Green Earth OrganicsNatural Fertilizers

Advice for Organic Weed Control

Have you ever thought about using organic weed control instead of using the traditional man made chemicals? If you have, you are not alone. Take a trip to your local garden store and you will find countless products for your lawn that are organic, and you will find that almost every worker there will have countless suggestions on how to use organic products on
your lawn.

However, even with this abundant amount of resources, many people are still confused as to how they can achieve a weed-free lawn using organic weed control.

These people think that the chemical products are really the only way to kill their weeds. Yes, it is true that roundup will kill everything better than just about any organic product. But is that what is needed for your lawn?

Of course, many products exist that will kill the dandelions that pop up in your yard, but does that mean that you should use the products without looking at what the organic alternatives can do. And can you possibly ignore the environmental effects, even when these negative environmental effects will actually hurt your lawn in the long run?

The fact is, chemical herbicides and weed killers are not the best products for you to use to control the weeds in your lawn. Not only are there good organic alternatives that often are cheaper, but the chemical herbicides have horrible effects on the environment and your lawn.

First, let’s talk about the effects on the environment. Look at the labels on your chemicals and check out the ingredients. Would you want to drink that stuff? If it kills everything on your lawn, what do you think it would do to your baby who drinks it?

Of course, you are not going to literally give the weed killer to your baby to drink, but what happens if that weed killer you put on your lawn soaks down into the water supply? Or what if you accidentally wash off your lawn tools on the cement and the
chemicals run down the gutter and then into the water supply.

Unfortunately, this does happen quite often and decreases the quality of water that you, I, and our children drink. Furthermore, those chemicals will harm your lawn. When many of the man made chemicals seep down into your lawn’s soil, they will kill any worms or other life that exists in its path. This is horrible for your soil, such worms and other organisms are very important for building and maintaining your soil.

So you may kill the weeds, but you will also kill your soil and eventually your lawn.
In order to prevent this from happening, and to prevent weeds from killing your lawn, I would suggest that you use organic weed control products.

Products such as corn gluten can kills weed seedling within days of application, without any of the negative side effects. Put this on before
weeds emerge and the weeds chance of survival decreases dramatically.

Spot treat your weeds with vinegar instead of using a pesticide. Vinegar will kill the weeds without negative effects (of course, it will also kill grass, so make sure you only spot treat).

The fact is that many organic products exist to help you not only maintain your lawn and kill weeds at the same time. These products will get the job done, maintain your soil quality, and not harm the environment.

About the Author

Find out more about Organic Lawn Care. You can also read more about Organic Weed Control.

Weed killing / burning

[affmage source="ebay" results="100"]weed killer chemicals[/affmage]

Organic gardening calendar
No fruit on tomatoes? Side-dress 1/2 cup to 1 cup of greensand (approximate analysis of 015) at base of plant. Feed plant with a fish and seaweed mix every 6 weeks.
Furney’s Nursery How to Trim and Fertilize Roses

[affmage source="ebay" results="100"]organic garden fertilizer[/affmage]

Free Urea Based Fertilizer

Human urine makes an excellent high nitrogen liquid fertiliser for most plants. Dilute it 10 to 1 and pour it over and or round fast growing plants once a week; like vegetables, Green manure crops and sugar cane. Indeed just about anything that you want to push along rapid green growth

Studies indicate that each person’s waste fluids can provide enough nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium to grow a year’s supply of wheat and maize for that person. According to some studies, human waste can be an even more effective fertilizer than animal manure.

Urine, which comprises 90 percent of human waste, contains about 80 percent of our waste’s fertilizer value. It can be applied to field crops without treatment because it is generally sterile. By the way “fresh urine” does not contain any bacteria, unless the person has a urinary tract infection, so you could even use it to wash out wounds without causing any infections,

Human urine can be used as an alternative to chemical fertilizer to reduce pollution in air, water and soil and help avoid or control other environmental hazards which surface due to the use of chemical fertilizer, Human urine contains nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium at a much higher ratio than in commercial fertilizers and is environmentally safe to use.

If you want to use urine to fertilize your gardens, keep in mind that when urea becomes ammonia, it also becomes volatile and part of it strips into the air. Both ammonia and nitrates are also very soluble and if not picked up by plant’s root systems can enter groundwater with the irrigation water. So it would be best to keep gardens moist but not over watered, but these are similar problems faced by people who use other forms of fertilizers.

Problems urine causes

Most toilets use between 50 and 100 litres of water daily to flush away one to 1.5 litres of human excrement.

Urine is the largest contributor of nutrients to waste water, estimated as 50% of phosphorus and 80% of nitrogen.

The high level of nutrients in sewerage runoff leads to the consequent growth of algae, resulting in the lack of oxygen and the death of plants and animals on river, estuarine and sea beds.

Problems Chemical Fertilizers cause

Serious environmental hazards are often associated with the use of chemical fertilizers. In industrialized countries, for example, indiscriminate use of these substances has polluted water supplies. Dangerously high levels of chemicals have been reported in nearly one-fourth of Europe’s groundwater supplies.

Advantages of Urine Fertilizer

One advantage in using urine, as a fertilizer is that much of the urine is available in ideal chemical forms: nitrogen is in the form of urea (ammonia/ammonium which is present at concentrations of approximately 3.5 g/l), phosphorus as superphosphate and potassium as an ion. Urine is almost free from heavy metals – for example, cadmium – because even if we ingest them, they will tend to bind to the liver and kidneys, making the urine much lower in such contaminants than commercial fertilizers.

Urea outside the body quickly becomes ammonia and will be oxidized by special bacteria (called nitrifiers) into nitrates. All these ‘reactive’ nitrogen sources can be used to form amino groups for new amino acids, thus then being made into proteins. So make other steps to encourage the soil life in your garden, eg things lie mulching etc.

It helps conserve pure or town drinking water

Reduces the rate and amount of chemical fertilizer runoff into the groundwater and surrounding waterways

Reduces the amount of sewerage runoff

Reduces nutrient build-up in waterways and estuaries and oceans

Reduces your gardening costs, because of less reliance on buying chemical fertilizers.

Uses

Probably best used for non-edible plants, green manure crops and fruit orchards, though there is some usage being noted for edible crops. Apply in under fruiting plants, not onto foliage and fruits.

In a Hydroponics set-up, use it diluted, probably at a ratio of either 10- 20 to 1(water- urine), but keep a close eye on both the ph level and the level of individual salts of the mix in the nutrient storage container.

Dilute urine is also a good additive to a compost pile. Urea also helps break down lignin, accelerating the decomposition of woody materials. On the other hand, urine from somebody with a urinary tract infection or from unknown sources should probably be pasteurised or put in a long-term compost pile (of a year or longer)

before it is used on food crops.

When using a urine fertilizer in container plants, a 10:1 (water: urine) ratio can quickly burn plants in medium to small containers because of the salt and urea build-up, even at a 15:1 dilution rate is very strong for the medium to small containers. While at 20:1 you can use it more frequently (once or twice a week) with good benefits and little danger.

Unfermented urine can supposedly be sprayed as a fungicide. Indigenous people in southeastern Mexico claim that the use of urine as a fungicide was a traditional Mayan practice. However there needs to be a lot more research as to the validity or not of their claims.

While in Korea, they spray the undiluted urine as an insecticide, but again I do not know of any research to prove or disprove their claims.

So why not get out there, and help the environment by assisting in reducing the nutrient flow into the natural ground water and water ways, while saving yourself a bundle in fertilizer costs.

About the Author

The Bare Bones Gardener is a qualified Horticulturist and a qualified Disability Services Worker. He hates spending money on stuff which doesn’t live up to the promises given. So he looks for cheaper, easier, simpler or free ways of doing the same thing and then he passes these ideas on to others.

Garden Blog – http://barebonesgardening.blogspot.com/

Use Fertilizers Sparingly – Washington Waters, ours to protect, public service announcement

[affmage source="ebay" results="100"]water fertilizers[/affmage]

Can I grow Jalapeño or Chili peppers in Atlanta?

I love Jalapeños and Chilies. I think they like sandy, dry soil so if I were to pot them separately with the appropriate type of soil would they grow well here? In the summer?

Have fun. Where you are they will grow like weeds in common potting soil. Caution: don’t put them too close to each other or you may get a weird, bland hybrid pepper.

What is Fluoridation? Big Agra Fertilizer By-Product – Toxic Waste

[affmage source="ebay" results="100"]fertilizer toxic[/affmage]

Acidic or Alkalinic Soil

Whether your soil is acid or very alkaline has an important bearing on how well your plants will grow. But how acid and how alkaline must a soil be? How does a soil become one or the other? A soil may become acid in several ways. Because of certain minerals some soils are naturally acid, just as others are naturally alkaline. Large amounts of organic matter of the kind which rot down slowly will induce acidity chiefly because the bacteria associated with this rotting down generate acids in the process. When acids accumulate, the soil will pass through various degrees of acidity.

It may even return, or become neutral. There is no static phase in any soil, it is always changing. Temperature, moisture, cultivation, manures, fertilizers, outdoor fountains, garden statuary, even large waterfalls, applied to it will change its reaction one way or another. It’s largely a matter of degree. You can test the soil for acidity or alkalinity. Any of the simple test kits sold will give you a reaction. Just how accurate it will be depends upon the technique and the freshness of the chemicals used.

Your State Experiment Station or Agricultural College will do it for you. In color tests, acidity is indicated by a gradual changing from pink to red; the brighter the color the greater the degree of acidity. Alkalinity is indicated by a change from pale to dark blue, the changes indicating the intensity of alkalinity. A contrivance of the scientist called the pH scale measures the degrees of acidity or alkalinity. This scale may be compared to a thermometer. The dividing line between gradual increases in warm and cold temperature is 32°F.

On the pH scale, the dividing or neutral line is pH 7. Below this, acidity increases above pH 7 and alkalinity increases. At pH 8, the soil is extremely alkaline; at pH 3, extremely acid. Plants have difficulty growing in either case unless they are plants adaptable to such conditions. Nor is it a matter of increasing acidity by just 1 degree from 5 to 4 or alkalinity 7 to 8. The jump is tenfold. For example, pH 6 is ten times more acid than pH 7. But pH 5 is 100 times more acid than pH 7.

The question arises as to what is the best range at which plants will grow. For acid-soil plants such as rhododendron, azalea and the like, the range is considered to be around pH 5 to pH 6. For blueberries the range is between pH 4 to 5.1. This is certainly pretty acidic. So the term acid soil, as generally used, only tells half the story. Fortunately, the great majority of ornamental, fruit, and food plants grow best in a neutral soil, that is, a soil neither one thing nor another. Many like it slightly on the acid side. Most garden soils are just within this range.

If you are planting acid soil plants and a test reveals that your soil is alkaline or if you are not sure, there are certain materials you may apply to change the reaction. The safest for the beginner is the use of acid peat moss, or leaf mold; sawdust, too, will help. These materials will not affect any potential outdoor fountains, garden water features, or outdoor waterfalls either. Any of these packed around the roots and then spread on the ground surface over the roots after planting, will assure sufficient acidity for growth. Chemicals are suggested in various ways.

One of these is aluminum sulphate. This is not a fertilizer. It is a soil reagent. Enough will change a soil to the acid side. How much you should use to get a specific reaction is hard to say. Only by a careful test before and after application can you tell how much you need. Too much applied at once will cause trouble. It is suggested by many authorities that more than 1 lb. per 100 square feet at one application is dangerous. If more is needed, it is applied over a period of months to avoid a too sudden change. The other chemical suggested is sulphur. This is less sudden in action.

About the Author

Allison Ryan is a freelance writer from San Diego, CA. She specializes in landscaping, gardening, and enjoys collecting
garden statuary
and
garden water features
for her home and backyard. For a wide selection of fountains, statuary, and waterfalls, stop by
http://www.garden-fountains.com/
.

How to Plant Gardenias : Mixing Potting Soil for Gardenias

[affmage source="ebay" results="100"]Soil Plant[/affmage]

Does anyone know what color the weed killer Roundup is? And if it is toxic to dogs?

Our landscaper sprayed something and I need to know what it is, our dog has been sick and we took to the vet and got meds but he wanted me to find out what it was that was sprayed, our landscaper says it is roundup and non toxic… But our vet is thinking it is not Roundup.
We definitely do not trust the landscaper. We rent and the rental company has him come in and do the lawn. Also this is definitely not clear that he is spraying, it is bright bluish/green/turquoise color.

Roundup is clear. And yes it is toxic to ALL life forms, plant (haha) or animal. Be careful how you use it.

Please do read the manufactures directions/ cautions.

talkin’ trash 8 3

[affmage source="ebay" results="100"]toxic weed killer[/affmage]

If you live in a city, you can still grow your own organic veg garden. All you need is a small plot of land that has good drainage and receives up to six hours of sunshine each day. When preparing your organic veg patch, make sure to stay well clear of trees, because they can throw too much shade.

Even if you live in an apartment and don’t have a garden at your disposal, you can still grow your own organic veg using several garden pots filled with some good quality potting mix and place them out on your patio or porch. Using pots is also a very convenient way to grow herbs.

But if you live in the country, you probably have a lot of space available and your organic veg garden can be as large as you can manage, which means the variety of organic veg you can grow can be rather extensive.

In either scenario, whether living in the city or the country, regular water supply is essential.

Additionally, good organic compost is a bonus, although you can make your own from some compostable material around your house, like grass clippings, leaves, lint out of the tumble dryer, torn up newspapers and leftover vegetable scraps. Make sure however not to include onion peel or citrus, as these do not compost particularly well. Also, don’t include any animal products or meat leftovers, because these will attract vermin and insects that you definitely don’t want.

A worm farm can help promote good, rich compost and all by-products from a worm farm are beneficial to your garden. Worm farm compost breaks down much faster than ordinary compost. But if neither home-made compost or worm farm compost are options, you can buy some good organic compost or organic fertilizer from your hardware store or plant nursery.

Make sure you handle bags of compost, potting mix or fertilizers with care, as they contain micro-organisms that can be harmful to your health. It’s a sensible idea to always wear gloves and a mask when handling these substances. Also, never open these bags inside a confined space, like inside your home or garden shed, so you avoid inhaling any compost dust.

With good quality, organic compost mixed well into your soil, your foundation has been laid. Now it’s time to get started on preparing to plant your organic veg. Take some time to carefully choose what you want to grow, and once the soil is prepared, make the trip to your local organic nursery to buy your seeds or seedlings.

Having planted your organic vegetables, water them in, then stand back and admire your handiwork. It’s now time to pour yourself a long, cold drink and make a toast to your organic veg garden with a wish for it to grow and flourish.

Every evening, don’t forget to pay your respects to your veggie patch, and give it a daily watering. If you do your daily ritual and water your organic veg plants, they will respond to your care and attention many times over by providing an abundance of healthy, nutritious and most of all, tasty organic veg for you and your family to savor and enjoy. Good health!

To find out more secrets to growing your own healthy, abundant, nutritious and tasty organic vegetables, grab your copy of “My Organic Food Garden” and start preparing your organic veggie patch today! With more than enough expert advice and secret methods to assist the greenest of organic veg gardeners, this step-by-step manual guarantees you success with growing plenty of home-grown Organic Veg.

Organic Fertilizer Recipe

[affmage source="ebay" results="100"]buy organic fertilizer[/affmage]

I’m writing an essay for school called “A Toxic Food Environment” suggestions for what I should write about?

Please, no mean comments, just suggestions thank you

- Fast food places that are easy and cheap.

- Hard to proonounce ingredients and toxins found in most of the “convenient” frozen foods at the grocery store

- Hormone-injected meats (chicken, beef, pork) that are being sold on a regular basis

Cantor & Roskam: DC’s Making Business Environment Toxic

[affmage source="ebay" results="100"]environment toxic[/affmage]

College Course To Address Current Oil Spill Crisis
Oil And Water Don’t Mix That Is, Unless They Are Coming Together In A Class Dubbed “oil And Water: The Gulf Oil Spill Of 2010,” A Joint Venture Of The University…
organic-fertilizer-farming.mpg

[affmage source="ebay" results="100"]agriculture fertilizers[/affmage]

Identifying some common tomato diseases
Because of the outbreak of late blight of tomato last year, that disease seems to be the biggest worry for tomato growers this year. There have been several reports of late blight in northeastern states this season, including one in Connecticut, but the weather has been unfavorable for development and there have been no new reports.
organic garden diary —liquid fertilizer compost on Dec 15th

[affmage source="ebay" results="100"]organic gardening fertilizer[/affmage]