Liquid Fertiliser

Liquid fertiliser and plant feed: the fastest way to feed a plant

A granular feed takes weeks to break down and reach the root. A liquid plant feed takes days, and a foliar spray takes hours. That is the whole case for keeping liquids alongside your dry amendments: they are what you reach for when a plant needs help now, not next month.

Everything on this page is an organic liquid fertiliser: concentrated liquid plant food, single-nutrient correctors and micronised mineral suspensions, all of them diluted into a watering can or a sprayer. If you already run a granular programme, treat these as the correction layer rather than a replacement for it. All of it is made in small batches by the people who sell it, and every bottle carries a full analysis.

What is in the range

• Complete liquid feeds. Liquid 5-2-5 for balanced growth and Liquid 3-2-6 for the flowering and fruiting stage, which is the liquid tomato feed most people are looking for.
• Single nutrients. Liquid amino nitrogen, liquid phosphorus, liquid potash and liquid magnesium, for correcting one thing without disturbing the rest.
• Micronised mineral suspensions. Liquid gypsum, calcium and sulphur in a pourable suspension for heavy clay and for calcium-hungry crops; it has its own liquid gypsum FAQ, so it is only introduced here.
• Chelated trace elements. Liquid Micronutrients delivers seven essential trace elements in a form the plant can take up directly.
• Biostimulants. Brix+, a concentrated kelp extract with triacontanol, and liquid amino acids. The wider set is in Biostimulants.
• Root starters. Liquid seedling feed, NPK with humic acid, for the first weeks and after transplanting.
• Lawns. Liquid Lawn Feed 5-2-5, for a faster response than a granular lawn feed can give.
• Living feeds. Soil Smiths Living Feed, a microbial foliar and root application that carries biology as well as nutrition.

Which liquid feed for which job

• Tomatoes, chillies, strawberries and anything fruiting: the 3-2-6 from first flower onwards, weekly in pots. The granular blends and the calcium that deals with blossom end rot are in Tomatoes, Chillies & Peppers.
• Leafy crops, hedges and anything pale and stalled: the liquid amino nitrogen, or the 5-2-5 where you want balance rather than a push. Granular and liquid nitrogen are compared in Nitrogen Fertilisers.
• Flower size, colour and fruit quality: the liquid potash, or the 3-2-6. The straight potassium sources are in Potash & Potassium Fertilisers.
• Yellowing between the veins on older leaves: liquid magnesium, which acts in days where kieserite takes weeks.
• A lawn that has gone pale: the Liquid Lawn Feed, sprayed after rain; the rest of the lawn programme is in Lawn Care.
• Seedlings, plugs and transplants: the seedling feed, half strength, from the first true leaves.

Liquid plant food for pots, containers and grow bags

Containers are where a liquid plant feed earns its keep. Limited soil volume, frequent watering and nutrients leaving through the bottom mean a single spring application of anything rarely lasts, and dilute, regular feeding suits them far better. The pattern that works for most container crops is a balanced liquid through establishment and the potassium-led 3-2-6 once flowering starts, with a magnesium correction if the older leaves yellow between the veins. Dilution rates are on every product page, and the liquid fertiliser calculator works out how much to mix for a can or a tank.

Liquid or granular: when a liquid suits better

Granular carries the season; a liquid feed handles speed. The liquid earns its place when something is visibly short now (pale new growth, yellowing between the veins, a crop that has stalled), in containers and raised beds, at peak demand (a tomato in full fruit draws more potassium than a spring application allowed for), and in cold soil, where slow release barely moves and small root systems cannot mine a bag of granules anyway. The reverse holds just as firmly: if you want one application to cover a bed for the season, granular is simpler and cheaper, and Organic Fertilisers is where to look. Comparing bottled brands such as BioBizz? See our BioBizz alternative.

Foliar feeding

Foliar feeding means applying a dilute nutrient solution to the leaf rather than the soil, and letting it enter through the cuticle and the stomata. It is fast, working in hours, and efficient, because a small quantity goes where it is wanted instead of into the soil's chemistry, where much of it can lock up before a root reaches it.

It is also routinely oversold, so here is the honest version. A foliar feed works well for the mobile nutrients and trace elements: nitrogen, potassium, magnesium, iron, manganese, zinc and boron all move readily. It is much less reliable for calcium, which travels with the transpiration stream and barely redistributes once it has arrived. The published evidence for foliar calcium correcting a calcium problem in fruit is thin, and we would rather say so than imply a spray settles it; consistent watering and calcium in the root zone do more. Spray in early morning or evening rather than strong sun, cover the underside of the leaf as well as the top, and add a natural wetting agent so the solution spreads instead of beading; what a wetting agent actually does explains why that matters.

Common questions