Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
plants prefer taking up their chemicals in ionic form, which means as molecules or ele-
ments with a positive or negative charge, such as calcium as Ca
2+
or sulfate as SO
4
2-
.
Plants certainly take up ionic chemicals, but they also take up complex organic molecules
and prefer natural sources of vitamins and other substances to synthetic sources, just as
our bodies do. Plants prefer molasses or seaweed, for example, over an iron sulfate chem-
ical fertilizer.
There are many pesticide-ban laws coming in around the world, but they are not ad-
dressing chemical fertilizers. Since chemical fertilizers exacerbate many predator prob-
lems, we will have some major issues until the laws catch up. For the most part, if you
don't use pesticides, make sure you don't use chemical fertilizers, either, especially the
NPK brands from your local garden center.
Occasionally, however, some people may choose to use specific chemical fertilizers if
their goal is optimal garden health. I don't mean the usual NPK fertilizers like 21-7-7 and
10-10-10 that I used to broadcast on the golf course. I'm referring to a different set of fer-
tilizers. Let me explain why I have used these different ones, and let me first say that
when I initially got into organics, I swore off all synthetic products as if they were all tox-
ic. I looked down upon people who used them, until I did more research and gained more
experience. If you're in that mindset, I've been there.
In fact, I've been there in other areas than just gardening. When I became a vegetarian,
I noticed after a short while that I was feeling superior to, and more ethical than, my meat-
eating friends. It didn't take long to realize how dumb that was. I had eaten meat for most
of my life and I don't think I was an unethical person during this time. Of course, when I
started following a vegan diet, vegetarianism was no longer good enough, until I came to
the same realization.
So if you currently believe all chemical fertilizers are evil, I'll ask you to open your
mind while you read the rest of this chapter, or skip it, which is absolutely okay by me. I
had my reservations about including this information in a topic about organic gardening
because I sympathize with those who want to be 100% organic. In the end, I chose to in-
clude this information nonetheless because it's important.
Still, you don't need to use any of these chemicals to make healthy soil and I'm not go-
ing to try to convince you to do so. It's rare that I use them myself, and the majority of the
products in this topic are organic. I do want to mention a couple of synthetic fertilizers,
though, because you may see them listed as recommendations on a soil test from one of
the labs I previously recommended, and you may actually agree with the reasons for using
them and want to use them yourself.
My ultimate goal is to grow the healthiest food and ornamental plants possible. I can
certainly grow healthy plants with organic products, but in order to get optimally healthy
plants, a couple of chemical fertilizers can be helpful. There is a philosophy one step away
