A lot of organic garden fertilizers are not particularly excellent, and some of them are potentially even harmful, so I thought I'd look through the Internet and make a compilation of those that are valuable for you to pay for while you're there looking for books anyway.
This involved going back to the fertilizer manufacturers' websites and reading through their MSDS sheets and labels to see what the products are really made of. Lots of work, so I hope it's useful to you.
Canadians can find a lot of premium organic fertilizers at a business I used to manage called The Organic Gardener's Pantry, but the majority of my readers reside in other countries, and Amazon is everywhere in the world, so I thought this would be useful.
Amazon sells plenty of fertilizers that I got beset while trying to examine them all, but I found a couple of good ones for you as well as some "bad" ones to stay away from.
In connection with that, there are several manufacturers who seem to have their hearts in the right track, but I just can't endorse them because I don't like a couple of the organic fertilizer ingredients they're incorporating together. I'm not trying to pick on them, despite that fact.
Good Organic Fertilizers:
Maxicrop Seaweed Soluble Powder
This is an admirable seaweed product from a company that's been about for awhile. I'm not fond of all their products, but this is a pretty good buy. Their liquid seaweed is good as well and perhaps a little bit easy to use. Seaweed is bursting with natural plant growth hormones and more than 70 minerals that can improve plant health. Kelp is one of the best organic fertilizers.
Plant Success Mycorrhizae Inoculant
Mycorrhizal fungi are very important to have in the garden. This is not an organic fertilizer - it's a microbial inoculant. They form a relationship with the roots of your plants, bringing water and nutrients to the roots in exchange for food. Not all inoculants are created equal, but I know this is probably a decent product because I've determined who manufactured the mycorrhizal spores.
SCD Bio Ag - EM
This is basically effective microorganisms, another microbial inoculant. This is the number 1 product I use in my garden, even before organic fertilizers. Actually, I buy a mother culture, which I can activate to make my own, whereas this seems to be more of an already-activated product that would just be used straight from the bottle.
Organic Neptune's Harvest Fish & Seaweed Fertilizer
An excellent price for a nice mixture of fish and seaweed. I tend to pay for fish and seaweed products individually to give myself more control about when I use them, but a combo is fine, too.
44 Lbs of Azomite Rock Dust
This is a really good rock dust fertilizer, one of the finest organic fertilizers on Amazon, providing an extensive spectrum of minerals for your soil rather than just N-P-K. The only setback is it's pricey - more than $50 with an extra $27 for shipping. The cost would stop me from buying it, but if you have it locally, go for it.
Dr. Earth Organic 5 Tomato Vegetable Herb Fertilizer
An organic fertilizer for vegetables that contains kelp meal, fish bone meal, feather meal, fish meal, alfalfa meal (alfalfa will be genetically modified soon), soft rock phosphate, seaweed extract, humic acid, mined potassium sulfate (not always warranted), and 7 strains of soil microbes plus endo and ectomycorrhizae. I frequently avoid blends, but these ingredients ought to be okay. I like that it doesn't include bone meal, GM seed meals, and a lot of mineral fertilizers like dolomite.
These Might Be Okay:
Bioform Liquid Organic Fertilizer
A liquid organic fertilizer that contains some good ingredients like molasses, seaweed and fish hydrolysate - but it also contains bone meal, which I don't recommend any more due to the transmission of prions connected with mad cow disease. I'm always kind of on the fence concerning bone meal, not wanting to totally discount it, but not promoting it either because of the potential troubles and because there are better alternatives.
Mastergardening Liquid Fish Emulsion
This might be okay, but I can't find any information on it, which always makes me walk away. Is it really organic? Is it poor quality? An emulsion is often not as good as a hydrolysate, but can certainly be useful - still, there's no way to tell what is in here because they don't have any info on it.
Dynamite Organic Fertilizer
Seems like it may be okay, but I can't find the ingredients on their website. If they don't list the ingredients, I don't buy.
Jobe's Organic All Purpose Granular Fertilizer
The company looks cool, but I'm not a big fan of the ingredients in their products. This product (and some from this same brand) have ingredients that I don't generally recommend - bone meal which is associated with mad cow disease, composted poultry manure (can be okay if it was from organic birds, but is it?), sulfate of potash (only if you need both potassium and sulfur, which you very well may not), and feather meal (which may or may not be acceptable, depending on source).
These Are Not As Good:
Alaska Fish Fertilizer
This organic gardening fertilizer is not as high-quality as some other fish products, and I'm not fond of the track record of the mother company Lilly Miller. I like better the Neptune's Harvest fish and seaweed up above.
Espoma Organic Garden Lime
Lime is often used as an organic fertilizer, but I can't find out if this product is calcitic lime or dolomite lime. I can't get any other facts, plus its way too pricey for 5 pounds.
Monterey Fish & Poop
It's liquid fish and bat guano. Can't find much info on it, and it just doesn't look very good.
Miracle-Gro Organic Choice Liquid Plant Food
I don't recommend Miracle-Gro (made by Scotts - see below). Other than that, this product - fermented sugar beet molasses - could in fact be helpful organic fertilizer and biostimulant in the garden, but my major concern is that sugar beets at the present are being genetically modified.
These Are Not Recommended:
Milorganite "Organic Fertilizer"
It's sewage sludge. It's toxic stuff, no matter what they do to clean it up. Please don't fall for their advertising. It's true that we need to find ways to deal with our sewage - and more important, we need to stop dumping chemical fertilizers, pesticides, heavy metals and other industrial toxins into our soil and water systems - but composting it and putting it on our gardens is not the answer.
Scotts Organic Lawn Fertilizer
I don't buy anything from Scotts, not even organic garden fertilizers. Their goal is profits, not quality. Their chemicals are destroying this earth. In my view, they are an unethical company. Just my opinion.
Hasta Gro Lawn Organic Fertilizer
I'm not sure why this can be labeled organic when it contains and phosphoric acid. Well, phosphoric acid is allowable in organics in small amounts as stabilizers, but not urea and potassium nitrate. It contains 12% nitrogen - too loaded for my liking - and a cluster of cheap EDTA trace minerals.
Bradfield Luscious Organic Lawn Fertilizer
Corn gluten can be useful, but this (like most) will contain genetically-modified corn gluten, which we don't want in our gardens because we just aren't quite sure what might happen to it when it gets into the environment and is consumed by microbes.
This involved going back to the fertilizer manufacturers' websites and reading through their MSDS sheets and labels to see what the products are really made of. Lots of work, so I hope it's useful to you.
Canadians can find a lot of premium organic fertilizers at a business I used to manage called The Organic Gardener's Pantry, but the majority of my readers reside in other countries, and Amazon is everywhere in the world, so I thought this would be useful.
Amazon sells plenty of fertilizers that I got beset while trying to examine them all, but I found a couple of good ones for you as well as some "bad" ones to stay away from.
In connection with that, there are several manufacturers who seem to have their hearts in the right track, but I just can't endorse them because I don't like a couple of the organic fertilizer ingredients they're incorporating together. I'm not trying to pick on them, despite that fact.
Good Organic Fertilizers:
Maxicrop Seaweed Soluble Powder
This is an admirable seaweed product from a company that's been about for awhile. I'm not fond of all their products, but this is a pretty good buy. Their liquid seaweed is good as well and perhaps a little bit easy to use. Seaweed is bursting with natural plant growth hormones and more than 70 minerals that can improve plant health. Kelp is one of the best organic fertilizers.
Plant Success Mycorrhizae Inoculant
Mycorrhizal fungi are very important to have in the garden. This is not an organic fertilizer - it's a microbial inoculant. They form a relationship with the roots of your plants, bringing water and nutrients to the roots in exchange for food. Not all inoculants are created equal, but I know this is probably a decent product because I've determined who manufactured the mycorrhizal spores.
SCD Bio Ag - EM
This is basically effective microorganisms, another microbial inoculant. This is the number 1 product I use in my garden, even before organic fertilizers. Actually, I buy a mother culture, which I can activate to make my own, whereas this seems to be more of an already-activated product that would just be used straight from the bottle.
Organic Neptune's Harvest Fish & Seaweed Fertilizer
An excellent price for a nice mixture of fish and seaweed. I tend to pay for fish and seaweed products individually to give myself more control about when I use them, but a combo is fine, too.
44 Lbs of Azomite Rock Dust
This is a really good rock dust fertilizer, one of the finest organic fertilizers on Amazon, providing an extensive spectrum of minerals for your soil rather than just N-P-K. The only setback is it's pricey - more than $50 with an extra $27 for shipping. The cost would stop me from buying it, but if you have it locally, go for it.
Dr. Earth Organic 5 Tomato Vegetable Herb Fertilizer
An organic fertilizer for vegetables that contains kelp meal, fish bone meal, feather meal, fish meal, alfalfa meal (alfalfa will be genetically modified soon), soft rock phosphate, seaweed extract, humic acid, mined potassium sulfate (not always warranted), and 7 strains of soil microbes plus endo and ectomycorrhizae. I frequently avoid blends, but these ingredients ought to be okay. I like that it doesn't include bone meal, GM seed meals, and a lot of mineral fertilizers like dolomite.
These Might Be Okay:
Bioform Liquid Organic Fertilizer
A liquid organic fertilizer that contains some good ingredients like molasses, seaweed and fish hydrolysate - but it also contains bone meal, which I don't recommend any more due to the transmission of prions connected with mad cow disease. I'm always kind of on the fence concerning bone meal, not wanting to totally discount it, but not promoting it either because of the potential troubles and because there are better alternatives.
Mastergardening Liquid Fish Emulsion
This might be okay, but I can't find any information on it, which always makes me walk away. Is it really organic? Is it poor quality? An emulsion is often not as good as a hydrolysate, but can certainly be useful - still, there's no way to tell what is in here because they don't have any info on it.
Dynamite Organic Fertilizer
Seems like it may be okay, but I can't find the ingredients on their website. If they don't list the ingredients, I don't buy.
Jobe's Organic All Purpose Granular Fertilizer
The company looks cool, but I'm not a big fan of the ingredients in their products. This product (and some from this same brand) have ingredients that I don't generally recommend - bone meal which is associated with mad cow disease, composted poultry manure (can be okay if it was from organic birds, but is it?), sulfate of potash (only if you need both potassium and sulfur, which you very well may not), and feather meal (which may or may not be acceptable, depending on source).
These Are Not As Good:
Alaska Fish Fertilizer
This organic gardening fertilizer is not as high-quality as some other fish products, and I'm not fond of the track record of the mother company Lilly Miller. I like better the Neptune's Harvest fish and seaweed up above.
Espoma Organic Garden Lime
Lime is often used as an organic fertilizer, but I can't find out if this product is calcitic lime or dolomite lime. I can't get any other facts, plus its way too pricey for 5 pounds.
Monterey Fish & Poop
It's liquid fish and bat guano. Can't find much info on it, and it just doesn't look very good.
Miracle-Gro Organic Choice Liquid Plant Food
I don't recommend Miracle-Gro (made by Scotts - see below). Other than that, this product - fermented sugar beet molasses - could in fact be helpful organic fertilizer and biostimulant in the garden, but my major concern is that sugar beets at the present are being genetically modified.
These Are Not Recommended:
Milorganite "Organic Fertilizer"
It's sewage sludge. It's toxic stuff, no matter what they do to clean it up. Please don't fall for their advertising. It's true that we need to find ways to deal with our sewage - and more important, we need to stop dumping chemical fertilizers, pesticides, heavy metals and other industrial toxins into our soil and water systems - but composting it and putting it on our gardens is not the answer.
Scotts Organic Lawn Fertilizer
I don't buy anything from Scotts, not even organic garden fertilizers. Their goal is profits, not quality. Their chemicals are destroying this earth. In my view, they are an unethical company. Just my opinion.
Hasta Gro Lawn Organic Fertilizer
I'm not sure why this can be labeled organic when it contains and phosphoric acid. Well, phosphoric acid is allowable in organics in small amounts as stabilizers, but not urea and potassium nitrate. It contains 12% nitrogen - too loaded for my liking - and a cluster of cheap EDTA trace minerals.
Bradfield Luscious Organic Lawn Fertilizer
Corn gluten can be useful, but this (like most) will contain genetically-modified corn gluten, which we don't want in our gardens because we just aren't quite sure what might happen to it when it gets into the environment and is consumed by microbes.
About the Author:
For more advice about organic gardening and free access to this wicked new resource, "15 Vital Lessons For Becoming A Better Gardener", go here: organic gardening tips.