The Best Fertilizer to Use in Gardens to Grow Vegetables

Using Compost for Nutritional Support

• Compost is by far the best way to keep your garden fed and improve soil health. Compost aids not only the macronutrients, such as nitrogen, potassium, and potash, but the micronutrients, such as boron, calcium and manganese, which are not found in off-the-shelf chemical fertilizers. For a balanced compost mixture you should add a variety of plant material and animal manures.

Using Compost to Improve Soil

• Compost improves soil structure and increases microorganisms, which maintain soil structure and the movement of water and nutrients through the soil to the roots of plants. Compost improves the water holding capacity of sandy soils and improves aeration of clay soils. A one-half-inch layer of compost over your entire garden in the spring will feed the soil all season; but side-dressing with additional compost is always a good idea. Compost encourages earthworms, which also improve the soil and provide additional nutritional support from their castings.

Other Organic Fertilizers

• Organic fertilizers such as bone and blood meal, soil sulfur, and others are okay in a pinch, but they do not build up the soil with a well-rounded nutritional source. Blood meal is very high in nitrogen, so if you decide to use it, be careful not to burn your plants by adding too much. Follow the package instructions.

Making a Compost Pile

• Making a compost pile is easy. You can either use a purchased compost bin, or enclose a four by four area with fencing to keep it contained. Add fruit and vegetables trimmings, animal manure (from plant-eating animals only), straw, plant parts, egg shells, coffee grounds and newspaper. Do not add meat or dairy scraps, cooking oil, oleander, eucalyptus, colored paper, Bermuda grass, or diseased plants. It is also a good idea not to use hay, as it contains more seeds than straw, or large woody stems from trees and shrubs, as these take a very long time to break down. Keep the pile moist (like a damp sponge) and turn it often. In a month or so you will have compost to add to your garden.