A couple of years ago I came across this fertilizer that my veggie garden absolutely loves. I believe I’ve blogged about it before: it’s called Daniel’s Plant Food.

The formulation is 10-4-3, which means 10% Nitrogen, 4% Phosphorous, and 3% Potassium. It’s a soybean-derived liquid fertilizer, and its main source of potency comes from oilseed extract. Daniel’s Plant Food also contains good stuff like minerals, amino acids, and sugars, all the stuff that plants need to grow. Like I’ve said, it’s made a noticeable difference in my garden.

I’ve always applied this fertilizer using a 3-gallon watering can at a 1 tablespoon Daniels to 1 gallon of water ratio as instructed. Laborious! And I don’t have the time this year to fill up the can multiple times for one application of fertilizer. So, I’ve just purchased a hose-end sprayer.

How to use a hose-end sprayer

If you’ve never used one before, the hose-end sprayer has basically two parts: a jug and a nozzle. The jug screws into the bottom of the nozzle, and the nozzle screws into the end of the garden hose. The nozzle has three portions: the part that screws into the hose, a dial that sets the fertilizer ratio, and the sprayer.

Just fill the jug with Daniel’s (or whatever liquid fertilizer you’re using) and screw the jug to the nozzle. Set the dial to the correction injection rate per gallon. In the case of Daniel’s, turn it to 1 Tbsp. The dial has many, many other ratios to choose from, depending on the product you’re using.

Then attach the entire apparatus to the end of a garden hose. That’s it. As the water flows through the apparatus, a small tubelike the tube that goes down into the liquid in a bottle of Windexsucks up the liquid fertilizer at the proper rate, and it exits through the sprayer end of the apparatus.

I picked up a hose-end sprayer at Home Depot for less than $10. The brand is called Chameleon and has a quart-sized jug. It has three or four sprayer settings and it works okay. It has a small and steady drip from the sprayer end and I’m not so happy about that, but I can live with it. Regardless, I’m now fertilizing faster and it’s not such a chore. And my plants are happy, too.