"Pat Kiewicz" wrote in message
...
Marie Dodge said:
"Pat Kiewicz" wrote in message
...
Marie Dodge said:
They don't sell liquid seaweed where I live. I don't care to start
ordering
things online because the shipping is often as much as the items to be
shipped.
Yes, but some things are cheap at twice the price, and sometimes
shipping
is nowhere near equal to the cost of the item shipped (even these days).
Consider Maxicrop seaweed *powder* where you avoid paying to ship
water:
http://www.arbico-organics.com/1313001.html
Get it shipped by priority mail. It's cheaper.
The product is $14.75 and shipping is $11.50 = $27.25!
That much lasts me two or three years. (And my quoted shipping by
USPS was only $7.00.) It's equivalent to many *gallons* of liquid
seaweed.
My quoted shipping was $11.50 cheapest way. You must live closer to the
place. How large is your garden and how often do you spray it?
I wouldn't transplant anything without it. Greens up the occasional
plant that goes chlorotic. Promotes general vigor as a foliar feed.
(I would have recommended The Eclectic Gardener, as a satisfied
customer, but they are sold out of Maxicrop powder. )
http://www.eclectic-gardener.com/maxicroppowder.html
If I ever play and win the Lottery maybe I can afford some of this high
priced organic stuff. 
If you gardened on a sand pit like mine, it wouldn't make sense to
fertilize
any other way...rain will leach anything soluable right away, which is
money
down the drain (almost literally).
I understand. Where I live it's a poor droughty clay. We had to till in
loads and loads of organic matter to grow anything. It was forest when I
bought this land many years ago. It's only the last few years we're really
getting into vegetable gardening. I just started canning again this year.
Now that we're retired we have more time - but less money.
We're living
on SS and the few extra bucks he makes helping out a friend once a week or
so. A a small savings account for emergency use. To someone working full
time, or your average Yuppie, the cost of organic stuff is affordable. To
the retired, unless they have "other income," it's just too darn expensive.
My main fertilizer in the vegetable garden is alfalfa (pellets),
supplemented
by Maxicrop and all the compost and mulch I can make from autumn
leaves collected all around the neighborhood. Still have some bags of
leaves way in the back from last fall, which will go into more batches of
compost as the sweetcorn stalks get pulled.
15 or so years ago I was able to give the veggie garden a heavy dose of
greensand, but I was lucky at the time to be able to buy it locally in 40
pound bags. Doubt if I could afford that now, as no one seems to carry
it in big bags anymore and the freight costs on that would be really
astronomical. I wish that weren't the case, though...
I have the same problem! I have to have everything shipped and that is not
possible anymore. I even had to order a canner through Ace Hardware in town.
I was surprised to find canning jars at Wal*Mart. This area of my county is
no longer agricultural. Farmers give up in disgust to droughts and pest
invasions and the high cost of fuel and pesticides. Where farms once were I
see subdivisions full of Yuppies. Cattle farms have turned into huge
shopping Malls. The stores cater to them... not to us looking for organic
garden products. These newcomers hire Lawn Services and never dirty their
hands.
I'm in Lowe's and Home Depot regularly and yet haven't seen any of these
organic fertilizers. Perhaps there isn't enough call for them here. Or
they're so expensive people wont pay the price. Twice I bought the liquid
Iron and twice it turned into a tinny smelling liquid once opened, with
white stuff like scale in it at the bottom. That was when I switched to
Ironite.
That's the beauty of a dry powder. Sits there on the shelf so you can mix
it
up as needed.
How large is your garden and how often do you spray it?
--
Pat in Plymouth MI ('someplace.net' is comcast)
After enlightenment, the laundry.