Organic fertilizer

Now that a lot of plants are planted, you might be thinking they need a bit o' feeding. Wind, cold temps, too much water -- these all can stress out your plants, and some plant food can help with that as well. Even with the terrific soil we have, different veg need different types of nutrients. Leafy greens generally need more nitrogen, and fruiting plants could use a small amount of nitrogen, potash and potassium (see blurb on NPK at bottom of post).

Before you go running to the store, think about a few things:

1. Anything you use in the garden must be organic. No Miracle-gro, nothing with an ingredient list full of synthetics. If you want to purchase organic fertilizer, I suggest nurseries like Pesches, Lurveys, Reds or Chalet. No matter the source, it must say "organic" or "OMRI" on the packaging. Even the word "natural" may not mean it's organic -- if you have questions, snap a shot of the label and email/text it to me.

2. Ingredients you might find in an organic fertilizer include worm castings, kelp extract, fish bone meal, alfalfa meal, seaweed extract, plant hormone, calcium, aged manure, among other things. 

3. You can also make your own organic fertilizers. Here are some examples --

Using common weed leaves: to add a dose of nitrogen

1. Harvest your leaves, nettles, weeds, seaweed etc and place them in a bucket with a lid.
2. Fill the bucket with water.
3. Wait two weeks.
4. Dilute the concentrate to look like weak tea before you use it.

Epsom salt: to add magnesium and sulfate (esp. for peppers, tomatoes and peppers

1. Combine 1 Tablespoon Epsom Salt, 1 gallon water in a watering can
2. Use the solution to water your plants.
3. Repeat once a month.

My favorite organic fertilizer is worm castings -- those I get from my vermicompost bin and those I purchase. The NPK is worm castings is around 0.1-2 for each macronutrient, depending on what the worms were fed. Worm castings and general compost are both like multivitamins -- low levels of macronutrients, but with terrific micronutrients, humus, and microorganisms.

NP-what?

A bit about nutrients: you might have seen a three-number marking on different fertilizers, like 16-9-9, or 4-0-0-. This lets you know the NPK contents: n=nitrogen, p=potash, and k=potassium. The numbers represent the ratio of the nutrients to each other and their volume in the container. For instance, Gardeners Supply sells "Gardener's Best Organic Tomato Fertilizer" with an NPK of 8-5-5. This means it has 8% nitrogen, 5% potash and 5% potassium. That adds up to 18% macronutrients in the bag, with the other 82% of the bag being filler and micronutrients. I've never seen a fertilizer that has an NPK that equals 100, by the way, not even close!