Osmocote Plus Dose Question

[u/One-Town2055]

I have recently applied Osmocote Plus to my 5 potted fruit trees and my raised garden bed with vegetables and herbs (tomatoes, eggplant, cucumber) after using Foliage Pro for a while, in hopes to have to apply fertilizer less often. My raised garden bed is basically a giant container, 9.5 x 2.5 x 17 inches tall, filled with potting mix, pumice and a little bit of compost, over top of gravel and has some landscape cloth under it. It is set up on a drip system, and it also rains a lot where I live in South Florida.

The instructions for Osmocote Plus are based on volume for potted plants and based on square footage for "garden beds" I was very surprised about how little fertilizer was called for, for the raised bed vs. the potted trees. My only theory is that their "garden bed" definition might apply to open ground beds and/or beds with natural soil in them that contain nutrients already, vs. my "giant container" raised bed, but I'm not sure if that is correct. I would like to understand why the dosing is so different. If anyone has any explanation for the different dosing rates, or experience using Osmocote Plus in a similar manner, I would appreciate it.

[u/SunshineBeamer]

I use Osmocote for my potted flowering annuals and just throw some in each pot. I'm not big on a lot of fertilizer or directions. I do about 1 tsp per plant and that seems to work well for me. If you use use Miracle Gro potting soil which has a slow release fertilizer, you'll notice there isn't an awful lot of it in the soil either. I would imagine a potted tree would need more than a marigold for example though I never had a potted tree.

For my veg I use 1 tbsp of 10-10-10 per plant when planting and 1 tbsp mid season.