Hey guys, im just enquiring on what fertilizers you use? At the moment i only utilize miracle grow! Should i fertilize with anything else? Or are their also any other minerals i could add to up the health and production of my apple trees.
Ive noticed that ive lost a hell of a lot of fruit buds on my apple scrumptious, which is a shame since its my favourite variety and im wondering if it could be lacking in a certain mineral.
Thanks guys!
All good things in moderation. I also use the 'crystalline' 10-10-10 lily miller stuff in the box. I use water soluable fertilizers found at yard and estate sales.
If you shop a little, you can find those fertilizer spikes on sale and cheap at K Mart etc.
Try to keep a journal of what you use and the results. Another good thing to get is regular straw for mulching around trees - but it is important to not have it right up against the trunk. Your various fertilizers can be under the straw and it will be protected and sorta slow released as you water.
I would choose something with low potassium levels. Our climate leaches everything but the potassium from the soil, so supplementing potassium probably will do more harm than good. Read Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades for details. I'm not sure how much this applies to trees instead of vegetables, but I imagine the same principles apply. According to Solomon, not paying attention to the factthat potassium levels are high and everything else is low will result in nutritionally unbalanced vegetables.
[quote="chrisg":19ve5fua]Hey guys, thanks for your replies, i will note that about the miracle grow certainly, and use sparingly. 
Ive also heard to use seaweed, and i bought some calseafeed, corny name i know! Anyone heard any reviews of this or had any experience?
Thanks guys![/quote:19ve5fua]
Nope. But googling etc. tends to get most answers for me.
For the most part, there is not that much difference in fertilizers - aside from how quickly they are available, their percentages and their degrees of naturalness and organicness. I hope you don't mind this little diatribe and barely on subject tangentfest.
Naturalness and Organic - kinda overblown and overdone in my view. So what if the nutrients were 'frittered' to make them more useful and available! Another food example is - if it wasn't the bogeyman now - then superwhite bleached flour might have become a special health food and expensive. No doubt on a different continuum at this very moment (the proven parallel universes you know about cuz you watch PBS...) - it really IS a specialized expensive healthfood!
When we were kids in Mississippi - we would run behind the DDT fumigation truck and get ourselves very thoroughly soaked. This kept the skeeters off us for HOURS. Now, before you start thinking that I am gonna die soon cuz of this - you can look this up - the US Military STILL uses DDT to delouse people / prisoners of war. Sprayed right on them like I did voluntarily to myself as a kid. REALLY! And many of the fruits and veggies you eat NOW that are from overseas have been zapped with DDT. REALLY!
So - about the only fertilizer to watch out for is 'weed and feed' that has an herbicidal component for lawns. Other than that - almost everything else out there is usable. Just don't burn stuff and strike the balance. Better in most cases to underfertilize than overfertilize. Another generalization - organics tend to have lower percentages of available nutrients and tend to be slower release. Harder to burn stuff unless you use chicken poop. Remember when chicken poop was 'the bomb'? Well now it is currently out of favor cuz there is concern about certain diseases. A year from now, the new bogeyman will be peatmoss. Oh yeah! Peatmoss already IS a new bogeyman cuz you release lots of pent up CO2 when you use it! Better to use more expensive coconut husk pots now. REALLY!
[quote="Rickitikkitavi":c2se9ftu]
Nope. But googling etc. tends to get most answers for me.
For the most part, there is not that much difference in fertilizers - aside from how quickly they are available, their percentages and their degrees of naturalness and organicness. I hope you don't mind this little diatribe and barely on subject tangentfest.
Naturalness and Organic - kinda overblown and overdone in my view. So what if the nutrients were 'frittered' to make them more useful and available! Another food example is - if it wasn't the bogeyman now - then superwhite bleached flour might have become a special health food and expensive. No doubt on a different continuum at this very moment (the proven parallel universes you know about cuz you watch PBS...) - it really IS a specialized expensive healthfood!
When we were kids in Mississippi - we would run behind the DDT fumigation truck and get ourselves very thoroughly soaked. This kept the skeeters off us for HOURS. Now, before you start thinking that I am gonna die soon cuz of this - you can look this up - the US Military STILL uses DDT to delouse people / prisoners of war. Sprayed right on them like I did voluntarily to myself as a kid. REALLY! And many of the fruits and veggies you eat NOW that are from overseas have been zapped with DDT. REALLY!
So - about the only fertilizer to watch out for is 'weed and feed' that has an herbicidal component for lawns. Other than that - almost everything else out there is usable. Just don't burn stuff and strike the balance. Better in most cases to underfertilize than overfertilize. Another generalization - organics tend to have lower percentages of available nutrients and tend to be slower release. Harder to burn stuff unless you use chicken poop. Remember when chicken poop was 'the bomb'? Well now it is currently out of favor cuz there is concern about certain diseases. A year from now, the new bogeyman will be peatmoss. Oh yeah! Peatmoss already IS a new bogeyman cuz you release lots of pent up CO2 when you use it! Better to use more expensive coconut husk pots now. REALLY!
[/quote:c2se9ftu]
Right on Rikki. I couldn't have said it better than that.
Heck, I grew plants in whetted vacuum cleaner dust about 20 years ago as an experiment. That is mighty unsanitary compared to peat moss!
Also did the experiment of fertilizing a mulberry seedling with buckets of feces back then. The growth was utterly astounding. It shot up to 14 feet in one season (Southern California). You won't find that technique on PBS or Organic Gardening either!
Understanding the soil food web takes patience. WHat is destroying our long term ability to provide safe healthy food for us is this short-term, Fox news inability to look at things in the long term. If we want to save one diseased crop and then make a huge crop, you can use any toxics you want. You're not eating it, you're just selling it for quick profit now. You don't care if you destroy the natural ability of the soil to provide. You don't care that the people will get sick. You don't care that we almost wiped out the bald eagle, the symbol of the US with DDT. You just want quick profits now.
All animals and plants are connected. That's why we can't eat much tuna, swordfish, etc., because we've been polluting for so long, it's finally catching up to us. This is also increasingly true of the Columbia River, the Willamette, the Great Lakes, the Everglades, etc. It's true that foreign food supplies in many cases allow much more toxic stuff on their fruits and vegies than we do, but in the first world, such as Europe and Japan, they are much more stringent about their food supplies. They don't allow corporations to put toxic stuff in their food because the government is run for the people, not the corporations. Imagine that!
Our corporations keep inventing toxic stuff to sell us until someone actually finds out that they are poison. Then they invent some new poison that they try to convince us is good for us but really just makes them rich. Agriculture has been going on for millions of years before toxic chemicals, and it will go on for years afterwards. Maybe some extremely liberal PBS show like the "Wall Street Journal Report" will tell us about it.
John S
PDX OR
[quote="John S":vvp5juxt]...You don't care that the people will get sick. You don't care that we almost wiped out the bald eagle, the symbol of the US with DDT. You just want quick profits now.
...Agriculture has been going on for millions of years before toxic chemicals, and it will go on for years afterwards. Maybe some extremely liberal PBS show like the "Wall Street Journal Report" will tell us about it.
John S
PDX OR[/quote:vvp5juxt]
John -
I hope you didn't think I was advocating use of DDT! Not at all! The elimination of DDT has caused the eagles and hawks to return to Mississippi and elsewhere. You are also correct that corporations will continue to invent new poisons and we get to save ourselves and inform others.
Agriculture has been going on a long time - and will continue on as long as we survive. Humans are not the only cultivators of course. Even ants perform animal husbandry - unfortunately for us!
My main point was that almost all commercially available fertilizers are similar and can be used interchangeably. Recycling and reuse of what has already been created is on balance a good thing. Almost all my fertilizers and poisons come from yard and estate sales. It sure is hard to find slug stuff these days though. We find more water soluable stuff including Miracle Grow at yard sales.
The soil fauna are tough and can put up with a lot of %$#^$%^ and still thrive. It is possible to use 'crystalline' concentrated fertilizers AND organic methods together and get a very good result. Irregardless (sic) I am very glad that small farms are able to be totally organic and that even in this economy there are people willing to pay the extra for their crops especially at farmer's markets etc. Occasional use of poisons will be necessary though. That is the reality. A constant arms race between us and 'them' especially some insects.
On the subject of the so-called liberal media - I trust very few domestic sources anymore. Don't even get me started about Fox News and the former administration... I sometimes watch and listen to 'the enemy' just to know what they are 'thinking' and how they are currently being 'programmed'. For the truth - I watch The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on PBS, Frontline and other PBS and use google news otherwise. I even read what the Russian media has to say. btw - they say our country is about to go to war soon.
I personally advocate having a filled pantry of food - be able to survive for at least 2 or 3 months in case something bad happens. Americans do not act very rationally when faced with a 'shortage'. If you are old enough - you might remember 'the toilet paper scare' when this precious resource was being hoarded as if only Sears catalogs were gonna be available the rest of the year...
I also advocate making greenhouses and cold frames to extend our growing season and what we are able to grow. The more self sufficient we can be now - the better. Something is about to happen. Not sure what or how - but the Earth is at it's limits with human population and what we are doing now is absolutely and totally unsustainable. If you know how to grow food well - you will be sought after. I am not sure I wanna be around if we are hunter/gatherers surviving on 10 year old cans of pseudo-spam and relearning agriculture.
John, if you were the King of the World, would you:
Ban all scions at the HOS scion swap with traces of Miracle Grow in them?
Ban all fruit from the October Fruit Show with traces of Miracle Grow?
Come after my jug of Roundup and my lil sack of blue crystals?
Make me put reeds and grasses for my roof instead of 40 year composite?
Confiscate my stainless steel knives, forks and spoons in the kitchen because they are unsustainable?
Cars and alloy bicycles are unsustainable, so they hafta go as well in a perfectly green world!
Etc.
It would be downright hypocritical if you had any of these in your possession after labeling others as you have.
Somebody needs to show me how I am killing the soil in my 10 year old leek bed that I use continuously. I use blue crystals in moderation a few times during the grow season, and yet all winter as I dig leeks I feel gulity for cutting so many earthworms up with my hand shovel. There are scads of them in my "dead" soil! There must be 10 or 20 in every cupful of dirt. How can this be??
Ricki?
I agree with most of what you said. I agree that it is better for the environment to buy used fertilizer, etc. than to buy it new.
The problem in the soil with the synthetic chemicals is not the macrobiology like earthworms and insects, they will survive it. The problem is, like I said, the microbiology: the stuff you need to use a microscope to see. Bacteria, fungi, protozoa, amoebas, cilia, would be typical of these types of beings. We are undergoing a period of great scientific discovery, like when they discovered penicillin and people realized that leeches don't cure people of bad blood the way they killed George Washington. There is a whole biological system smaller than earthworms that we can't see. People then needed to realize the bacterial theory of disease. We need to realize the microbiology rules the soil. 20-40% of the energy of a tree goes into sending out micro "food" for this microbiology, so they will interact with the roots. We are talking about root nodes and mycorrizal (sp?) here. After the tree attracts the right kind of microbe, another eats that, another eats the excretion of that microbe, etc. I have seen these in microscope pictures and I have used compost tea, which effectively uses these concepts.
By the way, I agree with you on the media. We need to be critical of all media. Journalism standards have fallen deeply since the 1970's and most just want to attract attention. They are mostly about Jon and Kate plus 8 or Britney Spears flashing people. I think we sometimes need to listen to people with whom we disagree usually, because it can help us understand the other side. I try to listen both to people on the right and left of me for insights. I do think foreign media can give us a new perspective, and I like to listen to David Brooks, a Republican conservative for example. I think that any theories about gardening and the environment need to be checked with our personal experience, and that's one reason why I like this forum, to check experience with other gardeners.
John S
PDX OR
Thank you John!
I knew you weren't going 'uncivil' on us or me. It is very very okay to feel passion about what you think and believe. I am guilty of this big time.
This group at HOS reminds me a lot of my very good interactions and friendships with CRFG people. Plant people are literally the BEST people!
It is going to take us, and the Obama's with their victory gardens in the White House grounds and others to show how to grow some of our own food in a sustainable and local way.
I hope for more civility in the USA like in the days of olde. We need to agree to disagree, not fight the program and let the Dems have their chance to undo this current mess. We liberals allowed 'them' to do their magic for years and now it's our turn. lol
Animalcules are important. Big time. They are also rather adaptable and tough beasties that are part of the world we need to respect and understand.
"Animalcules are important." Wow - words I had to look up.
The closest I ever got to understanding any of the microscopic stuff was reading Lewis Thomas, and I never thought I really knew anything. There's an incredible amount of biological, not just chemical, complexity in how basic creatures do basic things. We tend to forget that, if we ever knew it.
mh
Plumfan,
I don't really understand your post. I am not the king of the world. I live in a democracy, and that is what I choose to live in. One of the things I like about this forum is that other people can inform me of things that I don't understand yet. You, for example, told us about cutting off the bottoms of plastic bags and using them against codling moth and apple maggot. I credited you with that on my posts and I appreciate you doing that. That is the main method that I used. WHen I did it, I shared my observations so that others could use my impressions.
It sounded like you thought I was putting you down. I was not. If you thought I was putting you down, I apologize. I was putting down the rape and pillage style of corporate agriculture that is limited our ability to eat wholesome food and grow it organically if we so choose. When my grandfather was young, he could swim in the Willamette. My father could not as a teenager, because it was too polluted. I could in the late 70's because it was cleaned up. Now it's too dirty in Portland for me or my kids. The corporation doesn't have children so it doesn't care. It only wants profits. I feel that corporations are trying to force us into buying their style of fertilizer and pesticides, which damages the microbiology of the soil, thereby requiring us to buy more of their products, and polluting more.
I did not advocate banning all unsustainable products right this second. I would like to see us move to a more sustainable world, but as I believe in democracy, that would have to be worked through our political structures.
I actually have Roundup at my house. I bought it for plants growing through the cracks in the sidewalk. I couldn't figure out how to dig them up. Now I put boiling water or vinegar on them.
I don't understand the process of making stainless steel knives or alloyed metals. Perhaps you could explain it for me.
I don't understand how you think I labeled people. I also don't understand how you think I'm being hypocritical. Hypocritical would be to use Miracle grow in my yard when I told others not to. I didn't tell other people not to, I just informed them that if they use it, they are fighting against the trees efforts to replenish the soil.
John S
PDX OR
Plumfan wrote, "John, if you were the King of the World, would you:
Ban all scions at the HOS scion swap with traces of Miracle Grow in them?
Ban all fruit from the October Fruit Show with traces of Miracle Grow?
Come after my jug of Roundup and my lil sack of blue crystals?
Make me put reeds and grasses for my roof instead of 40 year composite?
Confiscate my stainless steel knives, forks and spoons in the kitchen because they are unsustainable?
Cars and alloy bicycles are unsustainable, so they hafta go as well in a perfectly green world!
Etc.
It would be downright hypocritical if you had any of these in your possession after labeling others as you have."
[quote="John S":2tp1cttl]Plumfan,
I don't really understand your post. I am not the king of the world. I live in a democracy, and that is what I choose to live in. One of the things I like about this forum is that other people can inform me of things that I don't understand yet. You, for example, told us about cutting off the bottoms of plastic bags and using them against codling moth and apple maggot. I credited you with that on my posts and I appreciate you doing that. That is the main method that I used. WHen I did it, I shared my observations so that others could use my impressions.
John, plastic baggies are an unsustainable product that some greenies would like to see you not use! There is always somebody that is against what you think is acceptable!
It sounded like you thought I was putting you down. I was not. If you thought I was putting you down, I apologize. I was putting down the rape and pillage style of corporate agriculture that is limited our ability to eat wholesome food and grow it organically if we so choose.[/quote:2tp1cttl]
I am not so sure everyone alive on the planet today would be alive without the "rape and pillage" style that has sustained the world for the last 100 years. Which population would you rather do without, right now?
When my grandfather was young, he could swim in the Willamette. My father could not as a teenager, because it was too polluted. I could in the late 70's because it was cleaned up. Now it's too dirty in Portland for me or my kids. The corporation doesn't have children so it doesn't care. It only wants profits. I feel that corporations are trying to force us into buying their style of fertilizer and pesticides, which damages the microbiology of the soil, thereby requiring us to buy more of their products, and polluting more.
I never feel forced to buy anything. I obtain what I think will work best in a given circumstance. If I think blue crystals will help a baby tree attain some girth for a few years, no corporation held a gun to my head. It was my choice.
Remember that there was a time when you could not swim in the Willamette due to glaciers covering the land as well. Things change, planets get warmer and cooler.
I did not advocate banning all unsustainable products right this second. I would like to see us move to a more sustainable world, but as I believe in democracy, that would have to be worked through our political structures.
But there are also people who do advocate banning all unsustainable products right this second, and their arguments sound alot like yours.
I actually have Roundup at my house. I bought it for plants growing through the cracks in the sidewalk. I couldn't figure out how to dig them up. Now I put boiling water or vinegar on them.
Are you aware that there are extremists, who are greenies, that want that to be your last bottle of Roundup? Who also claim that Roundup is responsible for all manner of evil? They are out there, and they would also love to be King of the World! How much control should just be handed over to these whack jobs?
I don't understand the process of making stainless steel knives or alloyed metals. Perhaps you could explain it for me.
I am sure that bulk stainless depends either on coal or petroleum for fuel inputs, plus the actual mining of iron ore, neither of which are limitless. Then add in environmental damage due to strip mining, and air pollution, etc. The greeny could then make a case that stainless steel is raping the environment.
I don't understand how you think I labeled people.
Things like this:
If we want to save one diseased crop and then make a huge crop, you can use any toxics you want.
You're not eating it, you're just selling it for quick profit now.
You don't care if you destroy the natural ability of the soil to provide.
You don't care that the people will get sick.
You don't care that we almost wiped out the bald eagle, the symbol of the US with DDT.
You just want quick profits now.
Plumfun just does not see himself like that.
John, you have your likes and dislikes like anyone else. But they don't give you the right to say that I or anyone else just want quick profits now, or any other pejorative used above. Those are the tactics that environmental extremists use. They are all for taking freedom of choice away from people like me.
And I won't be badmouthed or bully'd into stopping my blue crystal usage. Like I said, somebody should explain why I have so many worms in my leek bed!
I also don't understand how you think I'm being hypocritical. Hypocritical would be to use Miracle grow in my yard when I told others not to. I didn't tell other people not to, I just informed them that if they use it, they are fighting against the trees efforts to replenish the soil.
My baby apple trees don't put forth much efforts to change much of anything. I feed them blue crystals for a year or two, then it is strictly organic from then on, for my convenience. I am certain that I am not raping and pillaging anything on my land.
And you haven't factored in all the people who use blue crystals in their plastic pots filled with ground up forest products instead of real dirt. How do you plan to limit blue crystals strictly to them, and withold it from dirt farmers?
If it is legal, if I can get it, I may use it. The choice is mine, not somebody elses.
Conversley, anyone who wants to control everything I do is welcome to also pay all my bills.
Or is it that they really want control without any responsability? That has elements of tyranny in it.
I agree steven, i seem to have given birth to quite a stir with regards to fertilizer. Certainly no need to get personal, i love the friendly chatter i tend to see among posts
With regards to miracle gro, im intending to switch to fish blood and bone shortly after my holiday.
No more replies are required, but i appreciate the information provided by others
Thanks guys
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