In article ,
"James" wrote:

I am a very new rose grower (I hope). I have read that Miracle Gro
plant food (the kind you mix in water), and fish emulsion are good basics.

Can I mix the two in one gallon of water , for one application ?

Are there better feeding products ? Is the water soluable Miracle Gro
better than a pelletized fertilizer (which I know would last longer, but
not as fast acting, right ?)

Thanks for any **basic** fertilizing tips !!

James

Hellloo.

"Are there better feeding products?" A damn fine question that.
so by the numbers, let's take it from the beginning.

Teaming with Microbes: A Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web
Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis
http://www.amazon.com/Teaming-Microb.../dp/0881927775
/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1206815176&sr= 1-1
p.26

"Negative impacts on the soil food web
Chemical fertilizers negatively impact the soil food web by killing off
entire_ portions of it. What gardener hasn't seen what table salt does
to a slug? Fertilizers are salts; they suck the water out of the
bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and_ nematodes in the soil. Since these
microbes are at the very foundation of the_ soil food web nutrient
system, you have to keep adding fertilizer once you start_ using it
regularly. The microbiology is missing and not there to do its job,
feeding the plants.

It makes sense that once the bacteria, fungi, nematodes, and protozoa
are_ gone, other members of the food web disappear as well. Earthworms,
for example, lacking food and irritated by the synthetic nitrates in
soluble nitrogen_ fertilizers, move out. Since they are major shredders
of organic material, their_ absence is a great loss. Without the
activity and diversity of a healthy food web, you not only impact the
nutrient system but all the other things a healthy soil_ food web
brings. Soil structure deteriorates, watering can become problematic,"_
pathogens and pests establish themselves and, worst of all, gardening
becomes_ a lot more work than it needs to be.

If the salt-based chemical fertilizers don't kill portions of the soil
food web, rototilling will. This gardening rite of spring breaks up
fungal hyphae, decimates worms, and rips and crushes arthropods. It
destroys soil structure and_ eventually saps soil of necessary air.
Again, this means more work for you in_ the end. Air pollution,
pesticides, fungicides, and herbicides, too, kill off important members
of the food web community or ³chase" them away. Any chain_ is only as
strong as its weakest link: if there is a gap in the soil food web, the
system will break down and stop functioning properly."
----

Google "Dead Zones" to see what nitrate fertilizers are doing to the
oceans.
Continuing . . .
"Soil life produces soil nutrients
When any member of a soil food web dies, it becomes fodder for other
members of the community. The nutrients in these bodies are passed on to
other_ members of the community. A larger predator may eat them alive,
or they may _be decayed after they die. One way or the other, fungi and
bacteria get involved,_ be it decaying the organism directly or working
on the dung of the successful_ eater. It makes no difference. Nutrients
are preserved and eventually are retained in the bodies of even the
smallest fungi and bacteria. When these are in_the rhizosphere, they
release nutrients in plant-available form when they, in_ turn, are
consumed or die."
-----

Gaia's Garden, Second Edition: A Guide To Home-Scale Permaculture
(Paperback)
by Toby Hemenway
http://www.amazon.com/Gaias-Garden-S...ulture/dp/1603
580298/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271266976&sr=1-1

p.78
By the time the final rank of soil organisms, the microbes, is finished
swarming over the leaf and digesting it, most of the consumable
carbon‹that which is not tied up as humus‹is gone. Little remains but
inorganic (non-carbon-containing) compounds, such as phosphate, nitrate,
sulfate, and other chemicals that most gardeners will recognize from the
printing on bags of fertilizer. That's right: Microbes make plant
fertilizer right in the soil. This process of stripping the inorganic
plant food from organic, carbon-containing compounds and returning it to
the soil is called mineralization. Minerals‹the nitrates and phosphates
and others‹are tiny, usually highly mobile molecules

p.79
that dissolve easily in water. This means that, once the minerals in
organic debris are released or fertilizer is poured onto the soil, these
mineral nutrients don't hang around long but are easily leached out
of soil by rain.

Conventional wisdom has it that plant root are the main imbibers of soil
minerals and that plants can only absorb these minerals (fertilizers) if
they are in a water-soluble form, but neither premise is
true. Roots occupy only a tiny fraction of the soil, so most soil
minerals‹and most chemical fertilizers‹never make direct contact with
roots. Unless these isolated, lonely minerals are snapped up by
humus or soil organisms, they leach away. It's the humus and the life in
the soil that keep the earth fertile by holding on to nutrients that
would otherwise wash out of the soil into streams, lakes, and
eventually the ocean.

Agricultural chemists have missed the boat with their soluble
fertilizers; they're doing things the hard way by using an engineering
approach rather than an ecological one. Yes, plants are quite capable
of absorbing the water-soluble minerals in chemical fertilizer. But
plants often use only 10 percent of the fertilizer that's applied and
rarely more than 50 percent. The rest washes into the groundwater,
which is why so many wells in our farmlands are polluted with toxic
levels of nitrates.

Applying fertilizer the way nature does‹tied to organic matter‹uses far
less fertilizer and also saves the energy consumed in producing,
shipping and applying it. It also supports a broad assortment of soil
life, which widens the base of our living pyramid and enhances rather
than reduces biodiversity. In addition, plants get a balanced diet
instead of being force-fed and are healthier. It's well documented that
plants grown on soil rich in organic matter are more disease- and
insect-resistant than plants in carbon-poor soil.

In short, a properly tuned ecological garden rarely needs soluble
fertilizers because plants and soil animals can knock nutrients loose
from humus and organic debris (or clay, another nutrient storage
source) using secretions of mild acid and enzymes. Most of the nutrients
in healthy soil are "insoluble yet available," in the words of soil
scientist William Albrecht. These nutrients, bound to organic matter or
cycling among fast-living microbes,won't' wash out of the soil yet can
be gently coaxed loose ‹ or traded for sugar secretions‹ by roots. And
the plants take up only what they need. This turns out to be very
little, since plants are 85 percent water, and much of the rest is
carbon from the air. A fat half-pound tomato, for example, only draws
about 50 milligrams of phosphorus and 500 milligrams of potassium from
the soil. That's easy to replace in a humus-rich garden that uses
mulches, composts, and nutrient-accumulating plants."
------

To recap
Chemical fertilizers (henceforth referred to as chemferts) are made from
petroleum, for which we have gone to war. Chemferts are water soluble,
and to insure that your plant gets enough chemferts, excess is added to
your soil, which leaches away to pollute local water supplies, and
create huge dead zones in the oceans where food for human beings once
lived. It does this after first killing off a good deal of the flora and
fauna in your garden soil. The more you use chemferts, the more the soil
is depleted, and the more chemferts will be needed in the future to
obtain the same results, and of cour$e chemfert$ co$t MONEY.

Mulching your soil, will cost less in the long run , if not immediately.
Mulch can be dried leaves, lawn clippings, even old newspapers (although
they do lack charm). You could plant Chinese white clover (perennial)
around your roses to provide nitrogen to the soil, or one of dozens of
other plants. (See the books above)

If you prefer to use manure for feeding your soil, you could try

Manure Chicken Diary cow Horse Steer Rabbit Sheep
N 1.1 .257 .70 .70 2.4 .70
P .80 .15 .30 .30 1.4 .30
K .50 .25 .60 .40 .60 .90
Http://www.plantea.com/manuer.htm

Manure Alfalfa Fish Emulsion
N 3 5
P 1 1
K 2 1

The bottom line is you damage your soil, the biosphere, our world, when
you use petroleum based chemferts. If you grow sustainably,
ecologically, organically, you will leave the world a better place.

The books referenced above are available at better libraries everywhere.
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Arn3lF5XSUg
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zinn/HZinn_page.html