would like your feeling on AGRISERUM" I just did a quick look at what's up.. It just seems like bacteria.. I couldn't find prices, so i would expect it to be expensive.. Guess where you get all your beneficial bacteria- Yes, your correct, compost! I don't know if your listening to me, and just not registering what I'm telling you, or your gettin caught up in all these marketing schemes.. Let me try to tell you again- plants never needed any of these products out of a package, they didn't even need human intervention, what makes you think they need them now? You are doing far more good in a good compost.. I really think you are under estimating compost.. Let me remind you, the world record tomato grower, who grew 30 foot tomatos, with thousands of pounds of fruit off one plant, just uses compost... All I need to do is find a place to get rock dust, can you even buy this stiff? I've been told that they will give it away free if you can find it: true or false? So I am looking for a place, if you canhelp me that would be great." When people tell you you can get rockdust for free, it's most likely from a gravel pit, with very little nutritional value.. Its not the rockdust that people talk about.. You could buy rockdust, that has over 70 trace elements, and everything but the kitchen sink, but again, it is expensive.. Th product is "azomite".. One thin that you said stuck out to me - "all I need is rock dust".. That hit home, when i was beggining,I always looked for the best of the best, for a very quick optimal garden.. But the truth is, it takes years to get your soil in good production.. Remember it's your soil that's growing your plant.. All this stuff is good, but it is UNNECCESARY.. The majority of gardeners don't use any of the products you want to buy, not even talking about this expensive they are.. You are falling for a marketing scheme.. Please read this thoroughly: instead of paying hundreds of dollars for a few bags/ gallons of fertilizer and other miracle amendments, spend your money on getting quality compost/soil delivered for your garden.. Spend your money buying cover crop seeds.. Spend your money on water filters for your hose.. Spend your money making a rain harvester.. That stuff is really effective for your garden long term, and is very critical to your soil.. Would you rather have your whole garden with a few inches of compost/soil, or a few bags of the expensive dust/liquid? That sol/compost is going to do much more for you soil, an your plants, not only in the long run, but this season as well.. a 56 lb bag of winter rye, I pay $30.. That would do a few years, depending on your garden size.. What you really need to do is build your soil with traditional methods, that been around for centuries.. And is cheap!: -Mulching -composting -cover crop/ green manure I haven read the book you mentioned.. But i think that is your problem, your "researching" a little to much! Please keep it simple for the first year or two.. You actually CAN damage your soil all these products you want to buy, believe it or not.. Please keep it simple until you really he a feel for what you are doing, and what actully observe what plants needs.. Start with mulching/composting, move to cover crops/green manures.. Then mayb get into the nitty gritty trace elements,etc... I bet after you start composting and recycling nutrients and organic matter from your green manures/cover crops, you are going to think twice about needing expesive products... Ps- you mentioned you got a soil test.. Do you have the results? That would be very helpful.. Joe

Wow, amazing that I thought I could save myself some time and trouble by coming here to get a simple question answered. What is a good brand of liquid fertilizer. For all the people who think they can diagnose my plants over the computer, I haven't been gardening all my lfe, only the last 7 years, from seed. I can tell which plants need some fertilzer, or if that hurts the sensibilities, has to have a little help picking up their natural food from some pretty bad starting soil. I would have just popped in for the first time and asked my question without providing any background, but I thought that was rude. For the ones who need all the details, here it is. This year was the first time I added organic fertilizers at all, and I didn't know how much to add, so I ran a test. A certain amount in a few beds, twice as much in the vegetable garden. The garden is doing great, I don't need to add anything. The beds obviously didn't get enough, some things are doing ok, others need a little help. 2 complete beds were scheduled to be torn out this year to put in a drive to the new barn, but that got held up, and since I started neck and back treatments, I don't intend to go out and enrich soil, it's going to get a liquid. But maybe I should just sit back and wait for them to completely yellow and die while I contemplate why they're not makin all their own food. They are in soil. I did appreciate the link to the clay soil article, very helpful. I am very busy like most people, especially now while I am tryng to rehab. I don't have the time or the inclination to justify myself, so I shall part here and head on out to Worm's Way. There the guy was helpful and listened to what I was actaully asking. I guess I sounded at least smart enough not to come home with a bottle and douse everything in my yard just for good measure.

Sprouting seeds is a different deal from most organic gardening. Of course the seeds themselves need no fertilizer because they have their nutrients built in. But once the root extends out, then nutrient exchange through the roots is possible. I used diluted milk on African violets for about a year. At the time I was living in a hotel and had very little to occupy my time. I got a great deal on some near dead plants and bought 15 of them. These were AVs that had been put out to pasture at Wal-Mart and watered along with the rest of the out-to-pasture plants. They were rotting in the pot. I got them for $0.50 each. Three died immediately, or rather never showed any improvement, but the dozen left all recovered. Some of them grew new leaves immediately and then lost all the old leaves. Those were basically seedlings and took many long months to grow into what looked like an AV again. Unfortunately for the plants, my hotel stay ended before they recovered and I moved back home. I tried to care for them at home but I always have a million better things to do than watch the AVs. Now they are all dead from lack of water (neglect). But milk was the only nutrient they got and they seemed to bloom okay. Depending on the dilution, milk can smell sour for a day or two after you use it. Diluted enough it does not. It can also bring flies to your environment. There are a few flies that can smell sour milk from miles away. They seem very aggressive to get into the house when the milk sours. That was the only down side to the milk. Usually I diluted 3 ounces of milk to a gallon of water and that seemed to be a little weak. Use more milk and the smell it more noticeable. Another thing about the milk, it seems to totally prevent fungal problems on the AVs. My wife was using synthetic ferts on her violet and got a nasty mess. I poured my milk mix through it and the milk congealed from the acidity in the soil. I used some corn meal and more milk and a week later the surface of the soil was covered in a dense white fungus. I watered again with milk and a week later the white covering was cleared up. The plant recovered fully to the point of blooming again. Any other AV grower would have incinerated the plant and fungicided the house to prevent spreading the disease, but I put her plant right next to mine during recovery. Also I was not at all careful to keep milk off of the AV leaves. 'Normal' AV growers are absolutely nuts about keeping their leaves dry. So anyway, I would suggest trying milk to solve your fungus problems. If I could bring nearly dead Wal-Mart quality plants back to health with milk alone, there has to be something to it. Seriously, I did not do anything but water with milk.

"Here is a link that might be useful: Hydroponic Fertilizer : What I Use & How to Mix It" That may be useful, although the guy mixing it adds that he is better at counting tomatoes than doing fertilizers. Better just stick with this to get your NPK: If you are using an all-in-one 20-18-38 fertilizer and you wish to replace it with an organic fertilizer, just take the *weight* (whether liquid or solid) of the fertilizer you seek to match and get an equivalent weight of the organic fertilizer as follows: for N: if you use say 10 grams of N=20 and your organic is N=8, you will need 2.5 times the weight of the organic fertilizer. This is because the organic is only has 40% (8/20) the amount of nitrogen. Do the same with the phosphate and potash. For example if I have an organic fertilizer with (A) 5-0-4 rating and another with (B) 0-3-2 and I want close to 10 grams of 20-18-38, I will need 4 times A plus 6 times (B). The result will be: 40 grams of (A) plus 60 grams of (B) which will give the equivalent of 5*4-3*6-(4*4+2*6) which is 20-18-28. It doesn't give the exact K of 20-18-38, but it gives the same nitrogen and as a bonus P as well. If you were concerned about the K you might try 50 grams of (A) plus 70 grams of (B) instead which would make 25-21-34 if I did the multiplication right. getting exactly the 20-18-38 is not really possible as you can see but you can get things pretty close. The important thing is to get an organic fertilizer which has a guaranteed analysis. Cole has already mentioned that plenty of other factors are in play and the organic may be less or in some case more bioavailable, so it isn't as much a degree in chemistry as attention to detail and being and experienced cook which means you've had practice testing the limits of what you can put in the broth and still have it be good.