By Elizabeth Smith
Fertilizer is simply the nutrition that plants need to thrive. Each element that makes up this nutrition has a specific role to play and they all work together for the utmost benefit to the plant. Surprisingly, plants aren’t actually able to eat a lot of the things we amend our garden with. Instead, all the healthy microbes and earthworms within the soil eat those amendments, breaking them down to then become readily available for plant roots to absorb. So instead of feeding plants, we should be feeding our soil. When we switch to this concept, this is when we experience the most amazing results in our gardens.
Organic anything is best whenever possible. The reason is because chemical amendments and fertilizers will provide a lot of a couple of elements right away, but they end up killing off the life within the soil (those beneficial microbes and earthworms). Industrial farming has turned farmland into sterile dirt that cannot grow anything without lots of chemical additives. The dirt is no longer soil. It has nothing to offer the plants on its own. In complete contrast, organic farming mimics nature to create soil that already has loads of what plants and trees need and that living soil is constantly regenerating more on its own through systems like green manures, mulching and decomposing.
But first, let’s learn about the main things your soil needs: Proper amounts of amendments and fertilizers can be seen as a recipe with all the ingredients needed to feed plants properly. Besides water, oxygen and sunlight, there are 3 categories of nutrients that plants need to thrive: Macronutrients, secondary nutrients and micronutrients.
Macronutrients include nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus, and these are the major components of most plant foods. These are commonly referred to by their chemical abbreviations: N-P-K. Macronutrients provide the bulk of the plant’s uptake needs and benefit everything from growth, vigor and color to flower production and photosynthesis.
Secondary nutrients include calcium, magnesium and sulfur. These elements help the plant process the above macronutrients. More specifically, plants need calcium for cell wall development and growth. Pathogens and insects will attack weak cell walls to invade a plant. Plants also need calcium for enzyme activity and metabolism. Magnesium is needed in order for chlorophyll in plants to capture the sun’s energy to create photosynthesis. Sulfur is necessary in the initial formation of that chlorophyll and it’s also needed for plants to produce proteins, amino acids, enzymes and vitamins.
Micronutrients or “trace elements” include boron, chloride, copper, iron, manganese, molybdenum and zinc. Micronutrients are the smallest elements needed to grow healthy plants. They are “activators” for the other larger amount nutrients in much the same way that vitamin D helps our bodies absorb calcium.
So, now that we know the details, let’s look at some actual things we can use to feed our soil. Organic compost will provide most, if not all, of the essential plant food ingredients because it comes from living things that already have these elements to begin with like decomposed organic matter and manures. (A side note on manures. I don’t recommend bagged manures that come from commercial farms because animals in these situations are fed large amounts of fillers, salts, antibiotics and steroids to cut feed costs, prevent sickness in crowded quarters, create un-naturally rapid growth and size, etc. These things will affect their bodies like chemical fertilizers affect soil.
Additional amendments that benefit our desert soils are: fishbone meal for calcium and phosphorus; mineral rock dust for all of the micronutrients and fresh, raw green compost for instant food for the earthworms and microbes to break down. A good rule of thumb is to make sure your soil has organic, decomposed compost, volcanic rock minerals, coconut coir, fish bone meal and some kind of concentrated nitrogen like bat guano or earthworm castings. For additional feedings during the season, you can add Epsom salts (for the magnesium) and molasses (for the sulfur as well as feeding the microbes in the soil) and if needed, compost tea for a nitrogen boost.
So, if you would like stronger and healthier plants that produce the best tasting produce possible, make sure you provide their soil with all the important organic ingredients it needs.
