From

Location

Message

Date Posted

Ankeny, Iowa

I just ordered some fish and seaweed fertilizer for next year. Have any of you used it. If so did it give you bigger pumpkins. Please post if any of you have information on how fish and seaweed fertilizer compares with other fertilizers you have used. Thank you.

9/18/2003 2:09:33 PM

Menomonie, WI (mail@gr8pumpkin.net)

Hey Junior I used Fish and Kelp mix this year with 1/4 cup of molasses mixed in with every cup of fertilizer fed threw a hose end sprayer. No Cuke beatles this year. Shannon

9/18/2003 5:15:45 PM

Montoursville, PA

Fish and Kelp is an association of many good things for your patch soil and growing support. It is not intended to replace other fertilizers you use in prepairing the patch.
The molasses mentioned above inhances both and adds even more goodness for your pumpking growing. It would be hard to find any other combination of foliar feeding elements that would do so much for anyone's patch and plants.

You may spray it into or on your patch liberally in the fall as you prepair for the cover crop. It will help turn your manure and leaves into compost and humus.

I have used it for all garden growing for many many years.

9/18/2003 6:36:27 PM

porterville, calif.

I used it like Doc told me too.I had my best year. I should of started it sooner than i did. Oh I had no bad bug problems. Alot of good bugs did show up. I did find 1 squash bug the other day. I just squished him. Haven,t found any more. Doc i did order the Dirt Doctor Book...Greg

9/19/2003 4:46:52 AM

Deer Park, WI

I used it for the first time this year as well, and had very good results. Like others have mentioned, very few bugs. Had a bunch of squash bugs but cuke beetles were pretty much non-existent. Kept my leaves dark green and healthy. I didnt need to use the miracle grow as often. I will be using this product in '04 and beyond

9/19/2003 8:50:58 AM

Key West, FL

hmmm, I used it this year, didn't know thats why I didnt see any bugs. I didn't have any powdery mildew until I stopped using it.

9/19/2003 1:41:11 PM

Ankeny, Iowa

Thank you everyone for your replies. I have a good feeling about my new fertilizer. I hope it works and I am looking forward to next year. Good luck to everyone.

9/19/2003 5:53:01 PM

Montoursville, PA

To further strengthen your plants all would be well advised to dig through the garden centers for the organic lawn and garden fertilizers. They are the true slow release fertilizers. They contain the elements of life. They leach less if at all while placing no flash and go fast growth factors. You can not get any of these benefits from synthetic fertilizers. The organics also contain carbon while the synthetics contain no carbon.

For years and years I could only find organic fertilizer in the form of lawn fertilizer. I used that for both the lawn and the garden. Today with much renewed interest in using less harsh materials more and more choices are available.
Get out there and read those labels and ask those questions.

If the creator would have wanted 10-10-10 on his soil he would have made earthworms that poop 10-10-10 or 0-0-60. This might also suggest gingerly use of blood 12% N as an ammendment. To much N of any source promotes fast and weak growth.

I truly appreciate the comments made here by those who try to improve their soils by building living soil quality. This can not be done by killing the living elements within the soil. Now we hear that the largest pumpkin ever grown was grown largely using manures and the elements of compost underground and fish kelp blends in foliar feeding.

It takes about five years of nuking tricks to ruin a piece of good ground. It takes about five years to build an eternally good piece of ground. Which five years would you rather spend your time and bucks on?

9/19/2003 9:15:16 PM

Deer Park WA

Doc, you crack me up! If I spent the time it would take to organicaly build my 10 acres of DIRT I would be 2000 years old before I got a 1000 pounder! Seriously you make an excellent point, and I strive to build the humis in my patches first and foremost, however a good ole shot of calcium nitrate sure does wonders in the begining! Good luck, and God Bless us all (except for all you heathens)..!

9/20/2003 1:31:38 AM

Puyallup, WA

Gads....you "crack me up"! .... "except you heathens"! :>)

9/20/2003 10:47:39 PM

Caceres, mid west of Spain

Soil... it never will be fully understood. They are the most complicated ecosystems. A well balance soil is something hard to find, in transformed agricultural lands and in natural wild ones as well. Soil science and plant production has to go together for the best results in order of high yields and healthy plants.

Balance is more important for fertility than single elements amounts; physics (structure and texture) than chemists (composition). The worse you can do to a soil is easier to get with inorganics than with organics. But organics alone aren't always enough. And as we look after the plants in the end, we shouldn't forget that inorganic fertilizers are more capable to imbalance them when added during the plant or fruit growth than when added prior to plantation. Plants do not like big changes.

You know when a soil is great. You just need to take a look to the plants growing on it. They are healthy and vigorous in all their parts at the same time, leaves, roots and fruits, without the less ugly spot on them.

I see once a real place like that, just once. It was on the North Coast of Wales. Its name is Bodnant Garden, an old rich family garden, now owned by the National Trust. Streams run across its little valleys, big trees from all around the World covered with their shade deep green brushes, while the best flowering plants took the light they needed from the more opened areas. All were mixed, but harmony was always present.
I didn't see any single sick leave in all that paradise. Had I be a plant in my next life, I rather live there than in other point of the planet.

If human beings are capable to create that kind of places, and like them more than uglier contaminated ones, there still is a hope for us. Sometimes I dream in a blue-green planet where the ancient wild magic ecosystems could coexist with human lands and nobody could say which of them were nicer.

Carlos and Goliat

9/21/2003 1:10:00 AM

Montoursville, PA

Gads there are anointments and helpers out there that can enable the use of natural and added soil ammendments to be of more value. I never used many synthetic fertilizer products and very little of those I did experiment with over the years.
...All of the directional advise folks I look to understand that withdrawal from synthetics may be just the way you are positioned today. You work like the dickens to build it good and then need just a little more understanding and or help to build it even better.
....I see and read about a lot of patches here that are, in my opinion, so very good, that they are in fact forgiving the harsh chemicals in some instances, to some degree, for some undetermined period of time. The end is always near when the production reduces and the disease and insect population mutates to uncontrollable while the earthworms are no where near the patch. This is when we hear the words,
"my patch has failed"; "I need new ground".
...It just makes good common sense that someone with a relatively good patch, in good production, like many here would be forever reading and considering how one might make it even better. Developing a harsh chemical withdrawal plan is one of those considerations. From my viewpoint is is the only consideration if one wishs to continue having success on the same ground.

9/21/2003 11:19:58 AM