I'm sure your local hydroponics store has some complete "organic" fertilizer systems, but it'll cost you.

Three issues to consider:

- You won't find an organic fertilizer with all the macros/micros of FP
- It is debatable whether Gritty can foster a sizeable enough micro-community to breakdown your organic fert when it's needed
- Some organics are pretty quick release. They may dissolve and wash out fairly quickly given the tendencies of Gritty. This means more replenishing in the root zone. Therefore, research the avg release time of your organic choices.

Um, this all said -- why not just use Foliage Pro? Nothing is more simple than that particular fert.

I would tend to agree with the analysis above... I save organic growing and methods for the garden, where the environment to foster them exists... and I go with a more 'inorganic' approach when it comes to growing in the confined space of containers, where that same balance Mother Nature keeps is not available and cannot be adequately duplicated or kept.

When it comes to growing in pots, the grower must control the variables... moisture, nutrition, drainage, light, temperature, etc... so it's better to use a liquid fertilizer that is immediately available to the roots for uptake. Many organic fertilizers are not immediately available, and require what Mother Nature would allow in order to be usable nutrition.

I go with a liquid, like Miracle Gro or Foliage Pro, and the addition of micro-nutrients which are immediately usable by the root system.

There's a world of difference between growing in a garden environment and growing within the confined space of pots. For more information, it's helpful to read the articles Tapla has written, within this forum, the first of which is "Container Soils - Water Movement & Retention", and others that discuss fertilizing, pruning, root pruning, and other subjects.

Below is a link to a good article that explains the topic of fertilizing potted plants...

Here is a link that might be useful: Fertilizering Containerized Plants IV

I grow most of my potted plants as organic. I think it works better. The gritty mix is a challenge. But you know it's worth trying. Try using liquid organics like fish emulsion. I would also add trace minerals, water with a powdered kelp to do this. Make sure fish product is an emulsion, it's a better product with more nutrients. You could also add mycorrhizal fungi. Mycogrow offers them for 5 bucks, enough for 250 plants.
Use it a few times a year to make sure they take. I usually only use once a year or when pots become super dry.
I bet your plant will thrive and be huge, at least my experience using organics over the dead media growing techniques. Plants grown organically are more disease resistant, less susceptible to virus infections, root rot, and live longer. At first I thought this was hype, and BS. As it's just chemistry. But I didn't understand the benefits of symbiotic relationships. Having beneficial fungi and bacteria work together as they have a mutual interest.
So you're really growing in a ecosystem where each part supports the other.
One example is 3 bean plants in one pot. If one bean plant has aphids it will release a defense chemical to try to fight the aphids. All plants do these things. The other plants will not release this defense chemical until infected.
If you inoculated with mycorrhizal fungi, the fungi connect to each other from all three plants. So if one has aphids, all three will release the defense chemicals.It is a small ecosystem. Works very well for me.
Even with only one plant, the fungi sensing the defense chemical can release antibiotics itself. It's own defense molecules.
In the recent post here about peppers, it was reported that in 5 gallon pots, plants were not root bound. I used 10 gallon pots with fungi, and when I removed plants 75% of the soil had roots, so about 7 or 8 gallons of the soil was used. Increased root growth using fungi is common. My pepper yields were amazing. Some producing hundreds of peppers. Most did not produce that many, but a few did, like Peppadew, lemon drop, and starfish.
Anyway I'm now thinking organic is the way to go. I was a skeptic, but gave it a try. And was pleasantly surprised at how successful It was using organic techniques. I'm going to phase out all soluble fertilizers. use them up, as I'm a cheap kinda guy, switch to all organic.

Well not all. One plant type, fruit trees I have not had complete success going organic there. Maybe in the future the organic people will figure a way but for now, synthetic pesticides are needed to grow a decent crop. Not with all but some like peaches. You can go organic with apples.
I am not a tree hugger, I use what works, I could care if organic or synthetic. I use what works for me.
One area I like using soluble fertilizer is with seedlings, once they begin to grow a touch. Once bigger and in final pot, then going organic makes sense to me. So I probably will always use some synthetic soluble fertilizer. As I said I'm interested in results, not totally sold on 100% organic, not even close. I just observed that it does work well in many situations including container culture.

If you add one part compost to your gritty mix that should give what's needed to support microbial life. If already mixed, just add some to the top, it will look ugly though. It will eventually decompose. Add more every year.

Who reported that peppers in 5-gallon pots were not rootbound? All of mine certainly are.

Josh

Organic in gritty can be done! I use liquid General Organics BioThrive Grow and it's tremendous. It has almost every nutrient in there except CA and MG (which you can also get in their Organics line).

I also use Foliage Pro, Osmocote Plus as well as many different organic fertilizers like Espoma, Jobes and Dr. Earth. All work. My veggies like the General Organics better than Foliage Pro for whatever reason. My fruit trees like Foliage Pro and Osmocote. Go figure.

There is a question about unprocessed organics like bone meal, guano and whatnot working in pots -- they need time and soil microbes to break down. Liquids like General Organics, Earthjuice etc. act quickly so that's your best bet to keep it organic.

I have been researching organic fertilizers because I noticed how much better my plants grow using organics. In the process I discovered plants can absorb whole amino acids. It is a lot easier for a plant to absorb the amino acids than to have to synthesize them. This might explain what I'm seeing. With the gritty mix you could use a foliar spray to get the amino acids to the plants. Just make sure the organic liquid contains raw amino acids. it appears all do, but make sure. I like Sea Mate myself. A soil drench would probably work too. Bacteria also can live anywhere. so some will be broken down. Here is some info on amino acid absorption.

http://www.agrinaturals.com/pdfs/EN-AMINO.pdf
http://www.priyachem.com/effect.htm
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1940891?uid=3739808&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21104732151001

This post was edited by Drew51 on Wed, Dec 3, 14 at 0:59