You can read the science, and all the chemical analysis you want and still you may not know what to make of these products and chemical combinations. Here's a little story you can read, enjoy and learn from, that gives evidence of what the science can tell you along with some experience.

Back when I was renting, I once found myself in a place where I had to set up a camper next to a shop I was renting for my landscaping business. The area where I was to put in the camper had been over run with brush, trash and garbage for many years. I decided that, that was no way and no place to live so, I spent a few days cleaning the place out, raking and cleaning the land and installing a lawn. I didn't have much money back then and I was too cheap to even use my own fertilizer products on the lawn, like the ones I now sell on this web site. I did have a couple of damaged bags of Jersey Greensand and Rock Phosphate, that I couldn't sell retail because they were damaged, so, I used them for fertilizer, and nothing else. As it turned out, that year we had one of the worst droughts here in Vermont that we had had in the last 100 years or so. Every plant was dieing. The rivers got really low that summer too. Every lawn on the street where I was living turned brown and stayed that way until late fall when it started to cool off and the rains came again. Every lawn but mine that is. My lawn stayed green all summer and required very little mowing.

That was one of my secrets too. While everyone else kept mowing, I saw the weather getting hot and, I stopped mowing. Grass, all by itself, will slow it's growth when the weather gets hot for long periods of time. Mowing, tears the ends off the leaf and allows moisture to escape and that causes the blades of grass to dry out, one reason why it's a bad idea to mow your lawn in the heat of the day, a common practice by most lawn maintenance companies.

It has been 8 1/2 years since I put in that lawn and, it's still one of the nicest looking lawns on the road. I know the guy who owns the place doesn't take care of it because, he's the one who trashed the area in the first place! I attribute the success of that lawn to the slow release nature and root building characteristics of the Greensand and Rock Phosphate I used as fertilizer and smart mowing practice. Picking up the trash and old lumber didn't hurt either I'm sure!

Product	50lbs	10lbs
Black Rock Phosphate	$32.00	$10.00
Greensand	$22.00	$9.00
Black Rock Phosphate with Greensand	$32.00	All three products are available by the pallet

Poorer soils need some added nitrogen and the other components found in organic fertilizer, but, if you have an already decent lawn with fair soil, you can reduce your nitrogen input significantly. That why you'll notice the lower nitrogen figures for organic fertilizer when reading the NPK ratio on the label.

Soils are alive and need to provide plants with a variety of natural elements and nutrients to sustain healthy growth over the long term. Standard chemical fertilizers, aside from being manufactured from primarily petroleum products (they put oil into your soil basically, look what it did for the deserts of Kuwait), are, almost exclusively focused on concentrations of nitrogen. Water soluble nitrogen at that, meaning, most of it passes through the soil very quickly, into the water table, causing pollution and bypassing the soil and plants altogether. It's toxic and a waste of money to boot! This is why, many people notice a quick flush of green after applying chemical fertilizers and a slow decline towards a yellow color very soon afterwards. Of course, the companies who make such fertilizer are happy to get you hooked on a five step program so you're constantly force feeding nitrogen into your plants, killing the life in the soil, contaminating the water table and wasting your hard earned money. That type of application also weekens your lawn and landscape plants and makes them more vulnerable to drought, excess moisture, fungus, insect and pest damage. Once again though, the chemical industry will be right there to sell you some more toxic chemicals to take care of those problems too!

So, when considering buying a fertilizer products for your lawn or landscape, consider the total cost of what you are doing. Organic fertilizer, per pound, is still a little more expensive than the chemical alternatives around today but, in the long run, they are cheaper because, your lawn and landscape will be healthier once you get started down this road, and will require, less maintenance, no chemical inputs to control the problems caused by the commercial fertilizers and you won't be contributing to pollution and the cost of cleaning that sort of thing up from our rivers and waterways. That costs us all money. Buying organic fertilizers also keeps your money out of the hands of corrupt dictators around the globe by reducing our dependency on their oil and, consequently, produces a safer, more sustainable world for all of us.

That's nice John but, what about nitrogen and how do I decide what fertilizer to use?

There a some very complex ways to decide this and some simple ones. One way is, to call your local extension service and have them send you a soil sampler kit, if they do that where you live, and have them provide you with test results. The only problem with that approach is, that, they generally concentrate only on the N-P-K ratio, or, the three numbers most commonly advertised on bags of fertilizer. They are important but, one of the main differences between conventional agricultural practices and organic practice is that, when you plant and maintain your landscape organically, you first consider that "the soil is alive", and it is.

It's not some dead medium we use to transport nitrogen and other chemicals to the plants. There are many living things in the soil, like fungi, nematodes, bacteria, bugs, worms and more stuff than there is paper to write it on.

All these components work together to create what I would best describe as a living organism. Conventional fertilizers can and often do, ignore this fact and in so doing, damage the soil, making you become ever more dependent on ever more chemical fertilizers to sustain healthy plant life, because, the normal mechanisms of the soil, which would ordinarily protect the plants from harm and provide them with what they need, have been damaged or killed off by the constant influx of chemical made from petroleum and synthetic products. Many commercial fertilizers also contain, little, if any micronutrients, another key factor in sustainable healthy plant growth.

For right now, lets think about the nitrogen content in fertilizer. When you read a fertilizer label, you'll see that the first letter in the series "N-P-K" stands for nitrogen "N". You'll notice that that figure is broken down into two parts. Water soluble nitrogen and water insoluble nitrogen.

Water soluble nitrogen, is exactly that, Nitrogen that dissolves in water. This is what's available immediately to the plant after application and watering into the soil. Most commercial fertilizers concentrate on that figure almost exclusively. This is why they can make those inane commercials on TV bragging about lush, thick growth. A lot of soluble nitrogen will give you a lot of instant gratification, but, you will have to follow up with their five step program. This is for at least a couple reasons. First, that form of nitrogen gets used up by the plants very quickly. Second, most of it is so soluble, it never makes it into the plants. It just washes right through the soil, and often times finds it's way into the water table, causing pollution and contamination of the drinking water and rivers and streams. Water insoluble nitrogen, on the other hand, attaches to the soil itself and, the plant has to do a little work to get it freed up and ready to use. Mother nature has some work to do to. The various living organisms in the soil and chemical reactions that take place there, slowly make this form of nitrogen available to the plants. It's like a reserve of nitrogen in the soil, in a nontoxic form, that the plants can tap into as they need it. This form of nitrogen storage and transmission, if I'm allowed to call it that, also causes the plants to develop stronger root systems and consequently, that produces healthier top growth as well. It's kind of like the difference between some one who eats a lot of junk food and some one who eats a well balanced diet. Most of the time, a well balanced diet will produce a healthier individual, more capable of withstanding the onslaught of disease, thirst and strenuous exercise than the ones who eat junk all the time. Sometimes you can't tell by looking at the person, or the lawn, but, just put them both to the test and then the weaknesses show up.

There are times when a soil is depleated and a little more water soluble nitrogen is needed than water insoluble so, there are different types of fertilizers made to accommodate this need. So, read the label and, while you're doing that, think about the type of soil you're going to apply it to. If your plants be they lawn or shrubs etc., have been ignored for a long time and seem kinda yellow and, or weak, then, consider applying a fertilizer with a little more soluble nitrogen, to get them started and then, back off a little as they get stronger.

Remember, nitrogen is only one chemical in a host of other chemicals and reactions that determine the health of a soil and consequently, the health of the plants.

If you would like to read more and in depth about this subject, you can purchase one of a few books we sell. Go to our books page and get one now, if you want. It will help you take care of your lawn, farm and landscape, and help make the world a better place if we all know and understand as much as possible about what's going on underneath our feet!

Rule of thumb for organic agriculture is " It's better to fertilizer more often with less, than less often with more."

SPRING MAY BE IN THE AIR, BUT PESTICIDES NEEDN’T BE
Pat Beckett

What’s bright yellow and sprouts up to decorate suburban lawns as one of the first harbingers of Spring? If you guessed daffodils or dandelions, guess again. Take a look around and you’ll notice those bright yellow signs are "WARNINGS" to keep off the grass because pesticides have been applied. And unfortunately, these signs are becoming so common their familiarity breeds contempt, and we tend to ignore them and the message they bring about the effects of pesticides on our health.

And just what is the message about pesticides? Are they really dangerous? The answer is a resounding "YES". Lawn care chemicals are much more than just synthetic fertilizers (problematic enough in themselves). They include toxic pesticides, herbicides and fungicides that can make you sick. These are broad-spectrum biocides, which simply means they are poisonous to many kinds of life. That includes you and your family (and children are particularly at risk), your neighbors, your pets and wildlife. The Environmental Protection Agency itself has admitted in court that "no pesticide can be considered safe", and that EPA registration on a label for a pesticide product does not assure safety. Federal law prohibits manufacturers from labeling any pesticide "safe when used as directed".

What are you putting on your lawn? I urge you to find out because not knowing is downright dangerous. We all need to make an informed choice before deciding how to treat our lawns. We need to know that the National Cancer Institute has indicated that children are as much as six times more likely to get childhood leukemia when pesticides are used in the home or garden. We need to know that 95% of the pesticides used on residential lawns are considered probable or possible carcinogens by the EPA. We need to know that 2,4-D (found in over 1,500 lawn care products) was a component of Agent Orange. We need to know that organophosphates are designed to act as neurotoxins. We need to know that the EPA banned the use of Diazinon on golf courses and sod farms after massive bird kills were linked to application. We need to know that it has remained available to the home gardener and continues to kill countless thousands of birds.

But you want a green lawn? Well, that’s OK, because the good news is that none of these chemicals are necessary. Our grandparents and great-grandparents had lawns too, and they were green, long before the advent of the billion dollar agri-chemical industry began its convince us such a thing was impossible without using their products. And there are many
alternatives to the chemical money-go-round approach to lawn care. An ecological approach to a healthy lawn seems to me to be the very essence of Yankee common sense: safe, practical and effective.
Pat Beckett

For a copy of this Article: Yellow Flags, click here.