Since I have never seen Medina I can't tell about the smell but I do know that with both Milorganite and Ringer's the odor dissipates rapidly once it is spread out, or else my olfactory senses just become numb. It looks like a good option and better than the synthetic fertilizers.

Medina is located down the road a ways from San Antonio, so they attend all the organic meetings. I've won several of their products as door prizes and have used them. After using them, I'm convinced I could pour them full strength on my lawn and not ever see where that spot was - useless as tatas on a boar hog. However those were all liquid products. This one has some potential since it has real ingredients in it.

I do have one rhetorical question: what's the freakin' point of pasteurizing manure? I mean, isn't the whole point to get the microbes INTO the soil? If you pasteurize it, you kill all the microbes!!!

So, of all the materials on the list of ingredients, I have no use for molasses, pasteurized poultry manure, or humates. That leaves kelp and greensand, both of which are worth their weight in gold in TEXAS' alkaline soils. Which brings up a question. Are you on sand out there?

And having followed betty joanne's trials and tribulations to get ANYTHING organic out on Galveston Island, I would say you must try it because you seem to have run out of options.

I am going to try it on the back yard.
For the front yard i am having texas tee fertilizer shipped to me.
Thank goodness deep once weekly watering and mowing high leaving grass clippings behind is atleast 90% of the solution for my st.augustine grass.

I like Organic Iguana Juice. I have found it to be of superior quality. It is derived from a fish base, krill extract, yucca extract, earthworm castings, volcanic ash, kelp meal, and alfalfa extract. It comes in two forms, one for growing plants and one for blooming plants. All plants that I use this fertilizer on absolutley thrive and have a superior taste. It comes with my high recommendation for anyone growing their plants organically.

Here is a link that might be useful: Organic Iguana Juice

I think the worry about pathogens and the hype about manure contamination on organic plants probably drives them to pasteurize (liability). Add bird flu etc. to the normal list, and their lawyer probably demanded it :)

For the front yard i am having texas tee fertilizer shipped to me.

I'm glad you finally bit the bullet and bought something high quality for delivery. If you want to be organic and want to live on the island, you have to sacrifice the delivery cost. Your groceries cost more, too.

Thank goodness deep once weekly watering and mowing high leaving grass clippings behind is atleast 90% of the solution for my st.augustine grass.

Yup! You should be in good shape three weeks from now.

I think they have to pasturize the product or else it would explode the sealed container. That's what I was told. No link.

I use the stuff to help get seedlings going strong. Outside of that I haven't noticed it does much of anything.

Bought a broken bag last Fall and used it this Spring in planting a shade bed.......ferns, caladiums, etc. I can only highly recommend this fertilizer, esp. in shaded areas. I did water well and consistently. The bed has practically exploded with greenery.......in past seasons the overhead trees acted like thugs, absorbing all the fertilizer, nothing much survived. This year, pint-sized ferns are already gallon-sized (well, 2.5 qt. size to be honest). Don't know how it would work in a hot sunny bed.

Use the stuff with no fear - organics will not burn or harm your plant. I have had my best luck with using an all-organic program that is manure based (either horse, cow, or poultry). There is no need to fear bad microbes with properly composted &/or pasturized manure - composting gets rid of the bad & encourages the good (which is not harmful to us, only beneficial to the plant); pasturizing may kill microbes, but it's only killing bad. It's the process of composting that encourages already existing good microbes in the soil, that's why it's good to put certain types of uncomposted organic matter in soils (ie: letting grass cippings drop behind every now & then, or spreading manure). As for the guy who has no need for molasses, poultry manure & humates, this is what I've learned through scientific research of the materials: The molasses is a high quality natural sugar which is loaded with all kind of nutrients that provide food for the GOOD microbes, to encourage their propogation, & therefore health of the soil - the poulty manure is a manure product that is very high in nitrogen per pound (more so than many other manures), as well as the other nutrients needed, but yet won't burn the plant on application, like chemical fertilizers (it also slow releases, so it doesn't wash into our waterways causing fish death & drinking water contamination) - the humates stimulate growth & plant development by storing nutrients for slow release - and just for the record, the sea kelp is a great source of organic nutrients, & green sand is a natural source of iron & other minerals that won't burn a plant, either. I've used this product on my St. Aug & Bermuda grass lawns & pastures, & have had much luck with using it in conjuction with spreading dried horse manure with one of my applications yearly, as well. I've have also had FABULOUS luck using this product in my garden with composted horse manure, & a sprinkiling of dissolved diluted molasses (cheap livestock feeding type) 1x per growing season. I will most certainly look for & use it again - so I have nothing but good to say about this product or Medina products, in general. Also, the odor dissapates in 2 days if watered so that it breaks down from it's pellet form - after the watering the smell rapidly leaves after less than 24 hours. If you don't water, it will take a couple days more to dissapate . My only warning when using the product is to be sure to water it until it breaks down from it's pellet form (just needs to be saturated for this to happen) if you're using it in a pet yard - if you don't, your dog may eat it. It WON'T harm the dog (as it is pasturized against the bad stuff), but I just find this a pretty disgusting canine practice! (Also, for the equine uneducated, dogs LOVE dried road apples left behind from horses - yuk!)

For those who live on Galveston Island or land with similar features, I grew up in Galveston. My family had a summer home "down the island" around the 12-mile point. Our place was adjacent to a large truck farm operated by early immigrant German farmers. They used manure to fertilize their vegetable and fruit crops and everything they grew was outstanding and delicious. They knew nothing about chemical fertilizers in those days. (1930's)

When I decided to have a garden there as an adult, all I had to add to that wonderful sandy soil was cow manure. Wow, I had some awesome plants. It is a wonderful place to grow things, if you add organic fertilizers.

Nancy

This is an ancient thread so maybe RKH is not still reading it. His experience is valuable. In all the years reading this forum I've never seen anyone rave about Medina products. Good to see.

As for the scientific research, this is not a science forum, but science is welcome when it has some background. This is a forum where people speak from their experience. My experience with molasses was that no matter what dilution I used, I saw no change to the yard. I have used it and used it and used it. No change. Humates are well known to be a storage place for plant nutrients. My problem with that is there is no standardized definition of humates so there is no guarantee you are getting anything of value. Again, my experience with humates is disappointing. Same thing with kelp. The one ingredient I've seen work miracles is greensand, but when I want greensand, I buy it separately.

Otherwise I am much happier with alfalfa pellets for about 1/6 the price of commercially bagged organic fertilizer.

I also live here in San Antonio, where we are blessed with a great selection of locally produced organic products, and while I would say that there is nothing wrong with Medina, my experience has shown me that it unequivocally takes the bronze medal. I know that there's much more to life than NPK, but Texas Tee's 6-2-4 and Gardenville Premium's 7-2-2 easily give you more "bang for your buck" vs Medina's 4-2-3. Texas Tee is quite a bit more expensive, but the gardenville stuff is a little cheaper than medina.

I use Texas Tee for holistic lawn health, and occasionally substitute gardenville premium to "dial up" the nitrogen content of my soil without increasing potassium (high off the charts in my soil), which can lock up magnesium etc.

I would concur with DCHALL that greensand works miracles. It's a gentle, non-burning way to add iron (17%) to your lawn and will go a long way toward increasing your lawn's drought tolerance and deepening your color. At $12 a 40 lb bag, gardenville's texas greensand is a steal.

These three products have helped us turn our bermuda lawn into a dense carpet of deep green and have started something of a green revolution on our block.

I like Medina 4-2-3 and I always keep a bag of it around. It's a good natural fertilizer that isn't so strong. I feel like I can use it more often when I think my veggie plants need a boost and not worry so much about burning them.

It is very smelly as others have noted, much more so than anything else I use. But the smell does go away once it's in the garden. It will smell up the garage or the patio if the bag is sitting out, but once on the garden the smell dissipates quickly.