For my lemon trees, I bought a soil medium for citrus trees that already has food in it, that is supposed to feed the trees for up to 3 months. I mixed in the soil medium vermiculite and perlite for good drainage and to keep the soil uncompacted. All pots have excellent drainage.

I have Fish Emulsion for foliar feeding, on occasion, and also pellets to use (that specifically say to keep away from the trunk of the tree), that is also made specifically for citrus and pecan trees.

I am wondering, given my soil medium.....how should I use the fertilizer I was given and recommended to me by the nursery that sold me the trees? Is the food inside the soil enough for 3 months? I don't want to risk over-fertilizing and burning the foliage.

They've been in their new containers for over a month, and seem to be doing just fine. I am just confused about feeding them.

I'm including a picture of a Meyer lemon that's on one of my trees right now.

It depends how big your trees are, the volume of the potting media, and the amount of water that is being leached from the media. I wouldn't fertilize within a month for sure, but then any time after that and there is a growth flush, I would resume fertilizer.

Over application of fertilizer is easy to fix with citruses, just leach it out with water if you have over-fertilized.

But the major trick is really the concentration dissolved in the water. It is the concentration of dissolved fertilizer which can burn your roots. Too much could wilt your plants aside from being toxic. But for citruses, the limit is quite high and I was surprised. For example, if you limit your nitrogen to 300 ppm as Millet have discussed before from his observations with folks at Lindcove Citrus Research Facility, you can fertilize every day at that concentration. In practical approximate equivalent, that is 1 teaspoon of ammonium sulfate fertilizer dissolved in 1 gallon of water. And you can use that every time you water.

Thank you for your advice.

My Sambo is about 5' tall, but the two Meyers and one Eureka are small and about 1 1/2 feet tall and will be bush-like...all are in large 3-5 gallon containers. I'm guessing at that right now, as I'm not near them. I'm at my father's house, visiting. The Sambo wasn't trained to be small, and I bought it knowing that. But it was such a beautiful specimen, I couldn't resist it.