About Kenneth Joergensen Expertise I can answer questions about most cool season lawn care issues: fertilizing, watering, grass seed selection, weed identification and eradication, managing lawns in shade, recommend horticultural practices, improving soils, and organic approaches. I can especially give advice on the use and selection of fertilizers, suggest organic lawn care approaches and propose suitable lawn care calenders. My experience is with cool season lawns, so my knowledge of warm season areas is limited. My knowledge of pesticide use is very limited.
Experience I have been actively working with lawn care for a number of years in zone 6, including restoration, maintenance, etc
Lawns - Organic lawn care for St Augustine in Orlando, FL
Expert: Kenneth Joergensen - 8/5/2004
Question I recently purchased a home and wanted to maintain my lawn using organic fertilizer.
Are there any commercial products that I can buy at a Lowes or Home Depot to fertilize my lawn, instead of using the typical Scotts weed feed/turf builder?
I don't want to go running around to farms for corn meal, manure, etc. Something I can do myself that is basic and easy.
Also, is there an organic substitute for Miracle Gro? I like to fertilize my plants and trees every 2 weeks for strong growth.
Thanks for your help :-)
Answer In our area, the organic lawn fertilizers go under the names of ESPOMA ORGANIC LAWN FERTILIZER, RINGER LAWN RESTORER, AND MILORGANITE. They may be others. These are pelleted fertilizers (just like the regular ones) with very little smell. Ringer lawn restorer look like elongated rabbit food pellets whereas milorganite are very small round ball bearing shaped particles. They can both be distributed with a regular fertilizer spreader and comes in 25-40 lbs bags. I buy mine at home depot, walmart and garden centers.
The only problem with milorganite is the lack of potassium (6-2-0). If you use it, and if your soil is not already high in potassium, then consider buying a bag of "SULFATE OF POTASH" and apply 2 lbs per 1000 sq feet twice per year in addition to the milorganite. SULFATE OF POTASH (0-0-50). You can also buy muriate of potash (0-0-60) is usually found in the organic gardening section in 5 lbs bags (ESPOMA is one brand).
Ringer lawn restorer has numbers 10-2-6 and thus is a very excellently formulated lawn fertilizer for year round use.
My first recommendation would be the large box stores or garden centers. Next you can buy online, but shipping costs often makes this impractical.
When it comes to your flower beds, the way organic fertilizers usually work is that they are applied and then release their nutrients rather slowly over a long period of time. This matches how most plants prefer to be fed anyway. However, some organic fertilizers do release rather quickly in warm temperatures.
dried blood 12-0-0 (nitrogen), fish meal, bone meal (12-6-0) are all example of fertilizers which are almost instantly available to the plants. They should be used in smaller volumes to avoid overfertilizing.
When it comes to fertilizing flowering plants, as you can see, the products above are higher in nitrogen (first number) and lower in phosphorus and poassium (2nd and 3rd number). However, flowering plants usually prefer fertilizers with balanced numbers (such as 14-14-14, 20-20-20) or fertilizers with higher phosphorus/potassium (such as 15-30-15, 10-15-10, 5-10-10, etc). Too much nitrogen (comapred to the others) and the plants wont flower much.
Therefore, when putting together organic material to create fertilizers, you have to do some research and be a bit careful.
THIS BEING SAID, espoma sells 5 lbs bags of plant tone, holly tone, flower tone which are pre-blended organic fertilizer materials. Use plant tone for shrubs, annuals and perennials, flower tones for annuals and flowering perennials, and holly tone for acid loving plants like holly,azaleas, blueberries, etc)
Usually you find the organic flower fertilizers in the organic isle at garden centers. Most garden centers sell espoma brands because they are so common (holly tone is about the most popular acid plant food in USA).
I suggest you contact a good garden center.
Note: if you go away from using liquid fertilizers, I do not recommend that you fertilize every 2 weeks with organic fertilziers. once per month a maximum. A diluted application of liquid fertilizer for annuals every 2 weeks is probably ok for heavy feeders, but trees, shrubs and most perennials should not be fed that often. This goes for the use of both liquid and grannular, organic or synthetic fertilziers. There is such a thing as too much of the good stuffs.
