HelpfulGardener.com

I am new to gardening. I got frustrated because my flowers wouldn't bloom at all anymore although the temperature and moisture has not changed. So, I concluded that I needed to "feed" the plants. My little bit of compost material I managed to collect from the yard won't be ready for at leat 6 months.

I went to my local Home Depot and spent 2 hours reading all the labels of every plant "food" I could find. Nothing was organic. Most of them say "write to the address for ingredients". So I got what I thought was the "safest" one. It said it was for vegatables after all, it can't be that bad right?

I bought Ultragreen All Purpose Plant Food 10-10-10.

Now after reading in these forums that fertilizers are actual bad for my soil I got worried. I tried looking up the stuff. Washington did a metal test on it and has 0.9% arsenic listed! that cannot be good!

[url]https://agr.wa.gov/pestfert/Fertilizers/FertDB/prodinfo.aspx?pname=3946[/url]

I think that's the stuff, but it says lilly miller, although my search was for ultragreen. I assume its the same. But, not sure.

Unfortunatly I've put handfuls of the stuff all over my vegatable garden. Everything got replanted with a mixture of the 1/2 clay soil it was in 1/2 humus from a bag I also bought at home depot for $1 and a handful of the ultragreen fertilizer.

Now I am wondering if I just endangered my garden and myself?!

The bag says to reapply every 4 months, so perhaps the stuff will wash away before I actualy harvest anything?

Perhaps I should not eat anything this year

Did I do a bad thing? If so, how bad?

That's what you get with chemical fertilizers! My advice is to buy an organic fertilizer or use compost. And if you're planting flowers, you will need a high phosphorous fertilizer (middle number). Too much nitrogen (first number) inhibits floral growth.

0.9% is well within the safe limits of arsenic, although I prefer 0 arsenic. There's just as much aspartame in Sweet N Low which is just as bad, only its a slower killer. As long as you don't go out and eat all your vegetables all at once, there should be no harm from them, but I'd still get rid of the fertilizer(PROPERLY! Not the Trash!). Sorry, but Home Depot is not the place to look for fertilizers, nor is Lowes. Surprisingly Walmart of all places carries organic fertilizers from Miracle Gro, but I still wouldn't trust them. Not from that company(Miracle Gro).

The best place to find truly organic soil amendments and plant nutrients is an independently owned garden-supply store or nursery.

The big box stores don't carry anywhere near the organic products that the independents do. Look online or even in a telephone directory for nearby plant nurseries and garden supply places (sometimes independent hardware stores will have decent garden departments as well) in your area.

Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9

a0c8c,I bought organic blood meal from Miracle Grow,is it bad?I already applied some to my cukes and they really loved it (we haven't put much nitrogen down so that is why my garden was doing poorly this year).Miracle Grow was the only brand of blood meal I could find.

It's much better than regular miracle gro, that's for sure. It's not completely organic, it still has a chemical or two, but it's alot better than their regular stuff. Alot of times you have to order things off the internet if you can't find it locally.

But do you know what sort of harmful chemicals it has,if any?Yeah,I try to buy as many certified organic or ORMI listed products as possible,but there are a few that I have that are organic,but not certified organic.I would buy online,but we've had issues with identity theft in the past,so we try to avoid online as much as possible.But I do try to limit the chemicals as much as possible.