Here's my take: It's not that you can't grow healthy plants in containers while trying to be as 'organic' as possible, using soil amendments and other nutritional supplementation methods that would qualify you to lay title to being strictly organic - you can. I think though, to do it well, the learning curve is much steeper and the likelihood of problems relative to nutrition greater. Additionally, unless you understand watering technique and managing water retention well, that can often be an additional problem because most growers that want to be 'organic', usually want to use a large measure of compost and other pine matter as a primary fraction of their soil, which we have seen thousands of times to be an issue especially difficult for beginners to deal with. Finally, a grower can institute a nutritional supplementation program in 5 minutes that ensures immediate delivery of a full compliment of nutrients normally derived from the soil, and be sure what and how much is available, and when. When depending on the breakdown of organic soil ingredients, such is not the case, so there is a greater degree of speculation and guesswork that makes it very difficult for even skilled observers to pinpoint nutritional disorders that might occur. It's easier using synthetics, and they eliminate a significant amount of guesswork. It's also easy to straighten out a problem supplementation program when using synthetics, but it's extremely difficult to try to tell someone what to do to correct nutritional problems when they are depending almost entirely on the breakdown of soil components for their plants' nutritional needs. Al

Thanks SC77, There are several Blue Seal dealers within 10 miles of my home or my place of work. All, Below I posted the products available. Any thoughts on which one to use? The information given did not listed amount of sq/ft coverage per 50lbs bag. Do you know what the coverage might be? Safe 'N Simple Pre��"emergence Weed Control 9��"0��"0 100% organic, Safe 'N Simpleî Pre-emergence Weed Control 9-0-0 is an all-natural plant product made from Corn Gluten, a dried protein separated from corn during the manufacture of starch in the food industry. In 1985, while studying its value as a fertilizer, researchers at Iowa State University discovered that Corn Gluten contains a natural organic compound which inhibits root development in seedlings. Germination occurs, but seedlings die from lack of a root system. The result is an environmentally safe, non-toxic, completely natural weed control. Safe 'N Simpleî 9-0-0 provides weed control and an excellent source of slow-release nitrogen, 9% nitrogen by weight, in an easy to spread crumble form. When spread at the recommended rate Safe 'N Simpleî 9-0-0 provides 4 lbs. of nitrogen/ 1,000 square feet. Nitrogen is released as microorganisms break down in the soil. Available in 25 & 50 lb. bags. * Size and Price: 25 lbs - $29.9950 lbs - $47.99 * Quantity: 1 Safe 'N Simpleî Farm, Field & Pasture Food Safe 'N Simpleî Farm, Field & Pasture Food 5-1-5 is an all-purpose natural fertilizer containing soybean and alfalfa meals, nutrient rich organic plant material that will enhance the soil, increase soil biological activity, and provide needed nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium for healthy lush plant growth. Recycling plant material back into the soil is natureâÂÂs way of replenishing nutrients and rebuilding soils. Conventional synthetic fertilizers supply plant nutrients. Safe 'N Simpleî 5-1-5 provides plant nutrition and promotes a healthy soil ecosystem. Farm, Field & Pasture Food nutrients are derived from soybean meal, alfalfa meal, fish meal, and sulfate of potash-magnesia. * Size and Price: 50 lbs - $26.99 * Quantity: 1 Safe 'N Simpleî Lawn Food 6��"2��"4 Safe 'N Simpleî Lawn Food is a natural based fertilizer containing soybean, alfalfa, and fish meals, organic materials that enhance the soil, increase soil biological activity, and provide needed nutrients for a thick healthy green lawn. Recycling plant material back into the soil is nature's way of replenishing nutrients and rebuilding soils in natural habitats. Conventional synthetic fertilizers supply plant nutrients. Safe 'N Simpleî 6-2-4 provides plant nutrition and promotes a healthy soil ecosystem. The key to long term lawn success is a healthy soil environment. Available in 50lb. bags * Size and Price: 50 lbs - $26.99 ...

fireants are a major issue here... Not to hijack the thread, but...ntbio: have you tried using sugar or molasses against the fireants? The technique is to drench the mound with a gallon of sugar water and spray another half gallon in a 10-foot circle around the mound. The theory is that the fire ants collect protein sources from around the garden (and house) and bring them to their mound. If you drench the food source with sugar, their food source will "go bad" on them and they will die or leave. If you spray around the mound, too, they will keep walking to find a more hospitable place to live. Mix 2 ounces of molasses or table sugar to a gallon of water. I've also heard of adding a couple ounces of pure orange oil to the drench. Orange oil is something I'm familiar with from my old Air Force days. I was an engineer working next to the chemist who did the study to approve orange oil for cleaning jet engine parts. That stuff dissolves nearly any organic oil or wax, like the waxy covering that many insects have on their bodies. So the oil should weaken the ants' bodies making them susceptible to microbial attack.

SC77 said the stuff in italics... Core aeration is not just about compaction. It's about getting oxygen to the roots, plus a priceless opportunity to get compost 3-4 inches down into your soil. It takes a lot more time to get OM down to the root level simply by topdressing a lawn, plus you run the risk of losing precious OM through runoff. Core aeration is a poor substitute for having proper fungal mass and thousands of miles of fungal hyphae enmeshed throughout the soil. There's no way you can achieve thousands of miles of core removal from a typical lawn, but a good fungal colony can do that in a week. OM doesn't run off. OM is sugars, living roots and microbes, and dead roots and microbes. They don't flow away, they live there or are stuck there. Sugars don't flow away because, as Dr Ingham said, they are only released from the plant roots in dosages needed to control the soil microbes. Compost - I have to challenge you on the importance of compost as well. I don't think it can simply be replaced by using organic fertilizer. The two play very specific and separate roles in organic lawn care. Maybe, in a very well established, mature organic lawn, one could get away with simply adding fertlizer such as alfalfa, sbm, or cgm, but in those of us that are still building up our OM %, compost is priceless. "The soil must first be alive in order for fertilizers to function well" -Paul Tukey (The Organic Lawn Care Manual). I agree there are two different functions for compost and organic fertilizer. Compost supplies microbes. Organic fertilizer provides protein...and lesser foodstuffs. What we might disagree on beyond that is how long it takes for organic fertilizer to build the population of microbes that were thought to be missing. If the microbe population is teensy, it might take longer for the fertilizer to work. But if I can apply 10 apps of fertilizer for the cost of compost, that's what I'll do. Fertilizer seems to work in 3 weeks. The use of compost is fraught with peril in that even a normal application of 1/4 inch can set a lawn back for a full season. Why? Because getting an even 1/4-inch seems to be impossible. Some places will have none and some will have 3/4 inch. Where there is 3/4 inches, the grass likely will die from being smothered. Sure it can be done, but we try to deal in practicalities. Every single year for the past 20 I have seen lawns killed or nearly killed by compost. I've never seen any lawn even slightly tainted by using too much organic fertilizer. ...price [of compost] doesn't have to be a problem. I further agree that price does not have to be a problem. My property in San Antonio is completely covered with trees and that is not enough to make a decent compost pile. I collect leaves set out by the curb to make a pile. With 20 large bags of leaves I make enough compost to treat our garden beds, about 1,000 square feet. I have seen you question Tukey's advice, but he is far from the only one suggesting that the addition of compost be at the core of every organic lawn program. Compost improves soil structure, adds microorganisms, balances pH, feeds existing soil life, and adds around 1% nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. 5% is the optimal amount of OM, which takes a long time to achieve anything beyond that is just gravy and won't hurt the lawn, only improve it. Tukey is an organic gardener in the tradition of Rodale. Without rereading anything of his, I would suggest that if he is a disciple of Dr Ingham, it is only inasmuch as she is a proponent of compost and not to the extension of the value of microbes feeding directly on protein dropped on top of the soil. If you want to rapidly improve the OM in your soil, you need to talk to morpheusPA. He has a few recent posts on this forum, but he has thousands of posts on another forum, and more recently has branched off into his own blog. He boosted the OM on his lot by several percent in one season by using zero pounds of compost but thousands of pounds of organic fertilizer. That was the nutritional equivalent of 2 cubic yards of compost applied every weekend all season long. There is no way to do that with compost in a practical or economic manner. It was more of an experiment, but it really, REALLY worked! So the idea that is takes a long time to improve the OM percentage is simply false. If you use the wrong materials, like compost, then yes, it takes a long time. Something you missed in the interview with Dr Ingham was the references to feeding the compost before using it. She didn't mention what she feeds it with, but I have talked to another of her disciples who uses a dose of oatmeal to feed her compost prior to converting it into compost tea. In other words, she recommends feeding it a protein filled organic fertilizer. Well, if you're going to feed the compost before applying it, then why not just feed the soil directly? After seeing this post I am further confused. You said you learned what you know from Dr. Ingham, but she is a HUGE proponent of the benefits of compost and compost tea. Tukey and Todd Harrington are both disciples of Dr. Ingham and they all agree on the importance of Compost and Core Aeration. Harrington has the largest residential and commercial base of organic lawns at over 2000 and is considered to be the forerunner in the industry. Dr Ingham is absolutely the premier leader in the compost tea movement. Great compost tea is a function of starting with great compost and following a critical set of rules for making the tea. One of those rules which is rarely mentioned is the water temperature. The problem cropped up with a critic of hers in Phoenix who ended up making worthless tea in the Arizona heat. Ingham called it, essentially, a rookie mistake by the Phoenix researcher. Aerobic microbes cannot live without air and water above 80 degrees F barely holds enough air for normal aerobic life. Trying to make compost tea above 80 degrees is a fool's errand because you have a concentrated population of microbes along with plenty of food. Once the air is depleted (immediately!), the aerobic microbes die and the tea is taken over by anaerobic microbes. But Dr Ingham does not mention this fact in the general guidance about making tea. Essentially this factoid limits the making of compost tea to a "non-summer" activity. You really want water between 50 degrees and 70 degrees for best tea performance. So I wish she was more up front about that aspect of tea making. I have seen so-called professional tea makers running their equipment all summer long and selling compost tea which is microbially worthless. Harrington is selling products and services. The profitability of aeration and the application of compost is through the roof. He'd be an idiot if he didn't promote the heck out of these services. And there is the authoritative Rodale history over the past 80 years. Everyone knows compost has to be an integral part of a conscientiously applied organic lawn care program. Everyone knows that except me. I believe any improvement following the use of compost to be coincidental with the increased emphasis and attention paid to the land where the compost was applied. I do believe there is a beneficial "micro mulching" effect, but not much else. In the article you referenced, Dr Ingham says, "Compost is the mix of plant materials." Even if you read the rest of the context, she never gets more explanatory. Compost is a mix of decomposed plant AND ANIMAL materials. How decomposed is it? Pretty darned decomposed. In fact I refer to it as a pile of depleted fertilizer materials. The stuff going in may have been weak in the protein department, but it is definitely weak in the protein department following months of aerobic decomposition. I might also mention that Dr Ingham has profitable products and services to sell. Part of the problem is, since the 1990s when all these hundred thousand species of soil microbes were discovered, there hasn't been enough time to run proper studies of the effects of the various foodstuffs in improving the soil. The foodstuffs used for the popular organic fertilizers include human waste (such as Milorganite and Hou-actinite), soybean meal, cottonseed meal, corn meal, corn gluten meal, flax meal, used coffee grounds, alfalfa pellets, feather meal, hydrolyzed feather meal, blood meal, kelp meal, and poultry litter. All of these materials work stupendously well by themselves to improve the color, density, and growth of grass. So why would anyone waste the energy to run peer reviewed tests? Where is the profit in the results beyond what we in the trenches already know? If I can summarize: Compost is too depleted of protein to be of much value as a fertilizer Any organic fertilizer is much better than any compost, unless the compost was fortified with organic fertilizer Soil microbes are more resilient than people give them credit for. And I know some very smart folks who disagree with me on this. We'll never know until the research is done. Aeration is a poor substitute for fungal mass and miles of hyphae in the soil.