We decided to change our gardens at work to all organic a few years ago. The garden was looking good but it just didn’t sing. We wanted the gardens to be beautiful. radiant, shining with energy. This does not happen using chemical fertilizers.I had tried early on using Organics and had a variety of problems with animals. The time I fertilized the small heathers and the turkeys flocked in fluffing and dust bathing while they ate all the fertilizer.Covering the heathers with soil or rooting them out.The crows who quickly got wind of it after the turkeys attracted their attention actually pull the plant out of the ground to eat what might be further down.The pigs after that, the pigs are another story. Anyway I went back to fertilizer that didn’t attract so much attention. I still used Green sand or cottonseed meal on the lawns. These have no animal products in them to attract the wildlife.
Years later we decided to get a dog at work. We started with Tashi a Great Pyrenees dog. After about a year I noticed the animals were staying away because of the dog. Another year and three more Pyrenees the garden is well protected from invaders, yet those crows..
So we started to use really good mulch on all the rhody’s , Happy Frog Soil conditioner www.foxfarmfertilizer.com/products_soils2. worked really well for us.Making sure it’s pulled back from the crown of the plant. Then we used organic chicken manure as an amendment for our soils and the lawns in the fall .The first year we were happy with this. Plus some organic all purpose fertilizers. Then we got slightly out of balance . The chicken manure didn’t seem to work right. Is it really organic we began to ask ? Are the chickens being fed organic feed ? Are we handling all these antibiotics and GMO corn residue in this manure. Probably. Organic does not mean organic in this case. Labeling laws that prevent us as consumers from really understanding what we’re buying.Labeling as advertising, pinpointing certain economic groups interests. We are now relying instead on compost we make ourselves. But at home I rely on our own animals composted manures , I know what they are being fed.
