Natural or Synthetic Fertilizers In the Vegetable Garden- What’s the Difference & Which Should I Use

What does “Natural” mean, and what does “Synthetic” mean? And exactly what makes synthetically produced fertilizers, if there is such a thing in the first place, any worse for your garden than naturally produced ones? This is one area in which a lot of balony gets thrown around – and regrettably believed by many good people.

The simplest and most natural of the commercial fertilizers is probably lime. It’s also almost universally recognized as important, and used by every kind of gardener who knows what he’s doing and has access to it. The world has an inexhaustible supply of limestone (calcium carbonate), and it’s simply ground to powder in powerful rock crushers, bagged, and sold to the public. We even receive much of our magnesium from the same process, when the raw material is dolomitic limestone (labeled as dolomite lime).

All twelve of the other nutrients man can control are also mined from the earth. However, we have learned over time how to remove impurities, such as heavy metals, and increase the concentration of the individual nutrients, by running them through a simple concentration process. This is often just a sulfuric acid bath, which leaves us with a much higher concentration of the original nutrient, plus sulphur, which is itself a very important nutrient. This is one reason most of the nutrients come as a combination with sulfate (zinc sulfate, copper sulfate, etc.).

So, we benefit by getting a much higher concentration of the nutrient we want, plus sulphur, with no heavy metals, and it costs MUCH less to ship to our locations, because it weighs only a fraction of the original raw material.

Are those fertilizers synthetically produced? I don’t think so, but perhaps they are by some peoples’ definition.

Did you know that even nitrogen is mined out of the ground? This may surprise many people, but it actually is – in Chile, South America – where huge mines of sodium nitrate exist. But can you imagine the cost to get it to the USA, though? And what would we do with the sodium salts??

Thank goodness we have found a better, more efficient, and therefore far less costly way to produce nitrogen fertilizers.

About 105 years ago two German scientists, Fritz Haber and Karl Bosch, discovered and commercialized the process by which nitrogen could be separated from other elements in different compounds and made available as fertilizer. This discovery arguably served as the single most important component leading to exponential global agricultural growth, and the Haber-Bosch process is still the benchmark process used today.

I believe the world owes much of what we have agriculturally today to the use of nitrogen that has been produced by the Haber-Bosch process, and whether or not it’s synthetic is, to me at least, irrelevant.

I do believe there is a valid and important argument against the uncontrolled “synthetic” production of chemicals having to do with the garden, but I believe it should be limited to pesticides and herbicides. This is a more complex issue that will take more time to discuss, and we won’t go there at this time.

I do hope that readers of this article are able to understand and appreciate the value and importance of mineral nutrients in helping us grow strong, healthy plants, and that you will not spend your time worrying about “natural” or “synthetic” fertilizers.

Can I Grow Successfully in Hard Clay Or in Worn-Out Soils?

What Can I do to Grow In My Heavy Clay Soil?

You do NOT have to replace your heavy clay soil with something better, nor do you need to add tons and tons of sand and/or compost.

To start off you simply eliminate all weeds, dig or till the soil, measure and stake your garden area into 18″-wide beds with at least 3′-wide aisles, and make raised, level, ridged beds, as described in the FREE ebook, at https://growfood.com/freebies/ and in all the vegetable gardening books by Dr. Jacob R. Mittleider.

That and just a little bit more. Just add three simple steps beyond the above procedures that apply to ANY soil, and you can have excellent success with your clay soil – without amending it!

1) When you plant seed, use the handle of your hoe or rake to make a straight shallow furrow along the inside edge of the ridges. For small seeds the furrow should be only 1/4″ deep, and for large seeds it should be 1/2″ to 1″ deep.

Mix the seed you’re planting with 100 parts sand and apply evenly and sparingly in the furrow. This greatly minimizes the inevitable thinning that is otherwise necessary.

2) Then, instead of covering the seed with clay soil, cover it with a shallow layer (1/8″ for small seed and ¼” for large seed) of clean sand. You will have much better germination and emergence of your seeds if they don’t have to fight their way through that heavy clay.

3) After planting and after you water your soil-beds, when the soil begins to crack as it loses moisture, apply just a few pounds of sand per 30′-long bed to the cracks in the planting area of each grow-bed and water the sand into the cracks. The sand will fill the cracks and eliminate the cracking. You may need to do it a second time, but this will stop the drying and breaking of your plant roots that cracking clay soil usually causes.

What type or condition of soil must I have to produce the best results?

All types of soil will produce the same healthy, high quality and heavy yield in food crops except land with standing water on it or toxic substances in it.

How is it done? Simply by restoring the essential plant nutrients to the soil.

The water-soluble minerals in soils, which plants use for food, have been leached out of the soil by rainfall and irrigation for thousands of years into creeks, rivers and oceans. This has greatly reduced the water-soluble minerals available in the soil, and thus soils everywhere are less fertile. The floor of every ocean and sea in the world contains these solidified minerals, which were once on dry land.

These same minerals, from rocks mined from the earth, are packaged, inexpensive, and available worldwide for use in your gardens. Their nutrient content is high and accurately determined – almost always far greater than comparably priced “organic” nutrients.

The quality of your soil (or lack of!) will not keep you from having an excellent garden if you follow the procedures outlined on the website and in Dr. Mittleider’s books and videos, and if you feed your plants properly.

A little natural mineral nutrient fertilizer goes a long way toward solving the worst soil problems. And here’s the simplest way to do it.

Get two packets of pre-mixed micro-nutrients from the Food For Everyone Foundation, so that you don’t have to search for the nutrients individually. We ship two 10 ounce packets, each of which is mixed with 25# of 16-16-16, or whatever similar mix is available at your nursery or farm supply store, plus 4# of Epsom Salt (magnesium sulfate) that you can get at any drug store. The Micro Mix is $13.95 for two packets plus shipping. It is the surest and easiest way to assure you have the nutrients you need.

Hard-Pan Clay Soil That Doesn’t Drain – Usable for Garden?

Are you like this person? “We are living in a very bad hard-pan soil area. When I dig a hole and add water, the water will stay for days.”

Many families only have heavy, clay soil in which to grow gardens, and some have asked how to drain the soil so it isn’t too wet to grow in. Following is a little history of commercial clay soil gardening in the USA and Russia, along with some suggestions.

The Imperial valley of California grows some of the most prolific and healthy vegetable crops anywhere in the world. The soil is hard, heavy clay, and before it was drained it was so saturated with salt the crops were very poor.

This condition existed because the Colorado River had for centuries deposited salty water on the land, which evaporated leaving the salt residue. At first the farmers tried applying large amounts of water in attempts to drive the salt down, but the benefits were short-lived.

Finally in the 40’s, the farmers put underground tile drainage systems in, consisting of 4″ drainage pipes buried more than 4′ in the ground at intervals of about 100′, which all led to larger drainage ditches and etc. Today they produce over $1 billion in vegetables per year.

You can also grow great gardens in your clay soil, but if it’s wet or saline you may need to drain it.

In Russia Dr. Mittleider’s students dug drainage ditches 10-12″ wide and 2′ deep to drain a small parcel of “waste” ground loaned to them by the Soviet authorities. It quickly became so prolific and beautiful the authorities gave them 23 acres!

That ground is now the site for the most famous and productive family-based gardening agriculture school in all of the Russian Commonwealth Countries. And millions of Russian families, themselves growing in clay soil, credit the Mittleider Method for giving them self-sufficiency in their food production.

The Mittleider Grow-Beds consisting of level, raised, ridged soil-beds themselves assist in the drainage process on clay soil. But if you have very high rain-fall, you may need to leave the ends open during the rainy season. Beyond that, either open drainage ditches, or buried drain pipes, as described above, will solve your wet-soil problems.

So long as you have plenty of sunshine and access to water, the soil is no problem!

We promise “a great garden in any soil, and in almost any climate.” And we mean it!

If you feel the clay soil is just too hard to work with, and you’d rather not fight it, then build Grow-Boxes and grow your food above-ground. Several Mittleider gardening books show you how, including Gardening By the Foot and Lets Grow Tomatoes. And The Mittleider Gardening Course has a section devoted just to Grow-Box gardening as well.

The Zoo-Doo Man – Or How to Make the Best Compost in the World!

Is your garden soil great? Does it produce an abundant crop for you without any great effort on your part? We were once told “By the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread . . “, and with several thousand years’ rain, snow, wind, and crops removing the minerals from the land, we very rarely see fertile ground anymore.

So, how do you get your ground to consistently grow a large crop of healthy vegetables – there must be a way! Let me tell you some of my experience with this important question.

For 20 years I owned a 3/4 acre parcel adjacent to Utah’s Hogle Zoo, in Salt Lake City, where I grew a vegetable garden using The Mittleider Method as taught in many of the developing countries around the world by Dr. Jacob R. Mittleider. To receive Dr. Mittleider’s Gardening Basics Course e-book free, visit the Charitable Foundation’s website at http://www.foodforeveryone.org.

For any years I was privileged to help Dr. M. on a some of his projects, and in the past 20 years, with his blessing, I’ve conducted quite a few myself, including Turkey, Armenia, Georgia (Republic), Madagascar, Colombia, and the Philippines. My Zoo garden was always extremely productive, rather nice to look at, and a very popular unofficial “exhibit” with the 700,000+ annual visitors to the zoo.

Many people asked, as they visited over the fence, if I used the zoo animals’ manure, and I always told them no, that I use natural mineral nutrients. But then one day a lady piqued my interest when she said the Seattle Zoo sells their composted animal manure to the public as “Zoo Doo.” I decided to check this out, so I called and talked to them and found they pile the manure in win-rows in the forest near the zoo, and after about a year, they dry, bag, and sell it.

I decided I could make a lot better compost than what Seattle got by leaving it out in the rain for a year. So I first bought a Compost Tumbler and learned the best procedures and mixes as I tested small batches, using the manure from 7 of the large herbivores. Very quickly I learned how to compost aerobically by maintaining the mix at a constant 140+ degree heat, and after 3 weeks I had beautiful, black, sweet-smelling compost.

I thought this was great, but there was nowhere near enough compost to take care of my large garden, so I then acquired a 10-yard cement truck and began doing large batches. With loads this size, they maintained temperatures over 140 degrees for 3 weeks, and then cooled down for one week. And You’ve never seen such beautiful material – I really felt like I was making the world’s best compost!

I obtained the right to use the Zoo-Doo name, bought bags, T-shirts, banners, cart, etc. and began selling at the Zoo gift shop and in the local nurseries. I ended up on the local TV and in the newspapers, and became known as “The Zoo-Doo Man.”

Whenever I had more than I could sell, I would drive the cement truck down to my garden and off-load the batch over the wall. I then put it into several soil-beds and grew vegetables with it – to compare which was better – compost or the Mittleider natural mineral nutrients, which I’d been using all along. And I grew good stuff with my Zoo-Doo.

However, the most important thing I learned in that two-year experiment was not how to make and sell Zoo-Doo. I learned for myself that I could grow better vegetables more consistently, and with a lot less time, cost, smell, and hassle, with a few pounds of inexpensive natural mineral nutrients, than I could with truckloads of “the world’s best compost.”

I therefore continue to use good, clean organic materials when they are available, but I know that highly productive vegetable gardens are not dependent on improving the soil with organic material.

Another side benefit is that we were able to avoid any insect or disease infestations (often introduced by compost) in those 20 years, and so I almost never have to use pesticides or herbicides in my gardens.