About The Long Island Gardener Expertise Do you know the wrong fertilizer will keep your plants from blooming?
Do you know that too much Nitrogen can kill your grass, even if it does not burn the roots? Do you know that Roses need a LOT of Nitrogen to bloom -- and why is that?
There's some complex chemistry in those plant foods. The secrets behind N-P-K are the key to the ultimate lawn, the the biggest flowers, the most fruits and vegetables. And if you don't get it right, you could be sorry.
I'll show you what you did wrong, and how to fix it.
Experience Homeowner with gardens indoors and outdoors, lawns back and forth. I wrote my first gardening column for our college newspaper, teaching roomates about the right way to feed those windowsills gardens. Today I look for challenges. Organic Fertilizers are the key to proper feeding of all our plants. Can you make your own fertilizer? Some people think so -- but there are side effects. I have been there, done that for 54 years and there is nothing like the voice of experience when it comes to Horticulture and Fertilizers.
Publications Numerous and sundry but only in college did I write about plants.
Education/Credentials B.A., Botany and Mass Communications.
Question does fertizer burns ones hand when it comes in contact with some ones hand or plant. 2.what type of fertilizer will youn consider best for planting.
Answer Some Fertilizer is quite caustic -- to plants AND to people. However, the likelihood of you coming into that is low unless you live on a large farm. Miracle-Gro type fertilizers can be irritating, and you would not want to get them in your eyes, but they would probably not burn you -- not even, for example, Sani-Flush toilet bowl cleaner (which has a pH 4.5). Regular kitchen Vinegar dips to a pH value of apx 2.4.
In reality, there are far more dangers in common household chemicals than there are in Fertilizers. Most importantly, some are extremely volatile (Ammonia), raising the odds you will breathe them in or splash them. Wait 'til you see what consumer Felipe Gonzalez has listed on his excellent 'Top 12 killer household chemicals' list:
home1.gte.net/felipe2/id27.html
As for the best fertilizers, the hands down winners are ORGANIC -- those derived from natural products that carry the LOWEST N-P-K numbers on their box or container. These products don't force-feed a narrow number of nutrients into a plant. Instead of a temporary spike in a narrow band of nutrients, they wine and dine Soil microbes, and THEY -- the MICROBES -- respond by generating four-course balanced meals for the plant.
It's like this. After decades and decades of reading ads for fertilizers, people have gotten used to the idea of giving their plants 'food' to make them healthy, and assume that nutrients in the Soil are used up or were never there in the first place. They also think that Fungi, Bacteria and Nematodes are bad and you should get rid of them asap.
But NONE of that is true.
Healthy Soil SURROUNDS roots with millions of microbes. And that's a good thing. Because most microbes are GOOD to have in your Soil. Only a small number cause disease. It's very hard to make a plant growing in healthy Soil sick. When they do show symptoms, it's either because someone wiped out the Good microbes and opened the door for bad microbes OR because of nutrient or pH problem, which they caused.
Bottom line: The best fertilizer is organic.
However, doses of mycorrhizae or other products are wonderful when and if you need them. At times, even more wonderful than fertilizer.
