Why synthetic fertilizers are poison ☠ for our gardens and ourselves

People often ask me if their store bought fertilizers are any good and especially people from English speaking countries tell me they use Miracle Gro fertilizers for their roses. Sadly I have to disappoint them by telling that Miracle Gro is in fact poisonous to their roses, their gardens and even to us. Not only Miracle-Gro is a bad choice but all synthetically made fertilizers are hazardous to the soil and the environment in general.

Why? Let me give you a brief history of synthetic fertilizers: They became extremely popular by the end of the 19th century. They were first made by the Germans who, at first, used chemically made Nitrogen, Urea and Ammonium sulfate to make chemical weapons. When exposed to these weapons they destroy the human body. Later, these ingredients were used in the "Green deal" to revolutionize agriculture. But in fact it wasn't that green at all. Yes, it gave us heavy crops rapidly but the long term effects were devastating as synthetic fertilizers destroy the soil by killing all good bacteria. One of the most harmful effects of these fertilizers is that they spill into our waterways, oceans and aquifers making them toxic. Plants only absorb 1% of these fertilizers and the leftover 99% leaks into all our water resources. But that's not all as unbelievable amounts of fossil fuels are needed to make synthetic fertilizers. Today, they are a real threat to the environment and the climate.

Miracle gro is also full of heavy metals like Arsenic, lead and Mercury and we give this to our soils.

Organic fertilizers however are made from natural resources as manure, feathers, seaweed, blood etc... They are the natural food of the good microorganisms in our soils. These microorganisms are like nutrient factories, they mediate the nutrient cycling of minerals for plants to eat. These ecosystems “feed” plants through biogeochemical cycles that have happened on earth since ancient times. Synthetic chemical fertilizers alter and inhibit these natural microbial cycles that are so vital to healthy plants. Miracle gro and all other synthetic fertilizers act like an IV drip of nutrients to the plants. An IV drip in the hospital bypasses your digestive system by flowing directly into your bloodstream so it bypasses your mouth, stomach, intestines etc.. making us (or rather the agricultural system in our case) dependent on the IV. Soil is like the external digestive system of our plants and when we feed them Miracle gro or other synthetic fertilizers we are bypassing their digestive system. It might give our plants a quick boost but soon the soil and its ecosystem collapses. It is what we are seeing today all over the globe.

If you want a healthy soil full of life you want to use organic rose fertilizer, real, honest food for our roses. 

These brands are the best alternatives for Synthetic rose fertilizers:

Neptune's harvest 

Down to earth fertilizers 

Jobe's organic fertilizers 

North country organics 

Fertilizer schedule

March is typically the month we start with fertilizing our roses as soil is warming up, temp are rising and daylight is increasing.

It's always good to remember that roses are heavy feeders so they need a lot of food to provide us with lots of beautiful flowers in late spring and summer. That being said: Once flowering roses and once flowering ramblers don't need as much fertilizer as reblooming roses. They are satisfied with one gift of organic fertilizer in March and compost in Autumn. 

So we will generally focus on our reblooming garden roses and roses in pots. ALWAYS use an organic based rose fertilizer in granulated Form. There are many good brands and it's easy to give. A good organic rose fertilizer is normally rather low in nitrogen and high in potassium with extra magnesium. 

So by mid March we give each rose about two good handfuls of fertilizer at the base of the rose. Just spread it in a little circle around the roots. Always be sure to water your roses if it doesn't rain. The fertilizer needs to get dissolved and transported to the roots of our roses so water is essential for this to happen.

Also our pots need to get the same amount of fertilizer and water if needed. 

We repeat this fertilizing each month as long as August so in April, May, June, July and August we give two handfuls of fertilizer again and water if needed. You can add your annual portion of rock dust (Volcano rock dust) in March too and one handful of dust is enough for one rose. 

Potted roses need an extra portion of fertilizer each week. For this purpose we use organic liquid fertilizer. Organic tomato or vegetable fertilizer is perfect but liquid seaweed fertilizer is just as good. Dissolve the needed amount of liquid fertilizer in your watering can and give it to your potted roses on a weekly basis. How much is enough? One liter per pot is OK, a bit more if it's dry. Never let your potted roses dry out! During hot weather it's essential you check your pots on a daily basis. When it's really hot summer weather I water my pots every two days. I give plenty of water till it comes out at the bottom. Don't put a water container underneath your pots, a rose isn't an oleander or a Canna, let the excess water drain out of the pots. 

That's it! 

Human urine as fertilizer? you bet!

More and more people are getting aware of the need to live more sustainable. Our waste products like packaging materials, plastics, metals, paper and cart board are getting recycled already, especially in the West. Few people however think about recycling our own body waste when it comes to sustainability... and yet our own body waste products are getting recycled as we speak. Our waste water is collected in thousands of waste water treatment plants and our body waste becomes natural organic fertilizer and compost. Not so long ago Countryside on the UK's BBC dedicated a whole episode on this subject. The entire body waste material from the people of London and Manchester is getting recycled in state of the art Waste treatment plants.

This brings us to our own garden and our roses in pots. Is it possible to recycle our own urine and use it as rose or plant fertilizer? The answer is 100% Yes! Body urine contains many good chemicals like Nitrogen, Phosphate and Potassium but also a lot of other trace elements and metals like zinc, Iron etc... Our roses LOVE our urine! But how can it be used and how much should I give? Basically it's very simple. You store your urine in a plastic Jerry can 🥫 or another big plastic bottle you can close with a lid. When your can is full you store it up to 36 days. The waiting isn't really necessary but it helps turning the urine into even better fertilizer. After the 36 days you can start using it. You have to dilute it of course and if you use a 10 liter watering can it's one liter urine and nine liters of water so 1/9. We give this once a week to our potted roses. Always make sure to only water the soil so don't use it as foliar spray. The NPK of our 36 days urine is approx 0,6 - 0,1 - 0,2 with additional magnesium and calcium and iron so it's very safe to use without burning our plants. Once a week!

You can start using it by the end of March till August. When you use it you don't have to use the liquid tomato fertilizer anymore so it will safe a lot of money. 

I began to use it a year ago and it definitely works. I saved 120 euros in not buying the organic tomato feed.

At the beginning it seems a bit odd but it definitely isn't. Our ancestors have used urine as fertilizer for thousands of years to fertilize their crops. I know it's rather difficult for women to collect their urine but the women can easily ask their male partners to collect his urine. Here we have a big can standing in the toilet and each evening it's emptied in the big Jerry can. It doesn't smell, it's as good as sterile, it's a piece of cake! 

Try it, your roses and your wallet will thank you for sure! 

Which fertilizer do we use?

WHICH FERTILIZER TO USE FOR ROSES?

A recurring question and an important answer to know. Roses are greedy, they need a lot of nutrients to bloom and grow. Especially when you grow them in pots they need extra food and attention.

I can't repeat it enough: USE ORGANIC ROSE FERTILIZER. It stimulates the soil with good bacteria and it slowly releases nutrients. There's almost no chance of burning your plants when giving them organic fertilizer.

Every package of rose fertilizer that hasn't explicitly got the ORGANIC word on the label is chemical and must be discarded. But even if it says ORGANIC ROSE FERTILIZER you need to check its NPK (Nitrogen /Phosphorus /Kalium)

Organic fertilizer will always have less than 10. So if you see NPK 4/8/7 for example it's safe and good to use. Often they add extra magnesium for better blooms. If you see an NPK of let's say 16/12/13 it's chemical and dangerous to use. Latest research has shown that the Mycorhizza fungi die when artificial fertilizer is used and the Mycorhizza fungi is our biggest asset in growing beautiful roses.

So how many organic fertilizer do we give to our roses and when do we start with this? Always buy granulated organic rose fertilizer, it's easier to give and to measure. In March we start fertilizing ALL our roses 

A big handful of granulated organic fertilizer per rose. Don't throw it all in one pile but spread it around the base of the rose but not further than one foot or 30 cm. We repeat this each month and we keep doing this till August so once a month from March till August. If it doesn't rain your fertilizer won't get absorbed by the roots so when it's dry water your roses each week so the granules get dissolved. Give plenty of water to each rose and don't wet the leaves, give directly around the base of the rose where the fertilizer is. 

So now you know what kind of fertilizer you need to buy for roses in plain soil and you know how much and when you need to feed them. Roses in pots however need extra food. A lot of the nutrients drain away with every gift of water so we need to keep the levels high. Like their sisters and brothers in plain soil we feed our pot roses end of March and end of June. A good handful of organic granulated fertilizer. But we're gonna give them extra. Every week you give them a gift of water with liquid organic fertilizer. Which one? An organic tomato feed is excellent but also liquid organic kelp fertilizer is very good. Always read the label to know how much you can give per week.

We give this extra weekly liquid feed for our pots till the end of August.

After August we don't feed anymore. Why? Because if we keep feeding our roses they keep growing and the new wood hasn't got the time to ripen before winter so this wood is very susceptible for frost and will die easily.

Also I want to stress out that Organic mulch like dried cow manure or garden compost isn't a fertilizer! It makes your soil much healthier but it can't replace fertilizer. So give your roses a mulch with organic material in October.

I hope now it's clear which fertilizer you have to buy and how to use it.

A good organic rose fertilizer. Notice the low NPK

An inorganic rose fertilizer. Notice the very high NPK. Don't use it!

A good organic tomato feed with good NPK 

Liquid seaweed or kelp is a good weekly feed for potted roses

Poison in a bottle. Don't use fertilizer combined with chemicals 

Fertilizer: Organic or synthetic?

Fertilizer: Organic or synthetic? And what with Mycorhizza?

Lots of people still don't know what to choose regarding fertilizer. I will tell you the pros and cons of both organic and synthetic and their effects on the Mycorhizza fungi.

Our garden soil is totally made up of natural components, it's the medium for our plants and roses to grow into. The top soil, the first 20 cm or 8 inches is absolutely the most important layer of the soil. Why? Because all the food, the nutrients, the trace elements are collected in the top soil. If we didnt touch our soil what would happen? Well nature would do its thing and this means fallen leafs, broken branches and other dead plant material would pile up on our soil joined by dead insects, dead animals and 💩 of those animals. The top layer of our soil is filled with our good soldiers, small insects and bacteria which break down all this organic material fallen onto the soil. They break it down in very small pieces we call humus (no not hummus 😉). Humus smells like fresh forest soil and has a dark brown to black color. Good soldiers in our soil are woodlice (very beneficial), earth worms, fungi, centipedes etc...

A good healthy soil has many many of these insects. So these insects digest the dead organic material and their 💩 is the humus. When it rains the humus nutrients are transported towards the roots of our plants and digested. So in nature we have a constant flow of this circle. The soil underneath the humus layer is of far less importance. Its main purpose is to anker ⚓ the roots of our plants so they are stable.

In our gardens we don't have a forest so we have to provide our top garden soil with a constant flow of organic material so that humus can be produced..

We can achieve this by adding compost, well rotted manure, mulch etc to our top soil and this each year.

In such a healthy soil without synthetic stuff the good Mycorhizza fungi is already present.

Most important nutrients for our roses are already present in this top humus soil. So nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium are readely available if we keep feeding our soil with humus. In the growing seasons our roses and other plants take in a constant amount of those nutrients. Slowly but steady and this way it doesn't interrupt the symbiosis between plants and mycorrhiza. Mycorrhiza hates too high amounts of NPK nutrients, it burns them and they retreat from our garden.

Organic fertilizer is made up of manure, Feathers of birds, plant materials, seaweed etc.

So in essence it's almost humus, it just needs to be transformed into humus by our good soldiers. What are the pros of organic fertilizer:

They provide additional humus

They provide nutrients slowly, a steady slow release without burning the plants

They keep the soil well balanced

They don't have a negative impact on mycorrhiza due to their low NPK.

Together with the humus from our compost, manure compost and mulch organic fertilizer provides our plants with a steady flow of nutrients without any chance of burning the roots

Synthetic fertilizer is made of synthetic components so it's not organic, it's made by a chemical process. This fertilizer has very high NPK and with high I mean each component is higher than 10. So an example of a synthetic fertilizer is NPK 12/15/14 and even higher. In comparison: An organic rose fertilizer has normally an NPK of let's say 2/1/5 so this is much much lower.

The only pro for synthetic fertilizer is its price. It's much easier and much quicker to make which results in lower price.

The cons however are many:

No humus components

High percentage of nutrients with high danger of burning our roots

Releases all kinds of synthetic salts into the soil.

Doesn't install this stable flow of humus

Poisoning our soil in the long run due to high salt levels so our good soldiers die

Destroys the Mycorhizza because it's extreme high content of synthetic fertilizer.

So I hope this is clear for everyone. Synthetic fertilizer may boost our roses for a short while but soon the soil will deteriorate due to destruction of the humus cycle.

Roses are some of the most greedy plants. They need a good amount of nutrients in spring and summer. So when we give them a monthly dose of organic fertilizer we give extra to the soil ensuring that they'll have a steady flow of food in spring and summer. I don't have to tell you that enough water is also very important. Without water our nutrients won't get dissolved and transported to the roots. So give water in times of drought, especially to young roses.