Thursday, March 19, 2009

Would You Sell An Urea Based Fertilizer at Green Harmony Living?


Hi Roswitha

Thanks for your fertilizer question. Your question and my answer follow.


Question: Would you consider selling Market America’s Lawn Power or Plant Power products on your Green Harmony Living’s website?


Answer: I looked at the Lawn Power product. I think its premise is sound: adding enzymes, nitrogen, and minerals to plants and the soil are good. However, what I don’t like is that the ingredients list is vague; it doesn’t state exactly what the ingredients are; which enzymes, what form of nitrogen, and what form of minerals. There are natural forms and synthetic forms of each. I prefer to use only natural, organic, and animal free forms. I did read that this product uses urea nitrogen which is a red flag for me since I am morally and health consciously opposed to using slaughterhouse products. Urea is made from the urine from slaughtered cows and buying it supports the slaughter industry.


I prefer to use natural forms of nitrogen from plants such as cottonseed meal, and will occasionally, if for a special reason, use non slaughterhouse, composted animal manure from wild animals, such as bat or bird guano, since then my plants and in turn I am consuming what is naturally found in the environment. Using only plant forms is called veganic, as in veganic fertilizer. Veganic is important to me since I think that if you apply animal fertilizers to plants, the plants take up many of the toxins, which are higher in animals than in plants, so that when you eat that plant, you are getting more toxins into your body. In fact, there is a line of science called phytoremediation that uses plants to take toxins out of the soil for safer cleanup and disposal, so this phenomenon is well documented. I want to live as toxin free as possible and I think that what fertilizer I put on my vegetable garden is important to my health, so I choose only plant derived fertilizers which I think are safe and effective.


To go a step further, in most instances for a vegetable garden, one doesn’t need fertilizers if you are able to put in a little extra effort. Good, homemade compost is the best nutrient source and all your plants need. For lawns or ornamental plant beds, some organic, plant fertilizers may be needed to establish a new planting, but once the plants are established after a few years, and you employ nutrient recycling where you leave the lawn and plants trimmings on the lawn and beds, then fertilizers aren’t really needed. Using fertilizers, especially slaughterhouse and factory farm derived ones, causes more global warming since it generally takes much energy to produce the fertilizer, transport it, and then once applied, the plants need more water to deal with the higher nutrient load, especially during the summer when plants can burn or die out from too much fertilizer. The only fertilizers found in nature are naturally occurring animal excrement, nutrient recycling from leaves and other decaying plant (mostly) and animal (some) materials, and nitrogen from the air (which is why plants get a boost after a rain),


In my green point of view, following nature's way is the soundest way to go since in nature we see regeneration and longterm sustainability at work as opposed to humans’ unsustainable, rape the earth mantra which will only bring about the planet’s demise.

In summary, the lawn power sounds fine in premise, but I don’t agree with the use of urea nitrogen and cannot comment on the other ingredients since it doesn’t state what they are. For me as a consumer or when deciding what products to carry on our webstore, I do not buy from companies who are vague or do not list exactly what the ingredients are since it appears that the company is trying to hide the truth and are, in many cases, using cheaper ingredients, i.e. slaughterhouse and factory made, and then cover this fact up with glossy marketing and then sell it to unknowledgeable consumers. That is, in a nutshell, how most products are made and sold by large companies, especially in the USA. That is why we started our company Green Harmony Living, to offer to the public really healthy, really green, really truthful, really effective products that are hard to find anywhere else these days! I apologize if I gave you more information than you wanted to know. I believe in being honest with people since I believe this helps people more in the long term.

To our green and healthy world!

Roland Oehme

Roland's Websites:
Green Harmony Living
Green Harmony Design
Green Harmony Tours