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Fertilizing
 Some gardeners say that compost is all the fertilizer you need, but we at OurVeggieGarden never seem to have enough of the compost to cover the entire garden. So we augment the compost with a bag of standard 10-10-10 commercial fertilizer. We spread this on our 460 square foot garden and never seem to have a problem with either too much fertilizer or too little. Some people spread horse or cow manure on their gardens, claiming that this is safer and more ‘natural’. It might me more natural, but horse and cow pies can contain a nasty strain of E-coli bacteria that is not killed in the composting process. So now you have allowed E-coli to invade your garden. Our approach is to stay away from horse and cow manure and simply use compost and a bag of 10-10-10, neither of which has any E-coli in it – at least none that we are aware of. Organic gardeners will debate this of course, and each to his own. We at OurVeggieGarden consider ourselves to be semi organic gardeners, in the sense that we try to minimize the amount of pesticides we use, try to have and maintain a healthy, wormy, compost based soil, and only use a bag of 10-10-10 per year to perk up the nutrient levels. For our garden, we feel that this is the best approach, but you have to decide for yourself what is best for you. There is no real right or wrong on the subject of fertilizers, only people with different opinions.
Bone meal is an organic fertilizer made from the bones of slaughtered animals and my contain prions, which are the basis of mad cow disease. Prions are not killed by the sterilization process and are thought to be transferable to humans. Until all of the scientific evidence is in, we recommend that you avoid using bone meal in your vegetable garden.
Fertilizing The Garden With The Fertlizing Tube
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