Articles Most Recent Articles Going Green | Going Green |
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| Written by Fred Nowak | |
| Friday, 07 May 2010 | |
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If you listen to the radio, watch and listen to television news and other programs, or read the newspaper or other garden oriented magazines, you will find one of the ubiquitous topics is "Going Green". It is one of the major topics of the day. And I subscribe to it by composting,using the most natural insect controls and subscribing to organic fertilization. I have used chemical fertilizers for home plantings and for my bonsai for years but have been depending more and more on organic fertilizers. There are many chemical fertilizers available and a number of them even have the macro and micronutrients available to make them more balanced for the health of our little trees. They also come in forms that permit chemical feeding for extended periods of time. That is a real convenience but … is that "Going Green"? No, I don’t believe so. But you say that the tree is green so it must be "going green". I guess so if that is how you perceive "Going Green" but that is not what we are talking about.
I want to feed and nourish my bonsai with an organic fertilizer. Years ago, Kathy Shaner, at a weekend workshop, gave to us a recipe for making an organic fertilizer that would provide all the nutrients needed for the good health of our bonsai. One could buy all the ingredients and mix it in the proportions she recommended and have a great organic fertilizer. This I did until I discovered Plantone, an organic fertilizer already premixed with most of the ingredients that Kathy recommended. Now there was no need to have to buy separate ingredients, mix them and then have a fertilizer that would not only be great for our trees but would provide that needed nourishment over an extended period of time. A product called Bio-Gold is available but I did not want it. It is organic however and it is eco-friendly. Fertilizer cakes used to be available at one time but they made a mess in my pots as they dissipated. Brussel’s Bonsai Nursery, I am told, uses Plantone for its premium plants but, out of necessity, uses long lasting chemical fertilizers for its thousands of other trees. For the premium plants, a tablespoon or so of the Plantone is placed in the corners of the pots. Since their irrigation system provides a very gentle rain-like watering, it leaves the small "pile" of Plantone dissolving in one place thereby permitting the organic nutrients to slowly gravitate down to the root systems. The result-well nourished, healthy trees with limited mess in the pots. I was doing the same but with a bit different result. I could not get as gentle a "rain" on my trees as I watered them even though I used a sprinkler head or watering can with a fine rose. The Plantone would wash over the surface of the potting medium. You say that there is nothing wrong with that and I guess there isn’t because the intent "to fertilize" is taking place but… the fertilizer, when dried creates a crust on the potting mediums surface. This then creates a watering problem because the crust tends to shed the water. One can take a chopstick and break the crust periodically so that proper watering takes place but the crust also looks messy, must be removed periodically and be replaced with fresh potting medium. I don’t like the Plantone clogging up the pores in the potting mix and depriving the tree of needed air to its roots. Surely, there must be a better way to fertilize organically and yet present your trees in a pleasing fashion.
Hopefully I have found a better way but only time will tell. What if the organic 
How long will the paper of the tea bags hold together? I don’t know but the great experiment is underway. Will they last about one month? Can I use the bags to make "Plantone Tea" (with no lees) with which to water and fertilize? Time will tell how my "Going Green" experiment works out. Tick-Tock…Tick Tock…Time has marched on… It has now been about one month. The tea bags in my pots are still intact holding the Plantone. That is one answer. The other about making tea? The tea bags worked just fine giving me a fertilizer tea that I use to water other plants with no residue. I also found that I could "snuggle" the tea bags a bit into the soil so that they stay wet longer thereby permitting more nutrients to flow out. Also realized that one could take the "spent" fertilizer tea bags and add them to the compost heap where they will eventually dissolve and become part of a rich compost mix. What fun it is to try new things
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| Last Updated ( Saturday, 31 July 2010 ) |
food was contained in some way but yet permitted the nutrients to get to the roots? I thought about permeable containment systems. I could use coffee filters, place the filters in the pots and then put the Plantone in the filters. Wouldn’t look too great and would blow away in the next good puff of wind. One of our members, with whom I was discussing this messy problem, suggested using used pantyhose cut into smaller pieces and putting the fertilizer in them tying both ends so that the solid pieces of fertilizer wouldn’t escape. That could work and after a time, the fertilizer, when expended, could be dumped out and the pantyhose piece refilled. That would require some tedious work but would be workable. Then I had an "eureka" moment. What about tea bags? They are permeable and permit the flavors to flow out to make tea; and yet contain the solids. We drink tea without the lees. So, I went to oriental stores to see if I could find empty tea bags. No such luck. Where else does one go? Of course, the Internet. I "Binged" Empty Tea Bags and up popped a goodly number of sites from which one could get empty tea bags. I ordered a package of 250 tea bags as part of my experiment. The tea | Next > |
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