Fertilizing in light rain can help soak the fertilizer into the soil.
Fertilizer can only do its work when the applied nutrients make their way down to the soil and further still to the plant roots. To facilitate this movement, fertilizer applications are always followed immediately by irrigation to speed up the delivery of nutrients into the soil, keep the fertilizer in place and to wash off any fertilizer that may have landed on the foliage or stems to prevent chemical burns. A light rain will aid the fertilizer application process and will also help to keep any dust from fertilizer products from becoming airborne. Does this Spark an idea?
Instructions
1. Don garden gloves or use a spreader tool like a scoop or crank spreader to prevent the fertilizer powder or granules from sticking to your hands.
2. Wait for several minutes into the rain to apply the fertilizer, allowing the surface soil to get wet first because moist soil takes in fertilizer even better than dry soil would being rained on simultaneously or after the fact.
3. Supplement a light rain with added irrigation, if needed, so that all of the fertilizer grains are washed off of the foliage and stems of herbaceous plants and lawn grasses. You want enough water to wash the fertilizer down to the soil line or thatch at the base of grass blades where the soil is not exposed. Typically this translates into roughly a 1/2 inch of applied water either via rain or a combination of rain and irrigation.
Tags: light rain, down soil, foliage stems, into soil, wash fertilizer