Ever since I was a little kid, I have been told that plants needed Miracle-Gro to grow big and strong.
While it is true that plants need nutrients to grow, chemical fertilizers are not the best choice to feed them. Fertilizers are Mother Nature's drugs. Too much can lead her to O.D.
Studies have shown that mass fertilizer use has led to a large loss in biodiversity due to runoff pollution. Runoff is dangerous for people and animals; it gets into our water supplies, causing sickness or death.
For decades, the United States has used nitrogen-based fertilizers, believing it would create the greatest growth in plants. However, scientists have found that runoff nitrogen can lead to "dead zones" in salt-water systems, where living creatures cannot survive.
Still want big vegetables? There is a solution: compost.
Compost improves the soil's ability to hold nutrients and stabilizes soil pH. It can increase the water-holding capacity of sandy soils and reduce erosion and runoff. Compost also helps reduce plant-borne disease.
The nutrients that are present in your compost are biodegradable and will not harm the environment.
Composting is also very easy and cheap. The only effort needed is to put your food scraps in the pile or bucket.
Once your scraps are decomposed, add it to your garden. Scientists have shown that compost gardens produce growth output similar to that of chemical fertilizers.
It is hard to produce in bulk, but for those of you with home vegetable or flower gardens, compost is the better alternative.
If we all change our behavior to use compost rather than chemical fertilizers, we can help save Mother Earth.
Stop using chemical fertilizers. If you want to increase the size of your cucumber; compost it!
Kimberly Johnston is a wildlife ecology and conservation senior at UF.
