Pros And Cons Of Organic Fertilizers For Your Garden
In order for plants to be healthy and thrive, they must have the proper combination of sunlight, water, and nutrients. These nutrients provide ingredients that help plants grow healthy and full. When it comes to fertilizer, there are plenty of chemical-laden options you can purchase at most retail and home and garden stores. Organic fertilizers can perform the same job without all the unnecessary synthetic additives. Here are some pros as well as cons when choosing organic fertilizer for your garden.
Pros
Some organic material that can be used to fertilize your garden include animal manure, compost, blood meal, fish emulsion, and even granite dust. All of these materials are natural and come from the earth. Here are the advantages of using this kind of fertilizer in your garden:
- When you add organic compounds to the soil, it can improve its structure and feed the millions of healthy bacteria naturally found in soil known as microbes. When these microbes thrive, they can contribute to the increase of micronutrients, adding beneficial properties that will help plants grow faster, fuller, and more healthily.
- Rather than a "quick shot" feeding that plants receive with synthetic fertilizer, organic alternatives slowly feed plants over time.
- If price is a concern, consider organic fertilizer. It's much less expensive, and in many cases, you can make it yourself. A compost pile in the backyard is easy to make, and you'll have an effective fertilizer just by building a pile of unwanted garbage.
- The popularity of organic fertilizers has greatly increased, so they're much easier to find, and more varieties are available to choose from.
Cons
Of course, there are a few disadvantages to using organic fertilizers, and you'll need to weigh these versus the benefits before you opt to use them in your garden. Here are a few of the downsides to using this type of fertilizer:
- Since organic versions of fertilizers typically take longer to work, they may not be helpful to plants that are in serious need of help right away. You may end up adding the organic version hoping to see a dying plant spring back to life, and it could end up being too late by the time they take effect.
- Chemical fertilizers tend to have much higher concentrations of nutrients. They can also hold up to heavy rains and various soils, while organic matter tends to wash away or decompose much more quickly, resulting in you having to reapply the organic version much more often.
- Understanding how to apply synthetic fertilizer is easy. The amount you need is usually right on the packaging. Organic fertilizer may require a lot more product to work effectively, and it could be tricky to determine just how much you'll need to apply.
For more information, contact T And N Inc or a similar company.
