F.A. Farm

I was browsing in the Whatcom Farmers Co-op in Bellingham today and checked on fertilizer prices. Whitney Farms complete organic fertilizer 5-5-5 (i.e.  5% Nitrogen, 5% Phosporous, 5% Potassium) was still at a low price. We had bought some bags for the Lynden food bank farm last year at $26.03, or $.65 a pound. Today's price was $29.28 or $.73 per pound. Now in comparison, the fertilizer I make up costs about $.65 per pound once it is indexed to a 5-5-5 level. (It is about $.38 per pound but is equivalent to a 4-3-3 blend.) It is likely that fertilizer prices will go up in the next few months, so I suggest getting a few bags NOW for spring planting. At 5 Loaves, the Lynden food bank farm I manage, we used 8 bags (320 pounds) for 8500 square feet last year, so if you have a 1000 square foot garden, 1 - 40 pound bag should do the trick. This is very good fertilizer and performs well. Remember, if you are rotating on a 4-6 year rotation, you don't have to fertilize your beans and peas and can just hit everything else with fertilizer. The beans and peas will contribute nitrogen to the soil and there will be residual fertilizer levels from the other crops in that spot that you fertilized last year. Since you are feeding the soil, instead of feeding the plant, you can use your crop rotation to your advantage and cut your fertilizer needs by 25% (4-year rotation) or 17% (6-year rotation).

I also bought dolopril lime at $5.41 for 25 pounds and sul-po-mag (langbeinite) at $21.69 for 50 pounds. Both of these are very good prices and are likely to go up in the coming months. Dolopril is dolomite lime (half magnesium, half calcium) that is "prilled" or made into little balls like hailstones that is easy to handle and apply consistently. Sul-po-mag is sulfur, potassium and magnesium that is mined from old seabeds in Utah and prilled by a mechanical, not chemical, process. It is a good source of potassium, being 0-0-22, so I use it in conjunction with greensand (mined from old seabeds in New Jersey) in my fertilizer mix. Both greensand and sul-po-mag are also sources of trace minerals (because they come from old sea beds), which your soil needs and YOU need as well. Let me say right here that I can tell by my physical well-being I am getting much better trace minerals in my diet since I started adding greensand and sul-po-mag to my fertilizer mix several years ago. [I feed the soil, the soil feeds the plants, and the plants feed me.] In point of fact, my vegetables don't really need salt at all in cooking, since they already have adequate levels of essential trace minerals (including salt) from the ground they are grown in.

Bottom line: Get your fertilizer now and store it in your garage or some other dry place. It will likely go up in price and it is always good to buy staple items when they are off-peak in demand.