It's never too early to be thinking about what you need for your lawn or garden and how to care for them to get the best possible results. So what are fertilizers? Let's find out!
Fertilizer is any material that supplies at least one essential nutrient to plants. Fertilizers typically provide: Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium, Calcium, Magnesium, Sulfur, Boron, Chlorine, Copper, Iron, Manganese, Molybdenum, and Zinc. When classifying fertilizers there are two main categories: inorganic (or non-organic) or organic. Inorganic fertilizers are derived from non-living material, are man-made and have chemicals. Inorganic fertilizers are often called commercial fertilizers. Organic fertilizers (aka natural fertilizers) are derived from living or once living material. Organic fertilizers are naturally occurring fertilizers (e.g. compost, manure), that's why they are sometimes called natural fertilizers. Naturally occurring organic fertilizers include manure, slurry, worm castings, peat, seaweed, humic acid, and guano. Processed organic fertilizer can include compost, bloodmeal, bone meal, humic acid, amino acids, and seaweed extracts. Other examples are natural enzyme digested proteins, fish meal, and feather meal.
One of the disadvantages of inorganic fertilizers are they are environmentally costly. It's a known fact that inorganic fertilizers, with all their chemicals, are not good for the earth. Runoff from inorganic gardens, lawns, etc. can cause biological dead zones in streams and rivers. What are the advantages of using organic fertilizer over inorganic fertilizers? There are many!! Organic fertilizers slightly reduce carbon emissions in organic gardens, lawns, etc.
Vegetable organic gardening & why the First Family has an organic garden
Vegetable organic gardening requires no nutrient input or supplementary products and are healthier for the environment. Overall, an organic fertilizer can add valuable organic matter to the soil and has some slow release action. All of which is good for the earth!!
One of the famous families that use organic fertilizers for their garden are the Obamas. Mrs. Obama, who had no prior experience in gardening, let alone in vegetable organic gardening, was motivated to start a garden when she realized her daughters were not receiving daily nutritious meals. What was happening was they would sometimes dine out three times a week and the family wasn't getting the nutrients they needed. The First Lady believes that more home cooking with organic food like fruits & vegetables will give the family the nutrients they need. Eating more fruits and vegetables, along with exercise, can help reduce the chance of obesity in all people, whether they are children or adults!!
