Hardened soluble fertilizer

[JackE]

I'm sure other market gardeners have had soluble fertilizer get hard in the bags with time, making it very difficult to handle - especially if stored without climate control. Last year, we got Scott's 20-10-20 at a real good price and bought extra. We have 400#, in 25# bags, left over from 2010 and it's hard as ROCK - impossible to handle.

When it hardens a little, you can simply drop the bag on concrete, of course, and it breaks-up enough to measure-out and weigh. But this is way beyond that stage! It doesn't effect the fertilizer, though - thank goodness! (It's EXPENSIVE - and I'm the guy that bought extra )

So here's how we solved the problem. We put the bag in a metal wash tub and cut the bag off, leaving a solid brick-hard block. Then we broke it into pieces with a hammer, and kept beating on it with the blunt end of a 2X4 until it approached it's original granular form (small chunks, like 1/2", are okay). Then we measured it into zip-lock bags in the sizes we use. If it gets hard in the small bags, no problem.

It dawned on me that the bags will be so convenient - no weighing, just dump it in the sprayer or injector - that we may always re-package it like that in the future, which will be easy when it's fresh.

I hope someone finds this uselful.

Jack

[Colorado_west]

I have had to bust up some fetilizer. Would of couse not run thorugh the attachment on the seeder. I just used a bucket and put along like I had been. Maybe a chunk here and there. I have not looked to see what it did this past winter. I maybe be doing it too. Only 4 - 50# sacks and some some stuff. It comes 12-12-? is 12. Farm store. I use it dry. I just use a bucket and dip out a hand full the size I want for each plant. I wear plastic throw away gloves. Seeder make a steady row of it. The spreader broadcasts it around. Neither takes chunks. Oh the fun we have.

[Wi-sunflower]

If you guys thing that stuff is a PITB, you've never seen old Calcium Nitrate. Oh Boy !!!

Besides hard as a brick, it's kind slimy at the same time. But we use it mostly in our watering tank and dissolve it in hot water so you don't need to break it up very much before dumping it in the hot water.

Hubby was in the fertilizer biz for 20+ years. We still get the "screenings" from the company he worked for. We get a great deal on it because it's the fines and chunks that are screened out of the golf course grade blends the company makes. Sometimes it can be a clumpy mess by the time he gets around to putting it out. But he's willing to do the work for what would be some very expensive stuff if we had to buy it.

During the season he will go down the rows with a bucket and broadcast out handfuls around the stuff that needs a boost.

Carol

[Colorado_west]

I have some calcuim I use too. Hard ground and trying to break it up. I tossed out pieces. Lucky you to get it. At the prices of stuff ow one has to use it one way or another.

[Wi-sunflower]

Calcium for hard ground isn't the same as Calcium Nitrate, but both can be hard as rocks.

Carol

[JackE]

Hi Carol -

We use a lot of calcium nitrate. It's real good tomato fert, as you know (we still get BER, though lol) and we don't have to lime so much. But I've never had it harden-up. Maybe because it's stored in the well house where it stays warm and dry. The other stuff is in a shed with high humidity.

What's hardening - and getting worse by the week! - is the 20-10-20 Peters General Purpose. We used to always buy Peters 20-20-20 GP, but the lower P product was like $10/bag cheaper. I've only got a few bags of the hard stuff left, thank goodness - won't buy so much next time.

We use about 1 25# bag a week of that and 50 lbs of Yara greenhouse grade calcium nitrate every month during the growing season. We apply the CN as a liquid too, and you can't mix them together. You get cottage cheese looking stuff in your filters!

Jack

[Wi-sunflower]

Maybe the Calcium Nitrate we get is dif. I know it's not GH grade. But ours sometimes sits for longer than a year and then it's just solid. The stuff is very hygroscopic and sucks up the humidity we have here.

I haven't bought any Peters in a long time. They used to be a really good (tho expensive) brand. But I think they were bought up by Scotts or one of the other biggies. As usual the brand isn't quite the same any more.

There is a trick to combining CN in a solution. You have to put it in LAST. If there is any Mg (or maybe it's Mn) as a micro in the rest of your stuff, if the Ca is in solution first it will precipitate it out. Hence the "cottage cheese". I used to make a very specific fert mix myself that included both CN and Epsom Salts. The Epsom Salts HAD to be the first thing in the hot water. Otherwise it was a mess and you lost the benefit of the Epsom Salts.

Maybe try just a small amount in a jar and see if that works for you.

Carol

[JackE]

We feed the tomatoes cn every other week and 20-10-20 with full trace elements every other week. We don't hold back nitrogen like a lot of people do. We feed both products at the rate of 1# per 100 plants, starting a couple weeks after transplanting and continuing through the season. We don't put-in any preplant granular - just 20-10-20 in the transplant water.

Everybody has different ideas. There's a 50# unopened bag of epson salts in our shed. We were going to add a little every week, but there's magnesium in the fertilizer and I decided not to.

Jack