Bone meal

Description

Bone meal supplies phosphorus and a few other elements, but conventional and organic gardeners mainly use it for the phosphorus because it is supposedly important for root development, which is partially true.

The other thing is, how do you know you need phosphorus? Maybe your soil has enough or too much already, and adding more might just throw the nutrient balance in the soil more out of whack.

Adding concentrated minerals just for “good measure” doesn’t generally make sense, as it can set off a string of unintended reactions in the soil.

Good organic gardening practice is to add specific minerals only when you know you need them, generally based on an organic soil test, and using bone meal for plants is no different.