There are many organic fertilizer products available online. Many are not particularly good (or are potentially even harmful), so I thought I'd browse through and make a list of those that are worthwhile for you to purchase.
(This article was initially titled "18 Fertilizers You Can Buy At Amazon.com." I had chosen them because they're all over the world, their prices are good and you can get much of what you need there. I've since changed it to "18 Fertilizers You Can Buy Online" because I have conflicting feelings about supporting Amazon for several reasons. This article isn't about that, but I prefer to support smaller businesses a lot of the time. So all of these fertilizers are available on Amazon, or you can find them on other websites, too.)
This process involved going back to the fertilizer manufacturers' websites and reading through their MSDS sheets and labels to see what the products are really made of. Lots of work, so I hope it's useful to you.
Canadians can find many high quality organic fertilizers at a business I used to run called The Organic Gardener's Pantry, but most of my readers live in other countries, so I thought this would be helpful.
Amazon sells so many fertilizers that I got overwhelmed trying to research them all, but I found a few good ones for you, along with some not so good ones to stay away from.
By the way, there are some companies who seem to have their hearts in the right place, but I just can't recommend them because I don't like some of the organic fertilizer ingredients they're blending together. I'm not trying to pick on them, though.
(One more aside: You may be interested in my How To Test Soil And How To Fertilize gardening course online.)
Good Organic Fertilizers
Maxicrop Seaweed Soluble Powder.
This is a nice seaweed product from a company that's been around for awhile. I don't love all of their products, but this is a good buy. Their liquid seaweed is also good and perhaps a little easier to use. Seaweed is full of natural plant growth hormones and over 70 minerals that improve plant health. Kelp is one of the best organic fertilizers.
SCD Bio Ag - EM
This is basically effective microorganisms, another microbial inoculant. This is the number 1 product I use in my garden, even before organic fertilizers. Actually, I buy a mother culture, which I can activate to make my own, whereas this seems to be more of an already-activated product that would just be used straight from the bottle.
Organic Neptune's Harvest Fish & Seaweed Fertilizer
Good price and a nice combination of fish and seaweed. I tend to purchase fish and seaweed products separately to give myself more control about when I use them, but a combo is fine, too.
44 Lbs of Azomite Rock Dust
This is a really nice rock dust fertilizer, one of the best organic fertilizers on Amazon, providing a broad spectrum of minerals for your soil instead of just N-P-K. The only problem is it's pricey at over $50, and the additional $27 shipping would stop me from buying it. But if you can find it locally, go for it.
Dr. Earth Organic 5 Tomato Vegetable Herb Fertilizer
This organic fertilizer for vegetables contains fish bone meal, kelp meal, feather meal, alfalfa meal (alfalfa will be genetically modified soon), fish meal, soft rock phosphate, mined potassium sulfate (not always warranted), seaweed extract, humic acid, and 7 strains of soil microbes plus endo and ectomycorrhizae. I usually stay away from blends, but these ingredients should be okay. I like that it doesn't contain bone meal, GM seed meals, and too many mineral fertilizers like dolomite.
These Might Be Okay
Bioform Liquid Organic Fertilizer
This liquid organic fertilizer contains some good ingredients - molasses, seaweed and fish hydrolysate - but it also contains bone meal, which I no longer recommended due to the transmission of prions associated with mad cow disease. I'm always kind of on the fence about bone meal, not wanting to totally bash it, but not promoting it either because of the potential problems and because there are better options.
Mastergardening Liquid Fish Emulsion
This might be okay, but I can't find any information on it, which always makes me walk away. Is it really organic? Is it poor quality? An emulsion is often not as good as a hydrolysate, but can certainly be useful - still, there's no way to tell what is in here because they don't have any info on it.
Dynamite Organic Fertilizer
Seems like it might be okay, but I can't find the ingredients on their website. If they don't list the ingredients, I don't buy.
Jobe's Organic All Purpose Granular Fertilizer
The company looks cool, but I'm not a huge fan of the ingredients in their products. This product (and others from this same brand) contains ingredients that I don't usually recommend - bone meal (mad cow disease), sulfate of potash (only if you need both sulfur and potassium, which you very well may not), composted poultry manure (may be okay if it was from organic birds, but is it?), and feather meal (which may or may not be okay, depending on source).
These Are Not As Good
Plant Success Mycorrhizae Inoculant
I had this on my recommended list, but apparently this product has many ingredients that weren't on any of the MSDSs I read and aren't recommended - trichoderma, feather meal, meat meal, bone meal, poultry meal, blood meal and langbeinite - so I no longer recommend it (trichoderma is not inherently bad, but I don't like it mixed with mycorrhizal fungi).
Alaska Fish Fertilizer
This organic gardening fertilizer is not as good as some other fish products, and I don't like the track record of the parent company Lilly Miller. I prefer the Neptune's Harvest fish and seaweed up above.
Espoma Organic Garden Lime
Lime is used as an organic fertilizer, but I can't find out if it's calcitic lime or dolomite lime. I can't find any other details, plus it's way too expensive for 5 pounds.
Monterey Fish & Poop
It's liquid fish and bat guano. Can't find much info on it, and it just doesn't look very good.
Miracle-Gro Organic Choice Liquid Plant Food
I don't support Miracle-Gro (made by Scotts - see below). Other than that, this product - fermented sugar beet molasses - could actually be helpful a helpful organic fertilizer and biostimulant in the garden, but my main concern is that sugar beets are now being genetically modified.
These Are Not Recommended
Milorganite "Organic Fertilizer"
It's sewage sludge. It's toxic stuff, no matter what they do to clean it up. Please don't fall for their advertising. It's true that we need to find ways to deal with our sewage - and more important, we need to stop dumping chemical fertilizers, pesticides, heavy metals and other industrial toxins into our soil and water systems - but composting it and putting it on our gardens is not the answer.
Scotts Organic Lawn Fertilizer
I don't buy anything from Scotts, not even organic garden fertilizers. Their goal is profits, not quality. Their chemicals are destroying this earth. In my view, they are an unethical company. Just my opinion.
Hasta Gro Lawn Organic Fertilizer
I'm not sure how this can be labeled organic when it contains urea, phosphoric acid, and potassium nitrate. Actually, phosphoric acid is allowed in organics in small amounts as a stabilizer, but not the other two. It contains 12% nitrogen - too rich for my liking - and a bunch of cheap EDTA trace minerals.
Bradfield Luscious Organic Lawn Fertilizer
Corn gluten can be useful, but this (like most) will contain genetically-modified corn gluten, which we don't want in our gardens because we just aren't quite sure what might happen to it when it gets into the environment and is consumed by microbes.
Do you have any thoughts or questions on any of them? Feel free to let me know below.
