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Re: Osmocote

Square Foot Gardening List - http://www.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html

On 12:48 PM 5/16/99 -0400, Janet Wintermute wrote:
>Square Foot Gardening List - http://www.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html
>
>Martha said,
>>I wasn't aware this was an organic product. 

I never claimed it was.  This is a list about "square foot" gardening, not
about organic gardening.  Although many of you are also organic gardeners,
not all of us are.  Expect the list to also contain threads about
non-organic square foot gardening.

>>I know in most potted plants we 
>>get from nurseries, the soil base has osmocote in it, so I guess I assumed 
>>it was a chemical product. Could someone read their bag / box and tell us 
>>what's in it?
>
>Well, *I* assumed it was organic because Don Chapman said to use it in
>conjunction with his mycorrhizal products, and he recommends against
>synthetics because they burn the myco's!  

I don't know his name, is he noted for touting organic gardening/farming?
Perhaps he recommends against "standard" synthetics but likes Osmocote due
to the time release factor (rather than an organic factor).  

>But now that Martha has stimulated
>me to look at the box, I'm changing my mind about Osmocote.
>
>The "Vegetable & Bedding Plant Food" formula is 14-14-14 14 with NPK
>"derived from ammonium nitrate, ammonium phosphate, calcium phosphate, and
>potassium sulfate."

My label says:  Osmocote Plus 15-9-11 90302FS

Derived from: ammonium nitrate, ammonium phosphate, potassium nitrate,
calcium phosphate, magnesium sulfate, boric acid. copper sulfate, iron
sulfate, iron EDTA, manganese sulfate and sodium molybdate.

>Sounds pretty chemical-y to me, and the current owner of the brand is
>Scotts, definitely a chemical house.

Chemical-y sounding != non-organic.  Chemicals *can* be derived from
organic sources in an "organic-ly friendly" process, although this isn't
the common method and most organic farmers/gardeners would shy away from
such chemicals for other reasons (such as a personal preference for
substances that have been minimally processed).

However, there is nothing on *this* bag that claims that this fertilizer is
organic.  I didn't buy it to be organic, I bought it because it was highly
recommended for my roses, and I have so much that I thought I'd use some in
my veggie garden this year and see how it goes.

>Interestingly enough, Osmocote has been mentioned several times over on the
>Organic Gardening List, and nobody there challenged its use.  And those
>folks are fanatics!

There are apparently several different formulations of Osmocote (as you can
see, your box and my bag are definitely very different) so perhaps there is
also one formulation that is organic.

jc


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