BLUF: Miracle Gro is basically minerals salts and coloring, which can (but doesn’t always) help short term, but long term will destroy the beneficial things in your soil. It’s expensive and messy and can harm your vegetables. Free and low cost alternatives include animal manure, natural mulch, etc… all of which add to rather than depleting from the soil.
I’m not sure if any of you are aware of the demon Monsanto. Coming from the Left, as I do, I have a real hate for Monsanto. However, I also learned hate for them through local farmers who are very conservative Trump supporters. Monsanto is not a good company, for a LOT of reasons. I don’t want to write about them, so I am offering you an article to go read at your own pace (yes, the site is anti-Trump, but their information on this topic is not bad).
Now to Miracle Gro. There’s an incestuous relationship between Monsanto and Miracle Gro which makes me uneasy. Monsanto doesn’t own it Miracle Gro, nor vice versa, but there’s a lot going on between them. That alone is enough to warn me off, however, there’s more. MG was successfully sued for lying about pesticides in their bird food that they manufactured and sold, which led to the death of enough song birds to cause a lot of people to get upset. I realize one legal case by a rabid leftist isn’t enough to cause a conservative to flinch, as it could always just be one they settled out of court to get the suing party to shut up. So I present you with a tracking website keeping dibs on all the court cases MG has lost.
There are places for chemicals. I use chemicals in the garden from time to time. I use chemicals against wasps, because they’re stingy assholes and I’m allergic. There are times when it’s just right to use chemicals. But if you’re paying extra to get something free of chemicals, if you’re actively looking to avoid chemicals, and a company sells you something it says is chemical free and it is not… that’s just not right. And that’s what Miracle Gro seems to be doing.
It’s not even that it’s necessarily “bad chemicals” in their products. I believe that ever MG product has salt in it. While tiny amounts of salt can help add things to your soil that benefit your plants, at least in the short term, it destroys your soil in the long term. Ever heard of Romans “salting the earth” before leaving an area? That’s so the enemy couldn’t plant crops for 20 years or more. That’s how bad salt is for your garden.
If you want to give good fertilizer to your garden and improve your soil, pick up some bunny poop and make bunny poop tea, and use that to water your plants. Pick up some local well aged manure and shovel that in around your plants. Most of the time, if you’re dealing with local folk, it will cost you nothing or very little, because you’re saving those people from having to remove the manure themselves.
Comments
3 responses to “Miracle Gro”
I use Miracle Gro on potted plants and never really thought twice about it. I have used it in my garden beds as well, but not as a primary fertilizer. But, after your comments on the keep out the varmints article and this one, I looked into it.
From my (admittedly cursory) review of ‘net articles, it seems the damage to the soil is not the worst of it. I get the feeling it would take way more MG to ruin the soil than is realistic, but it is a factor to consider. And, there is the reduction in soil microbial activity because of the salts. A change to soil acidity seems to be the cause.
What I see as the worse factor is the harm it does to the plants themselves. One site described it as “feeding your plants energy drinks instead of food.” Yes, it will cause a burst of growth, but because of the unnatural speed of it, the plants are not strongly developed. Weak plants equate to disease and infestations. And, if you are growing food, the nutritious content is questionable, if you ask me.
I never relied on Miracle Gro by itself anyway. There is always compost, manure, and other natural methods in play. I will likely stop all use after this short investigation.
Thanks for alerting me to this. My plants thank you as well.
I used to use it, too. Then I learned. And yes, I left out a bunch of “crunchy leftist” reasons I don’t use Miracle Gro and Monsanto products, because I didn’t feel it was necessary to drown y’all in such info to convince you it wasn’t good. I kept to the facts! 😀
I tend toward using things that I could replicate should the world go to hell anytime soon. Since I don’t have the chemicals to make Miracle Gro, I don’t use it. I *do* use mineral salts on their own in certain places, because those I can replenish. 🙂
And you’re most welcome. My crunchy education is occasionally useful. 😉
“I tend toward using things that I could replicate should the world go to hell anytime soon.”
Whether the world goes to hell or not, that is really good advice. And, there may come a time when the cost of mass produced starts creeping up. Worth it to have an alternative.