If you need something to worry about; here are the results of toxic metal analysis for some 2100 fertilizers.

Fertilizers

Apparently, even the "certified organic" label doesn't help.

Best wishes,,,

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), March 26, 2000

Answers

The one I use, Miracle-gro, is actually safer than dirt.

-- cin (cinlooo@aol.corn), March 26, 2000.

I thought a garden was supposed to feed US. I'm supposed to feed IT? My method is plant a seed. If it grows and provides fruit, I eat the fruit. If it doesn't grow, it doesn't grow.

-- Anita (notgiving@anymore.thingee), March 26, 2000.

I don't use either fertilizer or pesticides. We make compost from leaves, coffee grounds, sawdust, veggie peelings, glass clippings, etc. and it is the best thing you can use for either vegetables or flowers. If I find a rotted stump, all broken down, it goes on the pile. You can't go wrong that way.

Last year when many people's gardens burned up, from our horrendous heat wave, our garden flourished, and I canned and gave away bushels of excess produce.

-- gilda (jess@listbot.com), March 26, 2000.

Oh, I forgot, we do use a top dressing of lime once a year as our soil is very acid. But that's it. Thanks for the post Z1.

-- gilda (jess@listbot.com), March 26, 2000.

Anita,

[LOL]! Your survival time as a farmer would be very limited :^)

-- Jim Cooke (JJCooke@yahoo.com), March 26, 2000.

Go natural every time. Nothing is better than nature to feed nature.

-- ET (bneville@zebra.net), March 26, 2000.

Gilda, I like your style of natural gardening, and admire your generosity to water-poor neighbors, but "glass clippings,"? Ouch. :^)

-- (Miss Ann@th.rope), March 27, 2000.

Anita, what you are *supposed* to be doing is enriching the soil, which means natural, low strength, slow-acting ingredients (usually water insoluble) that won't harm the bioorganisms. Cin's Miracle-Gro will destroy her soil's health over time, making it dependent on quick, nonorganic nitrogen fixes.

-- (what@ev.er), March 27, 2000.

Whatever:

"enriching the soil"? I'm familiar with the topic of soil from the years in which I lived in Illinois. I live in Texas now, however, and this stuff is NOT soil. When we moved in, a watermelon plant was growing in the backyard. We think a construction worker spit out a seed while building the house. We picked and ate it at Thanksgiving...better late than never, eh? With that glowing success in mind, I planted some seeds in the backyard last year. The success rate was very poor and the drought killed most of what grew. Even on the days I was ALLOWED to water, the weeds grew much faster than the vegetables.

This year I've decided there's no sense in trying to turn Texas clay into Illinois soil. I bought some potting soil and have vegetables growing in containers along the driveway out front. So far, 6 of 8 bean plants have come up, and 4 of 10 spinach plants. I had NO success with spinach last year. I just planted pepper and tomato seeds this past weekend. When the drought comes, I can use a watering can to water JUST the plants without encouraging crabgrass and stickle weeds, and I won't have to dance from the fire-ants biting my feet.

When I gardened in Illinois, I would plant peas VERY early. They don't produce much fruit for all the plant, but the kids loved fresh peas and I cut the plants up and tilled them under for the summer crops of other veggies. In the late fall, I'd plant more peas and again till them under after picking. In days of old, land was cultivated ONE year and left to fallow the following year, with replenishing the soil in mind. The slop bucket wasn't used on the fields. It was typically thrown under the raspberry bushes, or another nearby tree. [The slop bucket held everything from dishwater to coffee grounds and egg shells.]

If I had a lot of land and took gardening for food more seriously, I still doubt that I'd use commercial fertilizers, but I'd probably also start somewhere that had soil in the first place.

-- Anita (notgiving@anymore.thingee), March 27, 2000.

Hey, I grew up in an apartment building, for heavens sake. I'm learning here! Anyway...my "garden" consists of window pots of herbs and flowers. I don't have the outdoor space for more, unfortunately, other than a patio. =(

-- cin (cinlooo@aol.corn), March 27, 2000.

Miss Ann, "grass clippings, ouch." I don't understand. Mayby though, you thought I put them directly on the compost piles, but I don't. I wasn't too clear on that. After they're all dried out, we use them for mulch on the garden. By the time fall rolls around they've kind of broken down into the soil. Sometimes we mix them in, and sometimes we take off the excess and put them on the compost pile. Am I missing something? Never too old to learn a new trick.

-- gilda (jess@listbot.com), March 27, 2000.

Gilda:

What you missed was the typo you made in your first post. You MEANT to type gRass, but instead typed gLass. THERE'S the ouchie! [grin]

-- Anita (notgiving@anymore.thingee), March 27, 2000.