What are commmercial fertilizers?

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Adding fertilizers to your garden is a necessity because as your vegetables grow and mature, they are using up the nutrients in the soil in order to develop healthy and tasty crops. Even when you start with the best and most fertile loam, the soil gets tired and needs refreshing on a regular basis. Remember "You don't feed the plant, you feed the soil"

Plant tissue is largely composed of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen which are supplied by air and water. There are an additional 13 essential elements needed for healthy plants.

The macronutrients are:

� Nitrogen (N)

� Phosphorus (P)

� Potassium (K)

� Calcium (Ca)

� Magnesium (Mg)

� Sulfur (S)

The micronutrients are:

� Boron (B)

� Chlorine (Cl)

� Copper (Cu)

� Iron (FE)

� Manganese (Mn)

� Molybdenum (Mo)

� Zinc (Zu)
The three major components of fertilizer are nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. These are expressed, in that order, as percentages of the total weight of that particular formula, so a bag marked 10-10-10 has equal parts of these materials. For example, a bag marked 18-10-10 obviously as a larger percentage of nitrogen. The remaining contents of the bag are fillers and some trace elements . The minor nutrients will vary according to the formula used by the manufacturer for different crops and conditions.

Nitrogen helps with leaves and stem growth, phosphorus helps with fruit growth and the development of a vigorous root system, potassium helps to make the plants stronger. Once your garden has begun to grow, be very careful not to over feed, particularly with nitrogen. Too much nitrogen can grow cause the plant to put most of its energy into creating leaves and stem growth and not fruit growth. This will lead to very low yielding crops.

The major complaint of commercial chemical soil additives is that they are nutrient imbalanced and are deficient in the quantity of the micro nutrients which are of utmost importance to human health. A balanced approach of using both commercial chemical fertilizer and organic methods is extremely advisable and highly recommended.

Using natural compost material from your compost bin or worm farm is an excellent means of achieving this balance. Compost is not only rich and organic, plus using these materials recycles waste that would otherwise go to the municipal dump.

Soils in various regions of the country vary considerably. It is strongly recommended you do a soil test or have it done. This will assess not only the PH factor of your soil, but which nutrients are plentiful and which are lacking. Using the wrong or too much fertilizer or soil amendment, can harm plants and/or be an environmental hazard or cause water pollution. Check with your local garden center or your local county extension service for their advice.

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