Years ago when planting, I would line the empty hole with bone meal. I don’t hear of anyone using bone meal any longer. Is it still used? Is there a fertilizer used like it before planting?
I still use bone meal when plant bulbs. Bulbs grow well, but can’t put fingers on it is bone meal or other things.
I put it in the trenches when planting asparagus, and work a bit into the soil around my bulbs every few years. The Nourse Farms planting instructions say to use it with the asparagus.
I haven’t used it with trees, but suppose the reason to use it would be to make sure the roots have sufficient phosphorous available while establishing.
If your soil is notably deficient in P it can’t hurt but probably won’t help. Phosphorous deficiency is not at all a common occurrence and not a nutrient I worry much about. I have never diagnosed a plant with a deficiency in a lifetime in the soil.
Where I believe it can be a problem is with baby vegetables in cool soil in the spring but then you want something more readily available.
It used to be used with bulbs, but really bone meal takes at least 6 months to 2 years to break down. Today most suggest a starter fertilizer.
http://web.extension.illinois.edu/state/newsdetail.cfm?NewsID=20856
http://extension.psu.edu/plants/crops/grains/corn/nutrition/starter-fertilizer
If anyone on here doesn’t mind me asking… what benefit do you get from Bone Meal? Besides the increase of P? I usually use a high P (and by high, I mean a 5-7) Bat Guano at the time of planting myself
First with organics they tend not to wash away so 5-7 is like 10-14 of a soluble fertilzer, so those numbers are decieving. I think you made an excellent choice. It should work very well.
Bonemeal is one of those vile things we put on our plants in the name of organic gardening. The whole prion thing gives me the willies. I’ll take the small bag of superphosphate, thanks.
Or, as “Alan” suggests, maybe skip it entirely.
koko…I didn’t know anything about this prion situation until you just mentioned it. I just went and read up on it and yeah…I’ll continue to roll with the 0-45-0.
My grandma always used bone meal and blood meal when I was a kid. I too, used it with good effect (especially blood meal) when I first started gardening. I don’t know why, but I never gave any thought at all to infectiouis diseases.
Like your grandmother,I used both of those when I was a budding horticulturist starting about 45 years ago. It was what organic growers used to routinely use and both were readily available. Rodale’s “Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening” was my Bible and I was a fundamentalist.
Bloodmeal or dried blood is an excellent deer deterrent.
I still use bone meal when my goal is to encourage blooming of anything. The tree or flowers etc will let you know if they need it.
At my cottage if you use bone meal the raccoons will dig it up, they love it!
So will skunks