runs Tuesdays and Thursdays, $5 around Strathalbyn and $10 on the regional run.

Keep reading

• Neutrog Cock-a-Doodle Doo, what it is and when to use it
• How to build better soil in any garden
• Homemade plant food, what actually works and what does not

I am very much the sort of person who eyeballs a dilution rate, which is exactly the habit I am telling you not to pick up.

Candeece