The Ethics Of Fertilizing -
Do Plants Really Need Our Help?

This month we're tackling one of the great debates of modern gardening. Is it right for us as gardeners to force our flowers, veggies, shrubs and trees into hyper-growth with the use of concentrated chemical fertilizers?

At first glance this may seem like an organic versus chemical debate. But is it really that simple? After all, most fertilizers contain some combination of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, the very nutrients these plants get from the soil in nature. Aren't we just helping them along by providing them with optimal quantities of these essential nutrients? Or are we catapulting our plants into the realm of Frankenstein by force-feeding them powerful concentrations of nutrients at perfectly-timed intervals? One thing is certain, with the right combination, timing and strength of fertilizers, we can accomplish things that simply won't happen on their own in nature.

Is it ethical for us to one-up the talents of Mother Nature and overdrive our plants to unnatural heights (and productivity and performance...)? Here's what this month's opinionated debaters have to say on this firecracker topic;

Andy Says:

I have a dream…. a wonderful dream where my army of mutant tomatoes will leap off the vine to once and for all silence the whining protests of the naturalists and pro-organic ilk who dare to suggest that fertilizers are a bad thing. Or, to frame it in their speech, (insert whiny voice here) “All fertilizers are chemicals, and I’m not eating anything that’s had chemicals dumped on it!” (end whiny voice if you want). Little do they know that organic gardening is the second largest user of dihydrogen monoxide in commercial gardening. This is an incredibly frightening (and made up) statistic, until you realize that we are talking about simple H2O, otherwise known as water! Nasty chemical.

The reality of the situation is that plants grow by extracting nourishment from the soil, primarily nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium, creating the foods that we eat through a series of incredibly complex chemical processes that I do not pretend to understand. If, year after year, we insist on selecting the same little patch of land to produce our magnificent potatoes, ears of corn and plump, juicy, three-legged tomatoes, we eventually suck the nutrients from the soil leaving little more than a barren wasteland. We could let the land rest, to recover some portion of what is taken, or we can manually replace the core of what was taken to once again allow the soil to bear mutant tomatoes. From there we will train them in the art of vine-to-vine combat and infiltration techniques... um, I mean make a BLT and a fresh garden salad... yum!

So take that you vile, oxygen-converting, walking, talking chemical plant. Quit your whining (and the whiney voice – really, it’s just annoying now) and heed my words. Go forth ye and fertilize, and help mother nature along, one three-legged tomato at a time.

Jon Says:

Today many people are not content with what they can grow with their own hands and the earth they stand on. They have to use fertilizers and by doing so are altering the natural production of plants. Most no longer know the real fruit and vegetables they could be growing. You often see enormous plants and fruits and veggies that even, in some cases, make it into record books.

To me, the use of mass produced fertilizer is not right. I'd like to know that my hard work paid off by seeing what I can grow when I really put my mind and spade to it. There may be times when I get hardly any food from my plants, but when I do it is much more satisfying. In some cases people have plants that are not native to their area and so need "help" growing. In nature they grow exactly where they are meant to grow. They do very well without the "aid" of fertilizers. But when we grow them for our own personal use, we never seem to be satisfied with the end result.

Even the chemicals used to keep our plants safe in these fertilizers/soils are not natural to the planet. We kill the planet just to see our flowers or tomato plants grow. The soil these chemically altered soils are put in/on sometimes become unusable without the aid of more of that same kind of fertilizer. It becomes dependent on it and so do we.

What do YOU say?

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