Organic Nutrients - Nourishing your soil
- Nikkita Hay
- Jul 8, 2020
- 5 min read
Updated: Aug 20, 2020
Organic soil, check. Now how do you fertilize and keep the soil and microbes healthy? Here is an easy guide to understanding nutrients, and why they matter.
Just like any living thing, including us, plants need nutrients! There are 13 nutrients that plants need overall, with a majority of them occurring naturally in growing mediums or soils. However there are 3 primary macro-nutrients that plants consume consistently, and need to be replenished by fertilizing.
N-P-K, What does it mean?
If you are already familiar with growing plants, or have walked the gardening aisles, you probably noticed bottles with 3 numbers written on the bottom. 12-8-6, or 2-2-4, as examples, are numbers that resemble the ratio of the top 3 most important nutrients needed for a plant to grow! Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium. Each one has a specific role for your plant and its growth cycle!
Nitrogen - Responsible for the production of proteins and chlorophyll in the plant, nitrogen aids the plant in photosynthesis, growth, and overall development. This nutrient is very important for plants that are in the early stage of life, or actively growing.
Phosphorus - Focusing on the plant’s energy use and storage, phosphorus also aids in photosynthesis, but also root development, seed development and overall structural strength of the plant.
Potassium - Often called the 'quality control' nutrient, potassium helps with not only preventing disease, but also is key to increasing your plants yield, quality, and increasing its resistance to hot or cold climates. This nutrient is very important in the blooming or fruiting stage of the growth cycle.
The Organic Approach
Now that we understand the 3 top nutrients needed for our plants, we can now approach feeding our organic soil with an easier mindset. When you have created the growing soil mixture you prefer, loading it with food will be your number two step. This will be one of the biggest steps, but makes for a more sustainable and easy plant to care for later.
There are many ways to apply the nutrients needed for your plant organically. Nutrient kits from companies, compost teas, or hand mixing soil amendments are examples, and even used together. Some methods do prove to be easier than others, or lay on the factor of the space, or materials available to you.
Convenient / Beginners - Nutrient supplements such as ready to use grow kits, bring on a simple approach, with instructions for mixing at each growth stage. The kits will usually come with both a liquid fertilizer, and premixed dry amendments you simply mix in your soil or topsoil. Easy to obtain online, or from many growing supply stores, they prove great for beginners, or for people with limited time, budgets or material. They are however, not always 100% organic, and do require some 'processing' if you are wanting to be a true naturalist.
Top 3 Suggested Nutrient Kits
Engaging / Experienced - Compost tea's, Bokashi speed compost, or direct mixing of the soil amendments is a more complex and time consuming option, but more rewarding. These are often brewed or composted for specific lengths of time, and are applied by liquid or mixing the prepared matter in the soil. These methods are commonly referred to as 'living soil', and are usually a part of the soil mixing process at the beginning. The cool thing with this method is little to no other fertilizing will be needed during the grow cycle. Since you are doing a lot of the mixing, brewing or composting, these methods are usually 100% organic or incredibly close.
Top 3 Suggested Nutrient Living Soil
A Deeper Understanding
Either of these methods, or a mixture of these methods use organic matter to feed your plants. Organic matter, to me, was defined as a split into three parts. Described as the living, the dead, and the very dead. Essentially, the circle of life. The microbes and bacteria within the soil and organic matter are living, tasked to break down, and create nutrients for the plants roots to absorb. The dead is the recently living matter, which is broken down by the living and turned into the mainstream of nutrients for the plant's roots. Lastly is the very dead, which is very decomposed matter, usually known as 'humus', which acts as storage for essential nutrients, releasing them slowly as needed.
Examples of organic matter are things such as; animal manure, algae, blood meal, bat guano bone meal, cottonseed meal, compost, marine fish waste, and worm castings. All of these items contain the 3 parts of organic matter, and will properly fertilize your soil with the 3 macronutrients needed, and much more.
PH Levels and It's Utter Importance
When growing organically, PH problems are much less of an issue. As long as you have a proper source of water, the bacteria and microbes in the soil medium, if healthy, will do the job for you. However, it is still very important information to know, juuust in case a PH problem does occur.
To briefly explain, PH is a scale that tests the acidity, or alkaline(base) levels of the water. The scale itself is from 0-14, with 7 being neutral in the middle. Below 7 is acidic, and above 7 is alkaline(base)!
Why is this important? Because if plants are watered or grown in acidic conditions, they do not flourish. Low PH(acidic) can cause nutrient lockout, giving a massive nutrient deficiency to your plant. When this occurs, you will notice stunted growth, lower yields, and germination failures. When nutrient deficiencies occur, test the water's PH level to be sure it is not a contributing factor. There are inexpensive kits that can be bought off amazon, or from local grow shops that will test the level, and from there it can adjust as needed.
The fun thing with correcting the PH, is you can do it with household items! Baking Soda will lift the PH level, helping it become more alkaline. While lemon juice or vinegar will lower the PH level, helping it become more acidic! However, there are organic companies that offer PH up and PH down.
NOTE: Using inorganic PH up and PH down can actually harm your bacteria and microbes in the soil medium! Ensure you are using organic methods along with your organic soil and nutrients!
Top Suggested All Natural PH Corrector
In general with organic growing, it’s recommended you do not adjust or try to manage pH until you know something is wrong. In organic growing “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.”
Organic Vs. Synthetic
Did you know that plants cannot distinguish between an organic or synthetic fertilizer? The plant processes nutrients in exactly the same way! However, their similarities of organic nutrients and synthetic nutrients stop there.
With understanding that organic growing focuses on keeping the healthy bacteria and microbes in the soils alive and working, it’s easy to see where synthetic fertilizers can fault. Synthetic fertilizers are designed to feed your plants roots directly with chemically created nutrients. By doing this, synthetics can harm or out compete the happy organisms, stopping their production, and making the plant reliant on the synthetics for their consistent supply.
Synthetic fertilizers do not contain many micro-nutrients. This can be very problematic if your soil lacks those nutrients, or your organisms are not working to make them. Ironically, the opposite can also occur with synthetics. Nutrient burn is one of the most common problems with synthetic nutrients, since plants do not know what to do with 'too much' of a nutrient, and unless given a sign from the plant, we do not know how much excess may exist in the soil already. This makes it very easy to overfeed and cause the much too familiar 'burn' on the leaves.
Overall, organic nutrients can prove to be a much more relaxed, foul proof, and enduring method to feeding our plants, and roots!
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