MooDooDoo CowDooDoo: Why Fertilizers are important to Plants: What Nutrients do Plants Need? Let an Expert Tell You

"....For most plants in most soils, the 3 key nutrients plants need are NITROGEN-PHOSPHOROUS-POTASSIUM. We get our nutrients (sodium, potassium, a-vitamins etc) in our diet, but plants do not eat. They product their own food through a process called "photosynthesis". Very briefly, this is when plants combine nutrients (call it: raw materials) together with water and carbondioxide (from air) using the sun as an energy source to create the transformation. Therefore, instead of food, plants need the basic elements (which we call nutrients) and they then produce their own food.

Whether you use Miracle Grow or Cow Manure, all you do is to resupply nutrients to the plants. These nutrients the plants use to make their own food. Cow manure contain nutrients in an organic form (as large complex organic molecules). Microbes in the soil break these large molecules into very very small molecules which can then penetrate the cells in the plants and be taken up through the roots with the water. Miracle Grow is a factory made collection of nutrients. It contain plant nutrients which are already broken down into the very small molecules. You can say that Miracle Grow is the engineers way of making the same molecules available to the plants, but without the smell...."