Not much to do in the garden so more tips and ramblings

 So someone took the tree fertilizer I had bought. Hoping it's the right person who is taking care of the lemon tree. The landscape was watered this morning and sure enough there was overspray from them onto the lemon. Not even going to bother anymore, I've done what I did and it's just fine the way it is right now.

I have comparison photos between first day of planting and now, only a week has gone by.

Photo taken yesterday (06/06/21

Photo when planted 05/30/21

::sniffle:: They grow up so fast....

No flowers yet but that's okay. A lot of times you'll see plants this size in the garden center and they have flowers already. Pull them off! Yes, that's what I said. They have been pumped full of fertilizer and like any other creature when artificially grown too fast they want to reproduce too soon. As a wonderful friend and former coworker once explained, 'plants are like teenagers, they may be able to reproduce but it's not necessarily a good idea'.

Letting them reproduce too soon robs the plant of nutrients and energy which may stunt and cause other issues to the plant later on. The lemon tree and the tiny pea sized yellow lemon? Other issues but also related to too many fruit on a small tree. Oh and you want to know how many people think that because it's a 'dwarf' tree it won't have full size fruit or a good crop of fruit? Yeah, too many. So in the case of small annual fruit plants like tomatoes and peppers, if I saw buds or flowers on these I would just pinch them off so they have more energy to grow bigger and produce better fruit later.

Oh, want to see what the fertilizer looked like that I gave them?

View straight into the bag from the top because I already fed the plants.

So you can see some larger nuggets on the right, smaller black flecks some white bits and some powdery stuff. The majority of that is sort of greenish and manure looking. Because the largest component of it is fish bone meal and alfalfa meal. Look at the ingredients of your organic fertilizer, technically it needs to have those as a component and looks like it's actually different things. The additional ingredients in this particular one has a boat load of bacillus and mycorrhizae. Absolutely needed in raw soil that is devoid of any organic material. It is a bonus in my soil and I just might take the rest of this and go dump it in the other bed to work in. Oh there are 'organic' fertilizers that look rather pelletized and homogenous but that's okay. Certified organic is different than 'for organic gardening' on some labels.  

 

OMRI© labeling and expiration date

 

You can see the official label of the Organic Materials Review Institute and other labels indicating it is 100% organic. Even minerals are organic, they come out of the ground right? But some are not labeled as such because of the regulations involved in organic products. (You can see the list of other ingredients too long and numerous for my fingers to type. They're the good stuff too). See the description above? Derived from Fishbone meal, alfalfa meal, fish meal, potassium sulfate ::record screech:: wait... that doesn't sound organic! It's potash folks! A mineral that is found naturally in the soil same with rock phosphate. Finally kelp meal and kelp flour, organically grown in the worlds oceans...

About that comment,

              Over a decade ago there was a particularly slick salesman who decided to get into the fertilizer business, his 'trade' name was Captain Sticky (CS for short here). Yeah, I never met him in person and my story is partially second hand from Walter Andersen Jr relating part of my story. Back on track,  Walter decided to carry his liquid kelp fertilizer as well as a few other products because he was local, we wanted to try them out and maybe they were good. I picked up one of the bottles to read what was in it that was so fantastic and different than the other liquid kelp that we had been carrying for years. I kid you not, right there on the label it said, 'Made from kelp hydroponically grown in the world's oceans'. 

Let that sink in a minute....kelp. In the ocean. Hydroponically grown.

Yeah I pointed that out to several of our more knowledgeable people and we all had the same reaction. Turns out that concoction was not stabilized either, the bottles started popping open despite having a screw top lid because the liquid inside started to ferment! Yeah... not good.

Well Walter's story dealt with the soil improver that the man was trying to sell. Long story short it didn't work.  Walter lived in a particular area close to the coast that used to be a chicken ranch and it had a lot of ..you guessed it, rock and sandstone being close to the coast. Well he was told by CS to put this soil improver on his lawn and he'd have great soil in a week!

Well Walter followed the instructions and after a week and a half still couldn't get a shovel in the ground any further than an inch or two. CS said he wasn't doing it right and went to his house in person.

Now Mr. Andersen is 6'4 and thin as a rail, his entire life has been nursery work since his dad started the company before he was born. CS on the other hand was a snake oil salesman, maybe 6' and outweighed Mr. Andersen by 200lbs if that. CS put the shovel in the ground and jumped on it, 'see it works!' Walter gestured to the shovel, 'you outweigh me! Of course the shovel is going to sink into the ground!' Needless to say Walter basically kicked him off the property and we stopped carrying his products.

So not all 'organic' products are the same in another way. One ingredient you won't find in the Dr. Earth products is chicken manure or meal or any chicken or steer by products. In their words, 'chicken farms today are not the same as your grandfather or great grandfathers chickens. There are too many other things pumped into chickens for both the egg and meat industry to be safely called organic. Being certified organic is expensive! So for them to source a local chicken farm that was organic would up the cost even more and frankly, they need to sell a product now at a price that people can manage.

Side note again: I am not touting this company for any reason other than it being what I bought, it's a good example of organic fertilizer and it's a product that works. There are a ton other products out there, so find what you can get and use it. I get nothing from any of these companies (wish I did though).

Frankly, plants don't care what fertilizer you use or what it's made of as long as it gets the proper nutrients. Generally I like to use organics on edibles because they are healthier for plant, person and soil. You want flowers to grow faster and better? Get the blue stuff you have to put on every two weeks and have them burn out sooner than they should. It just makes more sense really to do good for the soil and the plants. Dry granular food you use less often because it breaks down slower, liquid food is absorbed by the plant faster and it is washed through the soil quicker so it needs to be used more often. The food I used is applied every two months, how easy is that?

Another story: little old lady came into the nursery and was looking for organic soil with nothing added to it. It had to be absolutely organic soil for her plants. She was being very adamant about it being organic with no chemicals in the soil. I finally asked her why she was being so particular, all bagged soils are clean and organic. (This was again about ten or twelve years ago), 'Well, I'm growing medicinal marijuana'. I told her 'Ma'am, it's called weed for a reason, use a good potting soil and it'll be fine.' 

 

 A bit late but this 'Easter' lily is finally blooming (in front of an electrical box) in our complex. Hello lily! In partial shade surrounded by Red Apple ice plant so there ya go.