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Fertilizers & Plant Food

Shopping and Usage Tips

Even organic fertilizers can add too much nitrogen and phosphorus to your soil and to waterways, promoting algal blooms that kill off aquatic life. Proper lawn management can reduce your need for fertilizers, organic or otherwise.

• Leave lawn clippings (both grass and leaves) on the ground so their nutrients can be returned to the soil. This will cut down the need for any fertilizer by half.
• Plant clover. Even though it looks like a weed, it converts nitrogen into a form usable by other plants. The clippings of a 5 percent clover lawn can create enough usable nitrogen to render fertilizing unnecessary.
• Have your soil tested by your local USDA Cooperative Extension Service to determine pH and what nutrients, if any, your grass is missing, or test it yourself with the Soil Testing Kit listed in our Product Comparisons. To find your local extension office, see Resources. Gardeners Get Ready also offers tips on preparing your soil sample.
• Once you know the pH, you can add organic matter to help balance it. Lawns prefer slightly acidic soils with a pH range of 6.5 to 7, but flowers, shrubs and trees vary in their pH preferences. Lime helps balance acidic soil, while sulfur helps with alkaline.
• To find out the nutrient content of a fertilizer, look for the "NPK" number (NPK stands for nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium). A "5-6-5" NPK number, for instance, means that a fertilizer is 5 percent nitrogen, 6 percent phosphorus and 5 percent potassium with the remaining 84 percent representing filler material (See The Backstory).
• Make your own compost using kitchen scraps and grass clippings. Click here for tools and tips.

Application Tips

• Only spread about 1/2 inch of compost on your lawn at a time. Even though plant-based nitrogen is more easily absorbed, composts and organic fertilizers can still be applied too heavily, leading to nitrogen- and phosphate-heavy runoff.
• Avoid applying fertilizer before a downpour that will rinse it away before it gets absorbed.
• Wear a mask if you're applying dusty fertilizers made with lime or any other fine particles you might inhale.