Fenton Friday: Is Fertilizing Cheating?

HIghtop the Flamingo

This week I added a flamingo I've named "Hightop" to look over my plot. He has a bit of a fade going on, you see. I added him to the growing flock at the Fenton Community Garden that started when I returned Beth Py-Lieberman's borrowed bird and placed it in the fencing over-looking her plot. In the last few weeks, many more flamingos have appeared in various other spots. I have a bag of legless birds that I may offer to other plot owners who want to join the flock and are crafty with a wire hanger.

This week I planted some garlic and another basil. Everything is coming along nicely. The tomatoes are recovering from their heat/transplant stress and are putting on flowers and new foliage. The biggest change I noticed a few days ago was that my Honeydew Melon had jumped in size from 6 inches long one day to several feet the next. You go, Honeydew!


Honeydew Melon



Looking around, many other plots are well "ahead" of mine with fuller, nicer-looking plantings. It finally occured to me, "Hey, they are fertilizing!" Damn them. I hate fertilizing, it just feel like cheating to me; like taking steroids or paying certain star players to fake an injury and stay home. I think my objection comes from the way fertilizer is marketed as plant "food" when really it is more akin to giving them vitamins and minerals. It just feels "dirty" to use this outside boost. I know it is not rational, but there it is. So I psyched myself up yesterday with a pep talk about how crappy the soil really is at the garden plot and I pulled out some sample fertilizers I'd been given to trial. I fertilized my tomatoes with Organic Dynamite "for bigger, jucier tomatoes" and then "fed" the rest of the plants with a wee bit of Liquid Fence's Speedy Grow Organic Plant Booster. Then, cause I was on such a roll, at my home garden I sprinkled all my containers and beds with Terracycle All Purpose natural plant food with worm castings.