Another great question on the Portland Backyard Farmers group. Because I can’t answer anything without writing a book, I’m going to give my opinion here.
Disclaimer: I am dumb.
The question was basically this (paraphrased a bit):
“As a kid I my mom used Miracle Gro in her garden. Everything she had grew so well and HUGE! I want my plants to be safe for my kids and for the world, so is Miracle Gro good or bad? I read the ingredients and didn’t see anything crazy in it. I assume the problems with it are on the larger environmental scale. Thoughts?”
Very interesting question, I think. I put up a poll on the group early on to ask where people landed in the “organic->conventional” spectrum. While we only got 18 responses, they were 2/3 totally organic, 1/3 mostly organic, and nothing else.
I’d, personally, fall into the “mostly organic” column. I have some Miracle Gro in my greenhouse. When I have a plant, usually a seedling, that’s not doing well or that I want to give a boost for whatever reason, I’ll foliar feed with some dilute MG. It seems to be one of the fastest ways to get some quick nutrients in to the plant, and it’s very soluble, dissolves quickly, doesn’t gunk up spray bottles, etc. I rarely, if ever, use it after the weather warms. I’ll buy a small box every few years. (Incidentally, I also have an I-don’t-know-how-old, still-unopened can of Sevin insecticide and a mostly full bottle of Round Up. They’re sort of like that cigarette in a glass case for someone who quit smoking.)
Now, that said, MG is made from by-products of the petroleum/energy industry. It’s pretty much the antithesis of the concept of “organic” in every way. It’s made to feed the plant directly rather than the organic concept of feeding the soil. The analogy in my mind is antibiotics.
Ideally, I’ll eat right, exercise, and get enough sleep to stay healthy and fend off disease. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, that doesn’t work, and I get sick. I’m not going to suffer and die on principle when I can use readily available products in a responsible way to get me back on the right track.
I’m also not going to make prophylactic antibiotic use part of my diet. Same goes for MG. Firstly, if your garden’s healthy, you don’t really need it. In my opinion, it’s TOO available. Better to feed your soil with slow release organic sources that promote the soil’s flora and fauna– ultimately providing the whole range of necessary components and micronutrients your plant needs to thrive and produce healthy, delicious output. Hitting it over the head with MG is, probably, going to give you large, leafy plants (I seem to recall that urea is the main ingredient– basically straight up nitrogen), but that’s an illusion of health. Your soil is likely to go all out of whack and you, like the guy with antibiotic laced breakfast cereal, are going to be on a nasty spiral of dependency.
Use MG, soil gets out of balance, plants grow too vegetatively attracting pests and diseases, veggies don’t taste good for lack of micronutrients… The solution for many? More Miracle Gro!
I won’t even touch on the political ramifications. It’s a petroleum product (but I drive a car sometimes, too). Runoff, carbon footprint, inefficient packaging, etc. They’re all valid points of discussion but have a tendency to quickly devolve into a religious shouting match.
- “You’re a poseur buying insanely expensive designer fish emulsion!”
- “You’re a corporate sycophant who hates the earth mother!”
- “Farmers grow food for the world and they use chemical fertilizers!”
- “Farmers are oppressed by Monsanto and destroying the earth in a bid to survive economically!”
- “Hippie!”
- “Nazi!”
So, your original question, if I remember right after babbling this long, was sort of “what are the larger ramifications of using MG?” To that, see the comments about petroleum products, etc. However, I really think that the bigger issue (if only because of scale of impact– you’re not going to cause significant environmental anything using a little MG in your garden; they sell many tons of the stuff whether you use it or not) is one of defining “grows so well” and “safe for my kids”. If you mean, plants get tall, leafy, and crazy green, MG is great for that (ignoring the pests that that will attract). Likewise, if you mean it won’t directly poison your kids used properly, I’d agree that it’s safe (ignoring the pesticides that you’ll want to use).
However, if you mean that your plants grow strong, disease-resistant, and according to their environment (thereby helping you maintain a healthy soil for more resilient garden), or if you mean that the tomatoes that you pick have that whole, rich range of flavors that the micronutrient-rich soil provides, I’d recommend staying away from chemical ferts for the most part– unless it’s seen as a component of a much larger soil management plan (i.e., compost, minerals, flora and fauna). It’s too direct for me, though. You have to be really careful not to overdo it. It’s pretty hard to screw up seed meal or compost.
If you mean “safe for your kids” in the sense that they are given access to fruits and vegetables the way nature intended– with all the flavor and nutrition that they can have– I’d go primarily organic. It’s not just about inputs and outputs, either. In my opinion, for your children to understand how nature works– the plants themselves, the pollinators, the pests, the soil cycle, etc.– teaching them that veggies come from this magic blue powder isn’t exactly “safe” in the larger sense. And how many people explain “son, the blue powder comes from the combination of ammonia and carbon dioxide produced in the extraction of zombies from uranium” (that’s maybe not right; I really don’t know) when they dump this stuff on their plants? I can tell my kids “this is chicken poop… it comes out the backside of a chicken… this is compost… it comes from over there (pointing)…” Everyone gets it.
So, is Miracle Gro good or bad? I’m sorry; I don’t think that’s a valid question. Should you use it? Only you can answer that, but I hope I’ve presented reasons you’d steer clear. Unfortunately, for millions of people, the promise of just sticking something in the dirt, pouring magic water on it, and having giant fluorescent green plants pop up is much more attractive than the process required to establish and maintain an organic garden– analyzing and amending soils, learning about nutrients and deficiencies, allowing the soil and predator balance to develop and stabilize over time, etc.
However, there are “input substitution” approaches that, I think, split the difference with little extra effort or cost. Instead of MG, use one of the readily-available, general purpose “natural” ferts– something like the Alaska brand fish ferts or Monty’s (not completely organic, but pretty close). For the average home gardener, the difference in cost is not that significant and they’re likely to be a gateway drug into a more organic view. The best part is that they’re not likely to cause any damage to the soil in the meantime while still allowing a fairly simple fertilization scheme.
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I like the way you write.
Thing of beauty.
But as a layperson trying to figure out what to put in my garden, I have to quibble with a couple of points. On the issue of what you’re teaching your kids, I was sort of hoping to teach mine to be intellectually adaptive, skeptical, and smarter than me, so that when they grow up they can answer hard questions for me like, “is Miracle Gro bad?” Case in point, the submitter of the question was indoctrinated early with the gospel of the Magic Blue Powder, yet lo, she seeks answers still.
Next: on this question of feeding the soil vs feeding the plant, I wish someone would break this down for me into small words that I can understand. I have read that chemical ferts do, in fact, feed soil organisms—including worms—though they have to be present in the soil in the first place. So I get the case for compost: it introduces organisms into the soil that weren’t there before. But can you say the same for fish-based fertilizers to any significant degree? Once you dilute your liquified fish offal with 2 – 300 parts water, how much organic material are you really introducing?
Colour me skeptical on the taste question. Organic proponents offer it as given that their stuff tastes better, but has anyone checked?
Slow, steady growth might work in Portland, but up here in Calgary we only get 115 frost free days in a row. So let the orgy of unmitigated chemical driven growth begin! Please! Any day now?
Finally, and I saved this one up because I haven’t seen it discussed anywhere, what about the cost of shipping this stuff across the country?
Miracle Gro comes from Ontario, 2000 miles from my house. So does the fish-based organic stuff that I’ve been using all spring. But MG powder contains 24% Nitrogen vs 5% for the fishy stuff. So for every truckload of Miracle Gro they send out here, they need to send five truckloads of martyred fishies. I would love to know how petrochemical use compares between the two products after you factor in the 500% differential in diesel fuel consumption.
Or at least, this is the conversation I had with myself half an hour ago as I dropped a 3 lb box of Miracle Gro into my shopping cart. But I promise to use it only for good, and to continue composting my kitchen scraps.
Likewise… good comment…
Certainly, I’m trying to teach my kids all kinds of wonderful stuff– none of it mutually exclusive, I hope. Right now it’s mostly things like “don’t pee in your pants” and “stop hitting the cat.” We’ll work our way up through chicken poop on gardens to questioning anecdotal nonsense later on. That is, unless I do, in fact, send them to live with the gypsies.
Feeding the soil vs. feeding the plant… well, I look at it like this. If you use an organic fertilizer, typically, you’re adding something to the soil that the plant really can’t use directly. The microbial herd, as they say, has to break it down to a form the plant can use. That slows the absorption, prevents “burning,” and promotes the overall system’s health as opposed to just the target plant’s. In that way, the soil’s flora and fauna are able to synergistically work with the plant to extract nutrients for its use as well as controlling pests and diseases in the soil.
Compare to something like eating carbs with lots of fiber and fat vs. drinking a soda. Your body will take that soda’s sugar and run with it, likely crash, and probably do a number on your insulin. You will, however, gain weight (growth) and feel energetic for a while (vigor). In the case of complex carbs combined with fibers and fat, there’s a lot of work that needs to be done to get it digested; it’s slower and provides the peripheral benefits that those other components provide– digestive, lubrication, brain food, whatever. You won’t get quite the rush, but you’re less likely to crash and the larger picture of your health is enhanced.
That’s not a perfect comparison, but hopefully, you see where I’m going with that. You might be able to live on simple carbs, protein, and some number of “essential” vitamins in a daily smoothie, but it’s severe scientific reductionist hubris to think you’ll fulfill your human potential– emotionally, physically, mentally– on that slop. That’s how I tend to think of Miracle Gro, more or less.
Certainly, there are times when you want someone to hook you to a bag of glucose. There’s also times when you might advise someone to just eat whatever they can– focusing on high calorie foods. There are times when I think MG is a convenient solution to a problem. However, the chemically induced growth orgy has a price– not the least of which is that it is a prime contributor to attracting pests and diseases. The requirement to push growth beyond what the cultivar can naturally handle without chemical intervention… well, that’s really a value judgment that requires one to do what one needs to do, eh? That’s not a criticism, but it flies in the face of the whole “organic” thing, which is *not* just about input substitution by a long shot. Proper variety selection for climate and conditions and so forth is probably more important in many ways.
As for the taste question… I’ll accept your skepticism. It’s pretty subjective beyond measuring brix. I believe it to be true. Again, I think it’s the presence of a more balanced nutritional profile and micronutrients that create the more complex flavor profile. I think that. Could be bunk. Sort of a red herring, really.
Now… the complete carbon footprint kind of discussion is very interesting, but I think… moot in this context. It’s certainly a valid point when considering things like peat vs. coconut coir. One’s shipped in from Asia and “sustainable.” One’s depleting a natural resource but comes right out of your backyard. Which is “better”? See the Prius/Hummer debate. Clearly, a small, standard, efficient gasoline car– something like a Civic– has a significantly smaller carbon footprint than either of those other two, but it’s not a Statement.
Similarly, choosing organic amendments on the basis of the sustainability of their origins is something most hippie gardeners that I associate with simply never think about. Kelp meal is good. It comes from a rainbow land of indigenous unicorns and not trawled out of the ocean where I suspect it was being used– likewise for fish meal and GMO cottonseed meal. It’s all OK because it’s not oil. Herumph, I say.
In any case, use your MG in good health. If it genuinely works for you– practically and philosophically– then I say more power to you. Really. I’m glad to know that someone out there is actually reading my stuff and spends a little time thinking about it. Thank you.
A fine and generous reply, which has largely convinced me to ease off on the vegetable roids (soon bro…I just gotta make it through one more season…).
But because it’s not like me to leave a thread without stinking out the joint, I’ll lob in a couple of debunkery links (neither of which has even a passing relationship to gardening). The sugar rush myth is just that (take it away, Cecil Adams), though of course sugar still rots your teeth, gives you diabetes and supplants more nutritious food, so, great analogy.
The Hummer/Prius meme is the spawn of a dishonest paper that made assumptions including that the average Hummer lasts 3 times as long as the average Prius. (Here’s the Pacific Institute administering a well deserved spanking.)
Both oil and potash happen to come from my figurative backyard, but you’re quite right to throw up your hands in this narrow instance since these minerals take anything but a direct route to my actual backyard.
Thanks for demolishing my flimsy arguments, and letting me nibble around the edges of yours. I came to interrogate my conscience. I’ll stay for the great writing.
You can stop anytime… really…
I’ve got a few things like that in my life.
Thanks for the links. I love that kinda thing even though it makes me feel kind of retroactively silly for having preached at people a) about the thing that has no scientific basis, and in the same breath, b) not to believe everything you hear.
Still, I would never argue in favor of buying a Hummer even if they had perpetual motion machines in them– looking like an Napoleonic ass isn’t exclusively related to your energy efficiency.
Seemingly “easy” environmental decisions… aren’t. And most folks couldn’t do a complete analysis of such things even if they wanted to– which they don’t. It struck me that even the Pacific Institutes counter-argument was rather full of “huh-uh, is not…” hand-waving.
Neither here nor there, though. Again, in my small, barely-functional mind, I can’t help but think that the answer is not in making cigarettes healthier with biodegradable filters but in getting people to stop smoking– metaphorically speaking.
You’re completely free of this, of course, being a Canadian, but Americans genuinely feel entitled to keep consuming and disposing at the same (disproportionate) rate– particularly if the products have “eco” or “green” in their names. (EcoGreen’s EnviroSmokes™) Reduce? Reuse? Yeah, whatever. How about if we throw our 2-liter Pepsi bottles in the plastics garbage– if there’s one handy– and it’s closer than the regular garbage.
Anyway, that’s a never-ending digression… I was mostly trying to say that I think overall plant health is enhanced over the longer-term by using organic amendments rather than chemical ferts, but that you could certainly try both and see for yourself without any fear of derailing the migration of the humpback whale in the process. I, personally, enjoy the organic route. I enjoy learning about the minutia. I’m not just in it for “product”. If I were, it’d be more cost-effective to go to the farmer’s market– by a long shot, I suspect.
I didn’t intend on demolishing anything and enjoyed your comments. I’m glad you got something out of it. Keep in mind that my educational background is in electrical engineering and business. So, I should probably just restrict my comments to marketing transistors.
Is it just me or do you and I have “stay-at-home-layabout-dad” written all over us?
Last time I checked (not recently) Canadians are even bigger per capita energy gluttons and polluters than Americans, though we like to plead extenuating circumstances for being so big, so thinly populated, and so cold. We, too, have bought the lie that Canada is a green country, though we at least have the decency to feel shame when confronted with our profligacy.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go explain to my 15-month-old daughter how Miracle Gro messes with the insulin of humpback whales.