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organic Best off the shelf organics?

W

wojobhut

This year, I would like to do some side-by-side comparisions of idetical peppers grown with organics/naturals versus those grown with the usual chem ferts. Some say that the nutes provided by either means are identical, but I am skeptical. I would love to know what the non-chem gardeners here use for their "babies". Something easy at first. Something I don't have to follow a cow, bat, or worm around around for, that is....... ;)

Thanks....love this place.

Rich
 
Are you talking OMRI certified products? I use ... based on ton's of recommendations from here .... the Botanicare products (Liquid Karma, Pro Grow and Cal-Mag). They say they are organic on the label but they are not certified and don't seem very organic to me compared to say Fish Emulsion and Sea Weed which I also use occasionally.

Oh and welcome to THP, you will be addicted to this place in no time. LOL
 
Fish, Eathworm Castings, Kelp, Compost, Blood Meal, Bone Meal, Rock Dust, Guano, Manure the list goes on...

Organics aren't easy, but you can try the a few bottles of the organic stuff at a hydroponic store for a price. Top of my list at a hydro store would be something by Roots Organics, their potting soil is amazing. Really expensive though compared to getting the base ingredientes.

I recommend this site if your looking for some farm quality organic fertilizers and potions:
http://www.groworganic.com/

I almost forgot about Espoma Tomato Tone. I'd love to see Tomato Tone vs. the chemicals. A bag of that is probably the easiest way to try organics for vegetables.
 
good luck with your experiment.

here is a pic i took awhile back. here's the story:

i planted some scotch bonnets in soil, all sprouted. at the time i started to experiment with a homemade dwc. the nutrient in the dwc i use is homemade from a granular mix, Plant Prod, Tomato, Vegetable fertilizer 15-15-30 and i add a scoop of epsom salt to the water and on occcasion i have slipped in some green tea and other love juice. the soil plants are in promix hp, with a mix of other items like:egg shells/coffee grounds/green tea/fine sand/ground banana peel, ground alfalfa and a few other items that may have fallen into my mixing pail. when i water the soil plants, i either use just water or i use a watered down bunnypoo tea or alfalfa tea and they got the occasional epsom misting.

so, i removed one of the soiled plants into rockwool and slipped it into the dwc, i think this picture was taken about 3-6 weeks after the transplant.

the plant in the foreground is a carribean red started in rockwool but the comparison is bonnet versus bonnet which is located left of the soiled plant.

HPIM1943.jpg
 
What do you mean by "identical" peppers? They're not really identical unless you're using cuttings. IMO you're going to have to use a large number of plants for each fertilizer in order to get relatively reliable results just using plants of the same variety because of the variance among plants.

Another good one in addition to the ones ZanderSpice mentioned is mushroom compost.
 
I do have some side-by-side organic vs. non-organic pics, but they might be lost in a camera someplace; I'll take a look.

It seems to me like it's really a hare vs. tortoise thing. The organics (I use TomatoTone extensively and mostly; and Fish/Seaweed; and bone meal) are slow to impact the plants, while chemical ferts like MiracleGrow Tomato have an almost immediate impact. I think perhaps the plants raised solely with organics come out beefier and healthier over the course of a whole season, like they're eating well-balanced meals instead of getting a hit of coke. But when they need a short-term kick in the ass, I give them a gross blue chemical or neon pink crystal like MG and it does shake them up pretty fast.
 
I did a chem. fertilizer vs. organic fertilizer comparison two years ago using two cuttings from a Tabasco plant. Both cuttings were placed in 5-gallon pots using Fox Farm Ocean Forest soil as the growing medium. One cutting was fertilized using this schedule:

Soil feeding schedule

I only used the liquid/concentrates; the solubles were too expensive for my budget at the time.

The other cutting was fertilized once a month using Happy Frog All Purpose (5-5-5 NPK) fertilizer according to the instructions on the package.

I didn't take great notes but I observed that the cutting fertilized with chemicals grew faster and was much larger compared to the cutting fertilized with organics; however, the organically fertilized pepper yielded more fruit in the end. The cutting fertilized with chemicals had many, many flowers drop, perhaps due to the strength of the fertilizer.


I would like to do this experiment with a much larger sample size and with a chem. fertilizer feeding schedule that is optimized for a particular cultivar of pepper.
 
Thanks for the replies.

In response to some of the replies, plus a few questions...

To Beaglestorm:
No OMRI certifed stuff....so I guess just "all natural"? Though I might try that route next year.

To Avon Barksdale:
I will be using 3 Chocolate habs and 3 Fatali in each sample group for a total of 12 plants: 6 chems and 6 naturals. Cuttings would be exact, but the only cuttings that have ever survived for me were once part of my big toe.


Doesn't TomatoTome say "Rich in organic (or is it natural) ingredients" ? I think only one of the XXXTome products says "All Natural"

Where would you place Epsom salts. (chem/nat) ?

Is it OK to foliar feed with the Alaska Fish Fert?

My current plan for the chems is 10-20-10 fertilizer plus MG for Tomatoes
The Natural group will be getting Bone meal, Blood meal, Fish Fert
 
Some brands you can walk in and get at a hydro store that work well are.
1- Roots Organics
2- General Organics (made by mega company general hydroponics)
3- Bio-Bizz -word is that General Hired the guy from biobizz to make G.O.
Bio-Bizz is only manufacturer with the OMRI label out of these 3.

I have used General Organics on my small indoor garden and everything seemed to like it, but when I got some samples of Advanced Nutrients which is mainly a Synthetic line they had more vigorous growth.
The main difference I see is $$ the high quality synthetics are very expensive while the organic lines seem more affordable.

This is all things you could buy at any hydro store but I'm sure a DIY'er could cut costs a ton.

Good luck this season!
 
I am a huge fan (and becoming more so) of Espoma's line. I use Tomato- or Garden-Tone as the base. After the plants have a good start, I mix one of those with some blood meal and sidedress. A couple of weeks later, same thing. When the plants are about to bloom I switch to TT or GT but instead of blood meal, use bone meal. It hasn't happened yet - but getting close! - once fruit starts to set, bone meal with greensand.

An exception is lettuce, chard, etc. - leafy greens, plus basil. They only get TT with blood meal as I don't want to promote flowering.

I'm not stuck on organics but rather like the products and prices, as well as how well they work. Plus, I can tell prospective buyers that no synthetic fertilizers or pesticides were used.

Mike
 
I'm slowly becoming a fan of Espoma products myself having purchased 4 different ones so far.

Can't speak for the results, since it's my first year using them, but the list of ingredients impressed me for a common off-the-shelf brand.

I've been fortifying these products with some Azomite powder (google or ebay for lower prices).
 
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