The Fertilizer Girl

In the spring of 2009, I was a nineteen-year-old college student looking for a side-hustle, when I discovered landscaping. I am now thirty-five, and not much has changed.

It was the perfect job for me. I got to work outside, I felt my body grow strong, I was working with three of my closest friends, I learned an abundance of new skills each day, and I had a place to put into practice the horticulture knowledge I was garnering at LSU. My soul felt nourished in a way I had never quite felt in my young life.

Back then, I was the fertilizer gal. That was the totality of my job. I spent most of my days, alone, traveling from residential garden bed to HOA subdivision entrance, fertilizing. I purchased, on the company card, copious amounts of Miracle Gro granules from Home Depot every other workday. As my boss instructed me, there was no such thing as too much Miracle Gro. I traveled around Baton Rouge in my 1994 black Jeep Cherokee, tugging along three sub-par garden hoses, bulk chemicals, and a milk crate of rusted garden tools. I lived my days spraying blue water upon every patch of land I encountered, listening to a slew of garden podcasts and Fela Kuti albums along the way. It was actual heaven. I will never forget those solo days amongst the masses of zinnias and fuschias. The back of my Jeep was stained blue, spare tire and all, and boy did I wear that blue like the greatest badge of honor—the sweatiest and most back-broken badge of honor. I worked hard, and it showed. I loved every second of that job, and it changed the course of my life.

Back then, I was the fertilizer gal. That was the totality of my job. I spent most of my days, alone, traveling from residential garden bed to HOA subdivision entrance, fertilizing. I purchased, on the company card, copious amounts of Miracle Gro granules from Home Depot every other workday.

I think about these early landscaping days often. Early spring, I am desperate for foliar growth and blooms. When I, likely, should be meditating on garden stillness and embracing the moment, more often I am waking up, walking my gardens, and looking for any centimeter of new growth, any bloom to burst. It's a blessing and a curse. It is about this time I also start to think about fertilizing my garden. I wonder if I just fertilized three times before that upcoming crawfish boil, would the garden be all the more popping? The fact is, though, a lot has changed since my Miracle Gro days.

[Read Jess Cole's argument for why you shouldn't kill wasps here.]

Since then, I’ve come to understand that working with synthetic fertilizers like Miracle Gro is depending on chemicals to sustain life. Brilliantly-marketed to promise abundant gardens, synthetic fertilizers are manmade and derived from salts and petroleum. When you apply synthetic fertilizer you will receive a great boost in growth, but at a serious cost. These chemicals, when absorbed into the soil, deplete the earth of all life—working essentially as antibiotics. Earthworms and other critters that aid your cause of growth are killed or sent scurrying, leaving your plants entirely dependent on these manmade neon spheres. In addition, the chemicals don’t affect your garden alone, but often are transported via runoff into nearby soils and waterways—causing harm there as well.

And as I’ve said before, the more alive your soil, the more alive your garden. One of my favorite gardening analogies is this: Do you want an energy drink or a smoothie? Chemical fertilizers are like energy drinks. They give you an instant jolt of energy but are most often detrimental to your health. Alternatively, a smoothie with fresh vegetables and fruit (natural fertilizing methods) will offer a more subtle increase in energy, offering true sustenance long term.

Chemical fertilizer use has proven to be one of the greatest detriments to the nursery trade and gardening industry—which, in the interest of profit, have continued to highly encourage their use despite the harm they cause to the environment.

One of my favorite gardening analogies is this: Do you want an energy drink or a smoothie? Chemical fertilizers are like energy drinks. They give you an instant jolt of energy but are most often detrimental to your health. Alternatively, a smoothie with fresh vegetables and fruit (natural fertilizing methods) will offer a more subtle increase in energy, offering true sustenance long term.

The good news is there are plenty of “smoothie” natural fertilizing options available—many of them  exciting, old school (and free!) techniques. Some of my favorites are adding dried leaves to flower beds, as well as compost teas and biochar. But, simply put, when it comes to natural fertilizing, I offer one word: carbon. “Plant food” is not neon. Plant food is organic matter. The addition of biomass, and the decay thereof, encourages carbon. My goal is always to add more organic matter to the garden—adding and storing more carbon within the earth, and thus: begetting more life!

You can always purchase natural fertilizers and mulches, but these resources are often available closer than you think, for free. Composting at home is one of the best ways to create your own natural fertilizer from your family’s food waste: leaves falling in your front yard (leaves can be mulch and fertilizer), coffee grounds from breakfast, clippings from your lawn, and more.

Starting a composting endeavor at your home can present in various forms. If you live in a city and are concerned about your compost attracting unwanted rodents, you can purchase an enclosed compost barrel. If you have the space, I suggest something as simple as large piles in a corner of your yard. We make our compost bins out of old pallets. It's nice to have multiple compost spaces “cooking” at once. Once you have one pile/barrel of compost ready for use, you can then be adding to and turning a separate pile so that you always have space to be adding to. You want a nice mix of “browns” and “greens”. Brown materials (leaves, sawdust, small branches) add carbon, and green materials (kitchen scraps, leaf clippings, coffee grinds) offer nitrogen.

It's actually that simple. Ditch the costly chemical fertilizers and begin the enriching process of “building” your soil with organic matter. A lively soil, full of fungal activity and microorganisms, has the power to correct PH, retain moisture, and truly feed our plants.