Safefertilizer’s Weblog

What can sometimes be determined to be an organic or natural fertilizer can be a bit ambiguous, as some substances are considered to be organic in chemistry but are not considered to be very natural. For instance, folks who are familiar with organic fertilizers in the sense of them being “natural” would not think of substances such as urea and urea formaldehyde as being fully organic but they are defined as such in the field of chemistry.

Nutrient rich natural fertilizers, rather than organic should be the wise consumers choice. “Organic” these days just means a lot of government paper work is involved. What’s worse, an apple for example could be legally labeled organic and yet be devoid of any nutritional qualities. In the future new tools like brix readings will be used to help consumers make intelligent choices when purchasing fruits and vegetables.

The same can be said of natural and organic fertilizers. Always look for ingredients that sustain life. Whether you purchase them or make them yourself, natural fertilizers include seaweed fertilizers, fish fertilizers, manures, slurry, peat, worm castings and guano (bat droppings.)  Certainly almost all plant life can be used as natural fertilizers as they degrade.

Mineral fertilizers also exist in the natural world and include limestone, rock phosphate and potash sulfate. Oddly, although rocks are natural, they are not inorganic in terms of the organic standards set by chemists. Still we think of these minerals as organic because we think of rocks that are found in nature as organic. In truth though, what is organic is defined by the definitions known to chemistry.

One of the noted drawbacks of using home made or even purchased natural fertilizer is that the results can sometimes vary because it’s difficult to predict the density of the nutrients in the natural ingredients. However, many of the new generation of natural fertilizers are manufactured in such a manner, the density of the nutritional components and its behavior in terms of enriching the soil and facilitating plant growth can be predicted with certainty.

 Components in the existing soil also play an important role when it comes to enriching the garden and crops. One of the key components in good fertile soil is humic acid.

Humic acid is an important as well as very potent natural fertilizer because it is able to assist in the mobilization of soil nutrients so that high yield growth is achieved even though other nutrients in the soil may be low. Humic acid also helps release nutrients in a slower more consistent way.  Yet another benefit of humic acid is that it helps to retain moisture in the soil and improves the soil quality and structure.

When shopping for natural fertilizers, always make sure one of the ingredients in the formula is humic acid. It’s one of the key building blocks for nutrient rich soil and lush plant growth.