Fertilizer: Grow, Damn You!

Considering how much effort we put into promoting their health and well-being, it’s no wonder some gardeners talk to their plants. I’ve caught myself now and again saying things like “Happy now?” or “Well, you look good today!” to a particularly robust specimen of vegetable life. I’ve also caught myself feeling resentful toward plants that seemingly refuse to grow at the desired rate. It’s much easier to shout “What’s wrong with you?” at the plant than to actually figure out what the plant is communicating with its stunted stem or yellowing leaves.

My lettuce, spinach, and radish seedlings gave me no end of frustration in their early weeks when they were stuck in the two-leaf stage for what seemed an inordinate length of time. I wondered if they would even survive. They had emerged vigorously, but then languished. So I went out to the garage for what remained of the bone meal and blood meal I had spread in the flowerbeds, and worked it into the top two inches of garden soil with my new cultivator.

Then I left on my week of vacation, feeling discouraged. I returned to find nearly mature radishes and lush rows of half-grown Bibb lettuce. Perhaps it was the watering technique that did it (the Man with the Perfect Lawn, who kindly watered the plants in my absence, favors deep-watering), or perhaps it was the organic fertilizer. I am inclined to favor the theory that the fertilizer contributed the most to the new growth, grateful though I am for my neighbor’s help.

The tomatoes, transplanted into the ground just before I left, had not grown much taller, but their stems were thick and strong. The Swiss chard seedlings had grown into fine plants with beautiful, arching leaves, and the onions looked—well, alive. One can never tell what those things are doing underground, even though their tops are at present unimpressive. I decided to let things alone for a while, pleased with my garden’s transition to what looked like actual viability.

Last weekend, though, I started noticing that the two buttercup squash plants on the side nearer to the house were yellowing. A few days later, while I was watering, I saw a plump squash bug climb to the top of a broad leaf to escape the downpour. It was this year’s first squash bug, an ill omen for its host. I promptly grabbed the brown bug and crunched it between my flip-flop and the garden frame. Last year, I had killed dozens of the juice-sucking insects, not including the hundred or so tiny, whitish-green squash bug nymphs I had squeezed between my fingers, all to no avail. They dried up the buttercup squash plants first before moving on to the zucchini, which lived through the summer but produced not a single fruit.

I looked for the leathery rows of squash bug eggs on the undersides of the leaves, but found none. Then I removed all the dead and withering leaves from the squash plants, to take away potential hiding places for the bugs and their nymphs. As I tugged at a yellowed leaf on the smaller of the two plants, the entire stem broke off, revealing an interior riddled with broad passageways. A squash vine borer had evaded my surveillance. The only thing to do was to dig up the second plant and discard the stem and root.

Edward G. Smith, author of The Gardener’s Bible, writes: “Once you have good soil for growing vegetables, you’ll get better yields and higher-quality vegetables if you don’t fertilize plants at all during the growing period.” I had decided to hold off on the liquid fertilizer in the hope that my organic amendments would prove adequate. But the episode with the broken-off squash plant convinced me that the squash would need all the help it could get to stave off infestation and disease. Last week, I finally hosed down the entire garden, including the flowerbeds, with a solution of 24-8-16 all-purpose inorganic plant food (that’s 24% nitrogen, 8% available phosphate, and 16% soluble potash).

For those without the blessing of pre-existing good soil, Ed recommends using fish or fish-and-seaweed emulsion or compost tea, but I hadn’t the funds to buy more organic fertilizer and I don’t have a compost pile. Last year’s artificial stuff would have to do. So I’m not an organic gardener, though I don’t douse my plants with insecticides as my neighbor does (he swears by Sevin, which he dusted liberally on his tomatoes, beans, and cucumbers). The inorganic stuff seems to have worked. Other than a couple of wilted leaves which I removed yesterday, the remaining squash plant on that side has shown no signs of weakness. It’s not quite as vigorous as the two plants on the opposite side of the garden, but its blossoms are large and profuse, and its vines are growing several inches a day. Even though the harvest is several months away, I’ll count that one (provisionally) a success.

Getting Dirty

When the world is covered with an impermeable layer of icy snow (with a crust so thick that a large man can stand on it without breaking through), it is easy for the gardener to anticipate the pleasures that springtime will bring. I spent much of my free time, in the last months, leafing through lush catalogs and gardening manuals, buying seed packets, and imagining a future full of possibilities, of beans, peppers, radishes, eggplant, and the incomparable, ripe, juicy, acidulous tomatoes of summer.

Sooner or later, though, every dreamer has to confront reality. My own reality has taken on a distinctly earthy tinge, in the form of a veritable mountain of dirt. The garden may aspire toward heaven, but it is anchored in the ground-up rubble and detritus of the mortal world. Anyone who wants to eke an edible harvest from this soil must ensure that it will provide the nutrients the plants will need to fuel their growth.

Therein lies my problem. In my 10-by-10-foot plot, I had to contend with a substance that was soil-like in appearance, but which was actually compounded of ground-up wood. The landscaper who created the garden last year dumped in wood mulch rather than soil or compost. I began to realize what was wrong after many of my spring seedlings began to turn yellow and wilt, but by then it was too late to start over. I dug some soil into the roots, sprinkled slow-release synthetic fertilizers, and watered the plants with liquid fertilizer. By the end of the growing season, I had harvested a few dozen tomatoes, perhaps half a dozen cucumbers, and a scattering of bush beans.

This year, I was determined not to make the same mistakes. I borrowed a capacious wheelbarrow from my neighbor, and transferred load after load of the bad garden soil to the flowerbeds, where it would do less harm. My body is solidly built, but that sort of work is much like snow-shoveling: it hurts all the more because it uses muscles that aren’t regularly used in any other normal activity. I ached for days after the first attempt to empty the garden.

Another landscaper filled the void with one and a half cubic yards of compost that she claimed would grow anything. “I slipped when I was standing in the truck, and told my workers, ‘I just fell down the shitpile!’” the landscaper said, chuckling. The workers piled the dirt higher than the edges of the raised garden box, unintentionally creating another day’s work for me: the extra soil would again have to be transferred to one of the flowerbeds. If the landscaper was right about the soil’s fertility, the dried blood and bone meal I bought as organic sources of nitrogen and phosphorus will also be dumped among the flowers.

But before I plant my spring peas, I will use my cheap consumer testing kits to make sure there are at least some nutrients in the soil at the start. To those who claim that gardening is a form of therapy, I say, “Bah!”

Gardening is all about grubbing in the dirt, killing bugs, and smashing the guts out of tomato-eating caterpillars. It’s not a gentle hobby; it’s a blood sport and an exhausting occupation, a struggle against the vicissitudes of nature and a competition with every other living thing that eats vegetables (which includes most of the animal world, except the carnivores). Its rewards are scant compensation for the effort involved.

Success in the garden is no wondrous miracle of gentle growth; it is an achievement won through intense physical labor and mental calculation. Even on a small scale, a garden puts grit behind your fingernails and a sunburn on your neck.

If you want therapy, buy a scented candle instead.