A Proven Fertilizer for Success - 1

Many of the E-mail’s I get are people asking me what fertilizer I use, or what the ‘best’ fertilizer to use is. The truth is it depends on the environment you create to grow in (Consider the medium plants are in, average temperature, high and low pH, source of water etc.) and most important what species of plant you grow. I can say that one thing that seems to be true in all cases is that organic based nutrients are beneficial and seldom harmful when used as directed. Keep in mind I have repeated a previous experiments (bottom of post) showing that adding more than the directed amount of nutrients actually SLOWS growth.

If you are starting out or want to try something different that you know will work… I like the Fox Farm products and recently I have been using a fertilizer that contains many beneficial organisms. Peace of Mind from Fox Farm

I use this indoors mixing about 1/4 cup of Peace of Mind with my soil/perlite  mixture when I potted up into 1 gallon containers. This semester my plants grew better than they have in a few semesters. This excellent growth continued even without adding more Peace of Mind as I potted up into 5 gallon buckets of soil mixture. I figured any microorganisms in the 1 gallon would grow and increase in number in the warm, moist soil waiting for them in the 5 gallon bucket. There was indeed continued good growth as the plants continued to grow for a week in vegetative and then begin to flower using my standard fertilizers. The plants had healthy looking dark green leaves through out the grow cycle (Seed to flower) where as in the past two grow cycles I had been dealing with some yellowing and necrosis as the plants began to flower. I lost one plant last semester and a few others I was worried would not make it. This semester I had none of that, which may mean I had a nutrient deficiency, or the plants had a weaken immune response and the beneficial organisms and/or nutrients helped boost the plants immune system.
I also used Peace of Mind from Fox Farm outdoors for my landscape plants. I had a great year in both growth and flowering for all the plants that I used the Peace of Mind from Fox Farm- with. The greatest example may be that the Bradford pear tree in my back yard is having a monumental year first with flowering and now in the fall fruit production. In fact it is sort of a pain, never in the 7 years I have lived here has the tree been dripping with pears as it is now. They cover the ground with the leaves and stick to your shoes so you have to watch for them. I sweep and rake them daily or face the consequences of the damn fruits squished in my shoes. There are many species of birds, squirrels, raccoon and opossum eating fruits on various day and night shifts but still so many fall to the ground and are left neglected to rot. I know comparing this tree to another in the front yard and a few around the block that did not get the fertilizer is not a scientific experiment, but I think there is a real benefit to all plants to have microorganisms living in the soil with them. After all, these organisms (plants, soil fungi and soil bacteria) evolved together and therefore why would anything be better for the expert or average Joe grower? If you want to grow ‘organic’ and be a good grower you will have to be mindful of beneficial organisms.

If you are looking for something to try, I am very happy with Peace of Mind from Fox Farm and I have used and will use again many products from Fox Farm all of which I get from HTGSupply.com.

Good Growing,
Dr. E.R. Myers