FERTILIZER PHILOSOPHY

Excerpt from PURSUIT: Ya Kuwinda.
This is Book #1 in Brandon’s Pursuit Series.
The newly-revised 2nd Edition was released in 2018.

The warm glow of her father’s speech enraptured her.

Fertilizers are tricky, you know. There are the big three: Nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium. Nitrogen for greening, phosphorous for flowering and bud set, and potassium for root and stem structure. There are the micronutrients: calcium, sulfur, and manganese. Iron and some trace elements are also necessary.

The funny thing is that if a horticulturist applies fertilizer incorrectly, either in a concentration too high or with too many applications, the plant suffers what is called fertilizer ‘burn.’

Amazingly, fertilizers are salts. Salts have a negative charge; the root nodes that are their targets have a positive charge. When applied in the proper ratio, one negative attracts to one positive. The necessary nutrient is then extracted from the salt and sent up into the plant material.

When the ratio is upset, the salts attach en masse to the root nodes, plugging them up, and the plant gets nothing. Not only that, salts ‘burn’ the roots just like when you put salt on a snail.

Too much of a good thing, I would say.

People’s lives are just like that, Harper. When you are older, you will meet people with improper ratios. Some people will be incapable of their complete growth for lack of any nutrients.

Some people have been given too much to absorb so they end up with nothing—none of the proper nutrients going into their hearts.

I knew a woman once who had everything. In fact, she had so much of everything it made her mad because, even though she had so much, she was still the same miserable person as before.

You will meet those people, Harper, and nothing you do will make them happy. But you will also meet people who have barely anything and are the happiest on the planet.

Harper smiled to herself, feeling like one of those people.