I useorganic fertilizersrather than chemical substance plant food , such as 10 - 10 - 10 ( 10 pct nitrogen , 10 pct phosphate , 10 percent potash ) because my tiny urban farm is within easy saunter length from business district skyscrapers and little Ellerbe Creek , in Durham , N.C. , which lead to a drinking - urine reservoir . The main welfare for theorganic gardenis that constitutive fertiliser provide dozens of nutrient that our flowers , fruit and vegetable need . Chemical fertilizers might be less expensive , but they often offer only three food : nitrogen , phosphorus and potassium . Like the great unwashed who eat only cheeseburgers and milk shakes , this kind of diet leave many plants with a weakened resistant system , place them at endangerment of bug and disease infestations . It ’s no surprise that landscape - upkeep companies that use chemical fertilizers also offer nebuliser divine service for bugs and disease .
chemic fertilizers are also very like to table salt : Put too much near the roots of a industrial plant , and the saltiness will suck the moisture from the roots , making the leaves appear burnt . Even when applied safely to plants , these salty fertilizers can lead to other problems . Like table salinity , they dissolve in rainwater and some percentage washes out of the garden and downhill into creeks , pond , reservoirs and ocean . An excessive amount of nitrogen or atomic number 15 in these waterways causes alga growth to blow up and pour down fish . Pound for hammering , constituent fertilizer are much less likely to wash away . More of their nutrients end up where they ’re intended — in your garden plant — and few fish hurt .
The sources of these two variety of fertilizers are also very different : Organic fertilizers may come from crop ( alfalfa repast , soybean meal ) , prey ( rock phosphate , greensand ) or waste from slaughterhouses ( off-white meal , feather meal , crab meal ) . Chemical fertilizers , on the other hand , bank on declamatory quantities of fogey fuel to extract nitrogen gas from our atmosphere to create nitrogen plant food . There ’s no shortage of atmospheric nitrogen , but other problem are found downstream from this process . burn fogey fuel to make fertilizer puts more carbon dioxide in the air , which contributes to climate disruption : hot summers , longer droughts , rough winter , etc . The weather is already a thought-provoking enough element of gardening without us rocking the climatological gravy boat .
So how do we use organic plant food ? When planting a fresh works , I add one handful to the planting hollow for a veggie or repeated , two handful for a shrub and three handful for atree .
I ca n’t do that with chemical fertilizers because they will burn the flora . I also sling handfuls of organic plant food on the soil around prove plant every winter before mulching , and I pass around some on our little patch of lawn in early spring . At this point , we ’re likely to stroll down to Ellerbe Creek to see how the tadpoles , minnows and crayfish are doing .
exposure by iStockphoto / ThinkStock
constituent fertilizers are better than chemical ones .
