A quick word from the heretic: I have tried to do the fertilizer-with-water thing in the past, and I still do it for special plants, but with over 500 pots it takes a long time to fertilize everything by hand and I end up forgetting to do it on a regular basis. I also tried adding dissolvable fertilizer to the dripper system, but I got the impression that it was dissolving all at once and dumping all the fertilizer at the ends of the drip lines. So I started putting a complete granular fertilizer with micronutrients in every 8-inch (20-cm) pot, each time I repot (about every three years). I use a couple of tablespoons (30 cc's) per pot. This is horrible overfertilization according to many folks, and I've seen growers flinch when I talk about it. But I'm focused on what works. Sometimes I see a bit of leaf tip burn that I think is related to fertilizer, but I also get rapid growth from my plants and a lot of flowers. This approach does also result in rapid growth of my "indicator plants," unfortunately. Mike San Jose, CA