If you’re new to gardening, shopping for the right type of plant nutrition at your local home store could be confusing. Should you buy plant food or fertilizer?
In this article, we’ll explain what each type of plant fertilizer is and when you should either one. First, let’s understand the difference between these two products.
What is the Difference Between Plant Food And Fertilizer?
Some shop products might use the terms interchangeably, but there is a difference, and that lies in the ingredients.
Plant food, such as Miracle-Gro, are usually products that can be applied in small amounts to help with a plant‘s growth. Fertilizer, on the other hand, refers to products applied to the soil a few times a year.
What Is Plant Food?
Products labelled as “plant food” contain essential nutrients made from plants after photosynthesis.
The basic ingredients for photosynthesis are carbon dioxide, sunlight, and water, but plants also need micronutrients to help during photosynthesis and efficient energy storage.
Most plants need these essential elements:
- boron
- zinc
- manganese
- iron
- copper
The reason why plant food is given in small doses is to avoid giving too many micronutrients. Overdosing on these elements can affect growth and even damage the plant.
Sometimes, liquid fertilizers that contain glucose are sold as plant food for store-bought flowers and bouquets. These should only be used to extend the lives of cut flowers, never for house plants or in your garden.
What Is Fertilizer?
Fertilizer enriches planting soil with the “big three” nutrients: nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. You’ll see these chemicals abbreviated as “N-P-K” or even just three numbers that refer to their relative concentrations (e.g. 10-10-10).
These provide plants with plenty of raw materials for growing strong stems and roots. All three are critical components of amino acids, the primary building blocks of proteins.
Since all plants need N-P-K as primary nutrients, most fertilizers include these ingredients. Different plants require different N-P-K ratios, so fertilizers have different relative concentrations to receive the correct nutrient levels for optimal plant growth.
Whether you have clay soil or potting soil, these potting mixes can generally handle larger amounts of N-P-K, so fertilizers tend to be applied less frequently than plant foods. However, plants can still suffer from “fertilizer burn” if the soil is over-fertilized.
Fertilizers are great for lawns and garden soil since they can be applied less frequently and are beneficial for all plants.
You might have noticed from the fertilizer label that there are different types. Let’s briefly explain what they are so you know which ones will help grow healthy plants.
All-Natural Fertilizer
“Natural” refers to fertilizers that contain nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium from organic matter. This includes manure, compost, plant waste, and worm castings. Bone meal and blood meal from animal slaughter are also used in some natural fertilizers.
These fertilizers differ significantly from synthetic fertilizers.
For one, they are less concentrated. If you’re using straight manure or a compost pile, you won’t know exactly how much of each nutrient you’re adding to the soil. While this makes it harder for farms to fertilize the soil, household gardeners can successfully use natural fertilizers on lawns and outdoor beds.
Natural fertilizers are less likely to overdose soils with NPK and cause fertilizer burn. That said, your community may still restrict your use of natural fertilizer outdoors. This limitation prevents damage from runoff into waterways.
Natural fertilizers also contain many micronutrients. They also have ingredients known as soil amendments that allow your soil to retain water and nutrients more effectively. Soil amendments enable your soil to act like a sponge, storing nutrients and releasing them to plants as needed.
Synthetic Fertilizer
Also known as chemical fertilizers, these products are made in factories and consist of ammonium nitrate.
Because they can be made at scale, synthetic fertilizers are used to boost crop yields.
It’s best to avoid using synthetic fertilizers for your lawn and garden and stick with organic material instead.
How To Decide What You Need
By now, you should know that you can use plant food or fertilizer depending on your needs. However, since there are distinct differences between the two products, the terms shouldn’t be used interchangeably.
To recap, plant food works well to nurture indoor plants or specialized garden plants and should be applied in small amounts.
Organic fertilizer is great for nourishing outdoor plants and lawns. All plants can benefit from the N-P-K trio of nutrients.
If you’re looking to provide your lawn or outdoor beds with extra micronutrients and strengthen your soil through soil amendments, look into a slow-release fertilizer.
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