The blue color of those crystals is derived from copper sulfate. I’ve grown over 150 vegetable & flower gardens and I have never seen nor heard the need of using copper sulfate in the garden, except as a fungicide. If you do not have fungal blight (a serious plant disease) you should not be using copper sulfate in your garden (and I would argue there are better solutions than a fungicide to deal with your fungal blight problem). Fungicide will effectively kill all of the positive fungal connections in the soil. Copper sulfate is also a bactericide, and as such, is incredibly harmful to soil life.
Read This: How to ‘Fix’ Your Garden Soil After Using Chemical Fertilizers
Read This Too: Fertilizing and ‘The Law of Return’
Anything with the Miracle-Gro label should be avoided entirely: Bagged potting soil and garden soil, ‘Shake n Feed,’ that blue stuff, and yes, even so-called “Organic” Miracle-Gro products should be entirely avoided.
Here’s why:
Miracle-Gro makes gardening effortless for everyone. Even those with the most challenging gardens that use MG will have a wildly successful garden season. Miracle-Gro does so by outsourcing the jobs of naturally-occurring soil microbes and leaving plant nutrition up to water soluble synthetic fertilizers. These water soluble fertilizers are heavy in salt and are harmful to soil microbes, the living, breathing organisms that have an actual job of providing nutrients to our plants.
Miracle-Gro supplies an enormous amount of readily-available nitrogen for plants so that they grow big, bushy, green, and fast. The problem with MG is that the nitrogen is derived from synthetic ammonium and water soluble nitrates, producing off-chemicals that are harmful to soil microbes, worms, and all other forms of life in the soil. MG is so strong that if used incorrectly, the fertilizer will actually burn the leaves and roots of your plants (you may have already experienced this). Imagine what it’s doing to the healthy bacteria, fungi and other soil microbes that are working so hard to provide the nutrients your plants need.
Oh but there’s more… soil life isn’t the only thing synthetic fertilizers destroy!
We all know our waters are polluted — but did you know that synthetic agricultural fertilizers are one of the main culprits of our polluted streams, rivers, lakes and oceans?
In heavy rains, agricultural fertilizers run off into streams, lakes and eventually make it to oceans. High nitrogen fertilizers are critically harmful to fish and other marine life, causing algae to grow in excess; large expanses of algae are known as “algae blooms.” Algae blooms grow so thick toward the ocean’s surface that they block sunlight required by other marine life to survive. For example, The Gulf of Mexico has thousands of kilometers of “dead zone” caused by algae blooms, all caused by fertilizers used on conventional farms running off into streams that feed the Mississippi River.
Related: Digging Deep: How to Suppress Weeds Organically Without Chemicals
You can either choose to spend your money on companies that create products that are profiting by destroying our planet (such as Scotts, who make Miracle-Gro), or companies that create products that nurture our environment and us, because they give a damn (such as Neptunes Harvest, Plant Success Organics, and Down to Earth, some of which is readily accessible at most Home Depot and Lowe’s stores). All of it is accessible online.
The difference between synthetic fertilizers (like Miracle-Gro) and organic fertilizers (such as those made by the brands listed above), is that synthetics are made in a lab and organics are made from real plant and animal materials. I like to compare our gardens to our guts. Our guts are full of microbes, the good ones of which we need to nurture so the rest of our bodily systems function at their best. We can’t nurture our bodies and stay healthy on a diet that consists entirely of Cheetos, McDonald’s cheeseburgers and Snickers bars. To stay healthy and functioning, we know we have to nourish our bodies mostly with fresh vegetables, fruits, whole grains, nuts & seeds, and lean, grass-fed meats (if you’re a meat eater). Our garden microbes aren’t any different than our gut microbes. Soil microbes can’t survive entirely on lab-made fertilizers just like we can’t survive entirely on lab-made food.
OUR FAVORITE ORGANIC FERTILIZERS ARE:
homemade compost
Alfalfa Meal
Kelp Meal
Mycorrhizal Fungi Inoculant (technically not a fertilizer, but it’s the #1 most important thing I use during planting to inoculate the soil with fungi)
Leaf Mulch (also not a fertilizer but if you learn how to use leaf mulch it will add incredible organic matter, worms, and microbes to your garden)
This is, for the most part, all you’ll ever need to use in your garden.
Learn more about applying & using organic fertilizers here (this post is written for flower farming, but flowers & vegetables have many of the same needs so this information can be applied to your home veggie garden).
So, the biggest question is: Do you give a damn?
If you do, then I encourage you to spend your money like you do. Feed your plants like you give a damn. Feed yourself and your family like you give a damn. You’re obviously reading this because you give a damn, right?
The greatest thing we can do is educate ourselves and share knowledge with others in a respectful way. I’ve written many other blog posts to help you garden healthfully - see some of the links below.
If you have any questions on NPK Fertilizer Suppliers, NPK Water Soluble Fertilizer. We will give the professional answers to your questions.