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organic gardening / articles / Moving from chemicals to organic

Moving from chemicals to organic

Jul 15, 2008 - GrowOrganic

We are growers of herb and vegetable starts, in business since 1988, and wanting to change to all organic. For years, we’ve been producing our starts with triple-20 at a ratio of 1:200. This works quickly (we produce a saleable 4” well-rooted plant, in most cases, in 8-10 weeks). Do you carry a product that would replace the chemical fertilizers but maintain the same production schedule? Or maybe there is a combination of organics that would helps us make this change. Please advise.

Whitney

Hi Whitney,

First of all, congratulations on your decision to go organic! It is definitely a good one! You will learn that organic fertilizers don’t have numbers as high as conventional. However, 8-10 weeks is a reasonable time to expect well rooted plants if conditions (temperature, moisture, etc.) are optimal. In your soil mixture, you might consider adding our Rose, Flower & Bulb mix (Item F064-25lb bag). It’s a 4-8-4 meal with some really nice ingredients including alfalfa meal, bone meal, and kelp meal. After 4 weeks, you can apply it again on the surface and water it in. If you would like a liquid fertilizer as well, our Omega 6-6-6 (Item F1825-5 Gal) is an excellent choice. You can apply it every 2-4 weeks at 2-4 Tbl per Gallon, which is 1:128-1:64.

We carry some excellent Mycorrhizae powders that can be mixed with the soil mix or added to the pots and watered in. Mycorrhixae are beneficial fungi that help the plant root and uptake nutrients (Item ISO705-24oz).

Hope that helps! Thank you for growing organically!
Amber

Katie Says:

Jul 15th, 2008 at 11:02 pm

When we have to buy traditionally grown transplants they always seem to hate the first couple weeks at our place - they look droopy and awful in the heat. I think it has to do with the lack of roots for the amount of green top growth due to high nitrogen synthetic fertilizers…. Good for you Whitney!

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