Dilemma du jour: straw bale fertilizer.

I bought fertilizer with the right ratio of nitrogen to phosphate to potash. I measured (well, pretty closely) the proper amount. I soaked the bales with my soaker hose every night, every other night adding fertilizer. So why is the fertilizer still sitting on top of the bales and not washing into the middle of each bale the way I expected it would?

Possible answers:

• Maybe I bought the wrong fertilizer and inadvertently got the time-release kind.
• Maybe I should be using a hose with nozzle so the water pressure washes the fertilizer down into the deep.
• Maybe I’m just impatient and should settle down, turn off the hose, and blog instead.

Gardeners? Internet research gurus? Others? What’s going wrong? Or is nothing going wrong?

For now, I’m going to send out a Tweet asking for help. The Twitter-verse is usually good for gardening advice. TTFN – Ta-ta-for-now!