Gardeners: Donât be fooled by fancy manure
Some of you are suspicious of “chemical” fertilizers.
You are right to have reservations. Chemical fertilizers are easily and often misused. They are often so concentrated they have a negative effect on soils, soil life, and plants. And perhaps worst of all, they promote the idea that super-duper doses of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium are needed in the garden – when you really should focus on adding the stuff plants and soils need most, organic matter.
Too many of you, however, make the equally big mistake of thinking there’s magic in manures. I’m constantly being asked what kind of manure is the “best.” Yes, I know there are companies out there that insist their manures – sustainably collected from 3-year-old female mountain goats on the highest slopes of the Himalayas in the second week of May – will do wonders for your garden (as long as you don’t mind paying $100 per square foot to apply it).
Don’t be fooled.
Because in the end, the only manure that really matters to your garden is the manure produced in copious quantities by the thousands of small creatures living in healthy soil. The best manure is beetle manure. Earthworm manure. Grub manure. Springtail manure. Bacterial manure. These are the manures that are most available to your plants, and the manures that plants evolved to take advantage of.
So great, you’re going to go down to the Big Box store and buy yourself an expensive bag of earthworm castings, collected on the full moon, when Jupiter is aligned with Mars.