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Eugene, OR

Hi everyone. Just had a quick question for those of you who have used soluable ferts for "fertigating." I plant to run it through T-tape via a gravity system at approximately 6 psi. What brand would you recommend? Any problems with clogging? And how many body parts did you have to sell to afford the stuff?

Happy Holidays!

Brian

12/14/2003 5:42:44 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

You won't find their name on too many packages. But Fritt Industries currently has the newest soluable fertilizer mill. This means their product disolves completely & won't clog your system.

Miracle Grow solubles were a disaster this year. Failure to fully disolve is usually a sign of a worn mill or poor quality raw materials or both.

We private label Fritt's material & market it under the trade name "MacroN by LESCO". The 25 lb resealable plastic pails sell for about $25.00 or $1.00 per pound wholesale.

Both the 16-32-16 & the 20-20-20 with micros fully disolve & always meet analysis. The other grades don't make sense for pumpkins.

12/14/2003 6:59:17 PM

Montoursville, PA

Your choices of biologicaly sound fertilizers for the living earth may be found by searching Fertrell. Many are certified organic. All are healthy soil healthy plant friendly products in that sense. They have both solids and liquids. Excellent description is found in their catalog as well as the location of their distributors or dealers. I have found them to be helpfull explaining the product and my needs. In choosing to follow this dicipline, for the most part, I clearly feel that plants need a balance of the major natural nutrients and trace minerals. They also need carbon. The manufactured ferts I used to use have none or very little of the above. The natural or healthy organic ferts work slow. They do not leach much if any. If you are leaning to healthy soil healthy plant growing this is one solid company to consider.

12/15/2003 1:18:08 PM

Eugene, OR

Thank you for the info guys. I can always count on you guys helping me out with questions like this.

I'm very much leaning towards a soil that doesn't need any chemical fertilizer. I don't know if it's even possible, but my goal would be to have a soil that doesn't require any fertilizer application throughout the entire season. However, I'm sure that takes years of preparation and sound plot management. Until then, I would like to stay away from the granular ferts as much as possible. I could be off base, but it just seems like a manufactured fertilizer wouldn't really promote long term soil health.

I don't know what most people use as far as organic liquid fertilizers go, but Neptune's Harvest seems to me to be a good supplementary product and I'm sure there are others as well. Any comments on their product? Before I moved here from Hawaii, we used to go down to the beach in the summer and pick up buckets and buckets of decomposing seaweed for our garden and it always worked great. The extra salt didn't seem to hurt anything and the plants really loved it.

Doc, correct me if I'm wrong but don't wood chips, sawdust, leaves, etc. contain an abundance of carbon? Isn't the carbon content in wood products responsible for tying up available nitrogen as it breaks down?

Thanks again guys.

Happy Holidays,

Brian

12/15/2003 2:44:05 PM

Montoursville, PA

Wood chips and sawdust are, in my mind, a better permanent mulch. They break down slowly. Leaves on the other hand if mixed or all maple types are excellent soil builders. They should be added and placed into the soil in the fall or they too may tie up to much nitrogen in the early spring.

We, in the Northeast load up in the fall with manure and leaves. We say it takes six months to digest them. This is not true except for our cold slow working winters.

12/16/2003 1:53:30 PM

Garden State Pumpkins

Sawdust and wood chips are gonna chew up nitrogen to help break it down and in heavy clay soils will also add some drainage and moisture retention as it does this....at some point of decomposition all the nitrogen they used to get to where they are has to be released back into the soil...So as a long term soil addition they will stack up...just don't think they will answer the "quick fix" gardener.

12/16/2003 4:25:21 PM

Forestville, NY

all Agro-k products are liquid so they mix 100 % just ounces to the gallon of water--for info-email me > name address-& phone # thanks craig

12/17/2003 10:30:49 AM