Fertilizers
What Organic Fertilizer Should I Use on Vegetables?
Although organic fertilizers represent an environmentally friendly choice for your gardening chores, choosing them for edible crops, such as vegetables, reduces the amount of chemical residue in your family's diet. Organic fertilizers may be as inexpensive as your backyard compost or as pricey as exotic mail-order bat guano. Each fertilizer offers a different combination of nutrients. Consult your local extension ...
How Do I Use Organic Fertilizer?
Organic gardening and agriculture focus on the improvement of soils to provide plants with nutrients. Conventional fertilizers, on the other hand, often deplete soils of beneficial microbes and organic matter (see References 2). Organic fertilizers come from organic plant or animal sources and contain at least 5 percent of nitrogen, phosphorus or potassium combined -- the primary nutrients plants need. Organic ...
About Organic Fertilizers
Every crop people grow takes nutrients from the soil. If farmers and gardeners don't return at least as much as they take out with every harvest, the soil becomes depleted and the crops don't grow as well. Soil is a living, breathing organism, and adding organic fertilizers to it is one of the most important things you can to maintain its health.
Examples of Organic Fertilizers
In nature, plants don't receive an annual dose of fertilizer from a farmer or gardener; as microbes break down dead plants and animals, they become nutrients for the soil, available for uptake by the roots of living plants. Other nutrients derive from rocks, which release minerals into the soil as they erode. Organic agriculture and gardening also rely on these principles, and organic growers incorporate plant and ...
More Articles on Fertilizers
Common Organic Fertilizers
Organic fertilizers are soil amendments designed to aid plant growth by supplying one or more nutrients that may be lacking in the existing soil (see References 1). Unlike synthetic or inorganic fertilizers, organic fertilizers come from living things. In general, organic fertilizer releases nutrients into the soil more slowly and over a longer period than inorganic fertilizer (see References 2).
Fertilizers As Pollutants
Fertilizers, whether they are artificial or organic, can cause serious problems if they contaminate freshwater and marine ecosystems. The same nutrients in fertilizers that nourish crops, lawns, and golf courses can cause rapid growth of algae, also known as an algal bloom. Dying algae in turn feed bacteria, which consume so much dissolved oxygen that fish and plants cannot survive. Some species of algae also produce toxins that can be harmful to humans. (See References 1)
The Use of Organic and Inorganic Fertilizers
All fertilizers supply plants with the nutrients your garden needs to be in tip-top shape. However, organic and inorganic fertilizers supply nutrients to soil in different ways. Organic fertilizers create a healthy environment for the soil over a long period of time, while inorganic fertilizers work much more quickly, but fail to create a sustainable environment. Choose the one that best fits your needs, or consider combining them to get the best of both options.
