Just compost.

If I want to give my plants a boost I just throw on a few rabbit droppings from my bunny.

I add in the occasional bag of used coffee grounds whenever i can get my hands on a bag or two at Starbucks,

If your not squeemish you can use urine diluted to 1:10
Lots of info on the web and this forum on this.
If you want a practically perfectly balanced fertilizer mix urine with wood ash. Make sure it is wood and not charcoal ash.

I use composted manure and sometimes cottonseed meal.

I use Blood and Bone meal, Azomite (trace minerals) Seaweed from the beach, 2 blocks away. Hoof and horn meal, which is great for winter squash and Cole plantings in Fall.

Tomato Tone, Garden Tone, Bone Meal

I use All purpose (10-10-10, in 40 lb bag), Epson salt, see weed, coffe ground,... and compost + fall leaves + broken pine needles. I would want to use cow/horse manure if I can get it for free.

The way I have understood, chemical fertilizers in moderation combined with organic mater is ok. For plants and what they produce, it does not make a difference where the NPK atoms come from. The effect is only on the environment.

I use some Miracle Grow rose food (it was on clearance cheap) that dissolves really quickly on my seedlings. I also use it on container plants when they need a quick boost.

I occasionally use some fish emulsion. I've tried the commercial bone meals and so on, but they are too expensive and I didn't notice results.

95% of the fertility in my soil comes from composted leaves, kitchen scraps and livestock manure.

I have used miracle grow vegetable 12-12-12 a little,
I used pennington 9-12-12 (I think those numbers are right),
But compost tea is what I used the most of. I think that made the biggest impact.

Paul

I use 12:12:12 granulated garden fertilizer at whatever concentration most of the university extension fact sheets (like Ohio State) recomend. Something like 1/2lb per 100 sq ft?... dug into the soil in the spring before planting.

Composted horse manure and Neptune's Harvest.

Melissa1977

Garden tone in a 40lb bag. I'd use tomato tone if I could get it in a 40lb bag also.

I have a large flock of chickens. Enough said.

For those that think "it does not make a difference where the NPK atoms come from," do you also get the nutrition you need for your body in pill form only?

For those that think "it does not make a difference where the NPK atoms come from," do you also get the nutrition you need for your body in pill form only?

It isn't the same thing. This is an apples and oranges comparison.

Study after study has been done and plants are not physiologically capable of determining where it gets nutrients from. Plant response is the same regardless. A case in point is hydroponics. There ain't no soil, but the plants do just fine.

Whether a bag of organic fertilizer, a cow's butt or a bag of synthetic fertilizer the 'stuff' that enters the roots is the same regardless.

All fertilizer and no organic matter makes soil unhappy. This is not the same as saying 100% of nutrients have to come from organic matter or plants will be unhealthy.

Take organic matter, strip away the organics to make the mineral available to the plant (which is what the soil herd do) and it's the same thing as is in the bag of fertilizer. That's what the plants take up into themselves.

For those that think "it does not make a difference where the NPK atoms come from," do you also get the nutrition you need for your body in pill form only?

You have not heard of hydroponics, where all the minerals the plants need are delivered by dissolving pure compounds in water?

Because of the high alkalinity, I use soil sulfur very liberally all over the lawn and yard to lower the pH a bit and free up some iron.

Iron-deficient plants get ironite.

The lawn got a couple of very light doses of ammonium sulfate, and next year will get nothing.

And, for vegetable areas I use ammonium phosphate because they need more phosphorus.

Most of the plants are desert natives and don't need any fertilizer. They get mulched heavily.

In the fall I put down several inches of horse manure and leaves and straw.

When planting, I include bone meal, blood meal, compost, and sometimes a bit of granular all purpose.

During the season I spray with worm casting tea and fish emulsion (especially the tomatoes).

I add mulched leaves, horse manure, Neptune's Fish and Seaweed Emulsion, and some 12-12-12. Also I added leaf compost too.

I use a lot of stuff. Different beds, different things. Gardentone, Compost,
Bonemeal, Bloodmeal, Epsom salts(when needed),powdered milk, Fish and
Seaweed Emulsion(Neptune's)on selected plants. Just bought composted
cow manure.

This season I tried Tomatoes Alive!, Vegetables Alive! and Herbs Alive!

I didn't see much difference in my herbs, but I had very robust and vigorous tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant compared to last year.

Here is a link that might be useful: Gardens Alive

Cow manure, chicken manure, blood and bone meal, worm castings, fish heads and carcasses, manure tea and lime (technically i guess not really a fertilizer but essential in my growing conditions).

This winter a trial of buckwheat as a green manure.

If your soil is the proper pH ( 6.2 ish for most flowers and vegetables )and you have enough OM Organic Matter ( 5 - 10 % ) then probably the best fertilizer you can add is well aged compost made from as many types of kitchen + yard waste, coffee grounds - UCG + aged animal manure, and, this time of year LEAVES. If you can make a compost pile out of as many of those as possible, then save some chopped up leaves til next growing season and use them as mulch ( 3 - 4 inches deep ), you will have the best well balanced fertilizer for your garden beds and, the worms will use the leaf mulch to feed off of next year which will also feed your garden as well as regulating temperature and moisture
swings in your soil. ( IMHO )