You need food. Your plants need food. You need healthy food. So do they, especially the ones which will one day be your healthy food. We can help you with that.

After yielding to temptation and loading up at our seed racks, continue down the aisle towards the Deli and you're met with a tidy but probably less inspiring display of our garden dry goods: soils, fertilizers, organic pest controls, small hand tools, and the like. All useful, sure, but less fun than the seeds – and reminders that this gardening thing is work!

Anyway, this is where you’ll find your garden’s buffet table. There’s a wall of neat brown boxes facing the seeds, 15 varieties of mostly-organic fertilizers and soil conditioners with retro illustrations that give clues to what's inside or what they're for. These are from Down To Earth Distributors in Eugene, Oregon, a "green lifestyle" company that manufactures or distributes a majority of our dry goods and fertilizers.

If you're reading this I presume you can read a box, but today I’ll give a short blurb on each that you can further investigate on the Google from the comfort of your home. While you’re researching, educate yourself on the N-P-K numbers found on most packaged fertilizers (the three hyphenated numbers following the name) if you don’t know them already; it will really help you decipher this article!

I apologize that I don't have space to go into them in-depth here, but quick 'n’ dirty: Nitrogen (N, the first number) is for green growth, Phosphorous (P, the second) for roots and flowers and Potassium/potash (K, the third) for overall plant strength and vigor. Different plants have different needs and our selection covers most of them.

Fertilizer Mixes

Alright, here we go! The mixes first, and the first three are our bestsellers:

Acid Mix 4-3-6

Put on your tie-dye and apply these groovy granules to your blueberries and other acid-loving plants like rhododendrons, hydrangeas, and most evergreens. Apply in early spring for strong green growth, then again when blooms appear. Contains cottonseed and fish bone meals, langbeinite, rock phosphates, humates, and kelp meal.

All-Purpose 4-6-2

The name says it – if you don't want to fuss and just need something that's organic and works for pretty much everything, here it is. Maybe the rest of this article is suddenly pointless! Fish bone meal, blood meal, feather meal, alfalfa meal, rock phosphate, langbeinite, humates, and kelp meal.

Vegetable Garden 4-4-4

Relatively new product that's getting rave reviews, perfect NPK balance that works for leafy greens and tomatoes alike. Fish bone meal, alfalfa meal, feather meal, langbeinite, basalt, potassium sulfate, Dolomite lime, and kelp meal. Organic.

Bio-Fish 7-7-2

A richer blend for heavy feeders like corn, cole crops and tomatoes, and it feeds the soil while it feeds your plants. Fish bone meal, fish meal, feather meal, sulfate of potash, alfalfa meal, humates, and kelp meal. Organic.

Bio-Live 5-4-2

New to us last year, I tried it and was impressed. It contains most of the usual suspects – fish bone meal, fish meal, alfalfa meal, langbeinite, humates, and kelp meal plus crab meal, shrimp meal, and our special guest stars: mycorrhizal fungi and beneficial bacteria! Yum. The myco stuff attaches to roots almost like a prosthesis to take up more water and nutrients, making for more vigorous plant growth. Awesome and organic.

Vegan Mix 3-2-2

No ground-up critters or their by-products in this mix! A mild, all-purpose feed that you can feel good about and get great results while you're at it. Contains soybean meal, neem seed meal, alfalfa meal, rock phosphate, langbeinite, greensand, humates, and kelp meal. Organic, naturally.

Rose & Flower 4-8-4

Balanced N and K but higher P for bigger, more abundant blooms on your roses and most other flowering plants including bulbs, annuals, and perennials. Fish bone meal, blood meal, langbeinite, alfalfa meal, seabird guano, rock phosphate, humates, and kelp meal. Organic.

Starter Mix 3-3-3

Such good stuff for your babies! Milder than most of the mixes so as not to burn delicate sprouts, and with that mycorrhizae stuff to provide jet fuel for the developing roots. Alfalfa meal, fish bone meal, langbeinite, oyster shell, basalt, feather meal, humates, kelp meal, and endomycorrhizal fungi. Organic.

Single-Ingredient Fertilizers

Besides the blends, these single ingredients allow you to create your own custom mix(es), enhance one you're already using or enjoy them on their own with an adult beverage (kidding, please don’t):

Alfalfa Meal 2.5-0.5-2.5

Soil conditioner with trace elements and natural growth stimulants. For flowering shrubs, especially roses, and often used with the Rose & Flower fertilizer to supplement what's already there. Many rose growers swear by it and it's safe to use lots of it, so why not? Useful compost bioactivator, too. Organic.

Azomite 0-0-0.2

Mined from an extinct volcano in Utah, azomite is called "the A to Z of trace minerals" – over 70, in fact. Trace minerals, vital to soil health, get used up by plants and washed away, especially in light soils, so it's good to add them back now and then. Also good in compost and even potting soil, helping your plants unlock the nutrition in fertilizers and the soil itself. Organic.

Fish Bone Meal 4-12-0

Phosphorous is an essential plant nutrient for root growth, buds, and blooms, and this is my preferred source. I use it in the fall, mostly, for garlic and flower bulbs to help them root strongly, and for the flower bulbs to grow bigger and stronger buds and blooms. Don't overdo phosphorous - I add a little to each individual planting hole, but I don't broadcast it on the whole area. Organic.

Feather Meal 12-0-0

Very high nitrogen as organic ingredients go, great for your leafy greens like lettuce, spinach, and kale and there's no pesky phosphorous to make them bolt (flower). It releases slowly and is best added to the soil before you plant, not so much during active growth. Organic.

Kelp Meal 1-0.1-2

A general tonic for your plants with a misleadingly low N-P-K rating, but it's the K (potash/potassium) that's readily available and makes for stronger, almost unusually healthy growth. It's kind of magical, really, though I've never met anyone who can explain it very well. Organic.

Neem Seed Meal 6-1-2

For foliage plants including leafy greens, with high nitrogen content and low phosphorous so blooming isn't encouraged. I've sold neem products for years (and still do) as safe, organic insecticides and fungicides but it's great fertilizer, too, and one of our few boxed ingredients that can be steeped to make a foliar tea to spray directly on leaves to feed the plant. Organic.

Oyster Shell

A rich source of calcium that sweetens acid soil and enables better nutrient uptake and, maybe my favorite thing: helps prevent blossom end rot on tomatoes! Organic.There we have it, folks... the whole dirty business. Come see me at the Co-op if you have questions, need to correct my information or tell me how much you appreciate my informative articles! Ha. garden@skagitfoodcoop.com works, too.

Feed Your Food and Flowers: Our Down to Earth Menu