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Most Recent Entries
- From the garden formerly known as summer; I get by with a little help from my friends
- More from Monica's garden (nothin' but stuff to love there!)
- My lawn is more of a ... meadow
- Chapter 12 - In which we visit the other Tribune garden writer's garden
- I'm about to save you $16 -- here's the highlights from Epcot's Behind the Seeds tour
- Boots gets the bronze and other winners of the recycled yard art contest
- Money? Who needs money for great yard art? (Not you!)
- Hungry? Let's trip on over to Eric's house
- Miracle-Crack -- it's a hard habit to break
- Picture yourself here: More photos from The Dirt's Dirty, Dirty Tour
- The 1st Dirty Dirty (hot and sweaty but wonderful) Dirt Tour!
- Dracaena teepee insists: "I'm more than a garden prop!"
- Glamour shots make us all want to hug a tree
- Willy the Garden Cat -- Adventures of a Horti-feline
- Fall bloomers? We got fall bloomers! ("I see trees of green, red roses too. I see them bloom ...")
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I’ve made no secret of the fact I’ve been battling an addiction. I used to hide it, but it’s better to be open and honest about these things.
My high? Miracle-Gro Bloom Booster.
I love the stuff. Hit your garden with a hose-end sprayerful and WHOA! Flowers! It’s a giddy, 48-hour rush of floraspectacular.
But, oh, the big let-down bites. Those blooms fade. The droops set in. And all you can think about is your next hit. It’s a sad, sad way to live.
It took my yellowing yellow pear tomato plant to help me really (maybe) change my ways. The fruits are supposed to turn yellow, not the leaves, so I asked Marina D’Abreau at the Hillsborough Extension Service what might be the culprit.
There were many possibilities, but the most likely was lack of nitrogen. Being an organic veggie garden, it hadn’t gotten Bloom Booster — or any fertilizer. I was hoping it wouldn’t notice.
I know stinky fish emulsion is a recommended organic fertilizer (which explains why I wanted to skate by with compost). So off I went to Green Thumb nursery to pick up some. There, co-owner Steve Rey said — emphatically — that it’s the best fertilizer for all plants, unless you have a specific problem or deficiency to address. He even shared his personal fish emulsion testimonial about a post-transplant ligustrum yanked from mortal malaise after all else had failed.
The smell, he said, isn’t so bad. “Think of a dock in the Keys, where maybe some fish guts have been sitting around for a couple days.”
That sounded nice. I could even hear the gulls calling.
I bought a gallon jug and spent a good couple of hours diluting it by the pail full — two tablespoons per gallon of water — and splashing it all over the backyard.
I can say now, Steve was wrong. At least about the smell. Think fat flies, not seagulls. You won’t have to imagine them, either.
And the odor will waft through your house for hours, causing your husband to periodically sniff his armpits. (That’s actually pretty entertaining.)
I’m hoping fish emulsion proves to be the wonder fertilizer everyone says it is. It takes some effort. And there’s the smell. I expect a payoff.
If the only buzz I get is big black flies, it’s straight back to the Miracle-Crack for me.
Posted by Chip, on 11/03 at 02:07 PM
Dawn works better than you know on oil and grease, when we use heavy equipment near the water we keep Dawn on hand in case of oil leak’s into the water it breaks it right up. A lot of mechanic’s I know prefer it to go-jo to clean there hands and since the oil kills bug’s the cheaper the better I use the dollar store stuff that isn’t worth bean’s to wash dish’s with. “Chip”
Posted by Penny L. Carnathan, on 11/03 at 12:21 PM
I had been looking for Dove dishwashing soap for that purpose and can’t find it anywhere (!!) so glad to hear any cheap stuff will do. (Wouldn’t you know I use Dawn for the dishes? Lots of grease here at the Carnathan house 
)
Posted by Chip, on 11/03 at 09:01 AM
I did not have room to say my favorite fertilizer soap! once a month or sooner if I see bug’s or fungus in my yard the mixture is one table spoon of veg. oil two soap and one mouth wash only use the the mouth wash if fungus is an issue! and wait till the bucket or watering can you are using is full before adding the soap or it will foam up and take forever to fill[a mistake I make all the time]do not use dawn it works to good on removing oils that is needed to kill the bug’s soap is a contact bug killer and will not keep them from coming back but it is organic and cheap to use and helps amend the soil. any soap will do I use the cheap dish washing soap “Chip”
Posted by Penny L. Carnathan, on 11/03 at 08:04 AM
I love hearing what works for other people, Chip. ... When I start a new bed now, I add lots of compost, both my own and mushroom, but a lot of my beds are already established so I can’t dig them up. If I could start all over (i.e., When I win the lottery) I would bring in a truckload of Black Hen and Black Cow and pay someone to dig it all into the ground.
I also like Osmocote Plus, but it can’t make up for my Original Sin, which was not amending those beds enough when I started planting.
Posted by Chip, on 11/03 at 07:54 AM
Diane and I use four different methods of fertilizing when preparing a bed I dig a shallow trench fill it with new compost and put black hen on top of that mix in dirt with that then cover that up with news paper. from the news paper up I use black cow cheap potting soil my compost and reg dirt all mixed up. when the beds are made and we are starting new plants or seed we wet them in with fish emulsion then once a mouth there after while the plants are growing we use spray-n-grow it is mainly a growth hormone so if you want you plant to flower or fruit you need back off from all fertilizing until after it flowers and or bears fruit then we use miracle gro once a month “Chip’
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Posted by Penny L. Carnathan, on 11/03 at 06:17 PM
Haha! We got Go-jo too, but Dawn is definitely the pot scrubber in our house (along with that elbow grease, which I would gladly pay for if I could buy it)