I agree that your main focus should be on increasing the organic matter percentage. A couple inches of compost (if you have a free source for it) over the soil or this fall a layer of lawn mower chopped leaves should do it. Nitrogen is a tricky thing. As you are aware too much makes for vigorous plants, but not much yield (except for plants grown for foliage). Initially the corn meal will supply ample N to everything, but keep your eye out for the green foliage of your plants to lighten. As this happens my first choice would be fish emulsion, but the two choices you mentioned would also work fine. I don't know what your experience level with gardening is, but assuming you have grown veggies before you can generally spot an N deficiency by slower growth (than you are used to seeing) followed by lightening of foliage. It is almost always correctable before any loss of yield or health occurs so don't be in too much of a hurry to add it. Liquid sources of N like teas from N containing ingredients or fish emulsion work within days in warm soils.

I'm sure BCs don't add any nutrient but they are powerful steroids. They are not anabolic or muscle building steroids but Estrogen and Progesterone have a powerful influence on animals. If Ahnuld's mother had left Austria when she went into labor and delivered him in the US, steroids may have put him into the White House. Plants are another story. I have added a pack (a month worth) of BC pills about once or twice a month for years now and have not noted any abnormal or deformed flowers. I have specifically looked for that. The reason I do things in multiples of 80 gallons is that I mix 5 gallons of Witch's Brew and then use a Siphonex to dilute it to 80 gallons. At least that's what its supposed to dilute it to. Since I use a long hose and a sprayer which restricts the flow, I'm probably getting more like 160 gallons. By measuring the ppm or ec of the tap water and the finished mix I can see how much of the nutrient is actually getting through. How much of that is NECESSARY, especially if you have a small collection, is another matter. Probably very little of it. Use a good all around fertilizer, I use GrowMore but there are many others and let it go at that. I mix up that Kikapoo Joy Juice of mine because I can, its easy to add to that 5 gallon jug which acts as my base and I've fallen into an effortless routine over the years. Some of these things, the hormones for example can have unintended consequences. The other very important thing to keep in mind is that most of my plants are bareroot. When I water them with fertilizer added water, they get a chance to absorb whatever I offer up. On hot days like this they will get watered again within less that 12 hours with clean water and go through as many as 2 or 3 watering cycles before get hit again with the toxic brew. I think this cleansing action is important and will not be duplicated in the average home grown collection. When you are growing a Phaeli in a pot full of bark on a window sill, you are dealing with a completely different set of circumstances and little of what I'm talking about applies to that situation. Soylent Green may work for me but not necessarily for you, keep that in mind. Nick

The world won't end if you use a little chemical fertilizer in an otherwise organic garden. It just depends on your personal degree of orthodoxy in such matters. Some people prefer to go cold turkey, some use a balanced approach. As you make the transition to organic, you may find your plants need a little boost once in a while. Nitrogen in particular can become deficient pretty quickly until your soil is built up with OM and healthy with microbial life. If things look a little poozley, you can add a shot of nitrogen with chemical fertilizer if you're OK with being less than orthodox, or you can use blood meal or some kind of seed meal (although the latter works a bit more slowly than the former). -Diggity

Marlene, ideally I fertilize my roses organically with an organic rose fertilizer (three times a year) and alfalfa meal (2 times a year), since my soil seems to be very poor in terms of nutrients and I have the impression that they leach out quickly, too. I have read, that it is recommended to remove the mulch and put it back after you have applied the fertilizer and scratched it into the soil, but I have never done that. It is just too much of an effort for me. I just scatter the fertilizer around the rose on top of the mulch, scratch it into the mulch, and water it in very well. It seems to work just fine for me. I definitively know what you are talking about regarding that it is sometimes a pain to scratch the fertilizer into the soil and crawl around underneath the rose, to get it close to the center of the root ball, even though I only scratch it into the mulch :-). For that reason I have fertilized some of my roses just once this year! After reading about other people experiences here, I may try to only water the fertilizer in and that's it. I assume, that it might take the fertilizer a little bit longer to act, but that is better than to fertilize my roses not often enough, because it's just too exhausting.