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Organic Fertilizers No Friend to Pets

Master gardener Maureen Gilmer, host of Weekend Gardening, issues a warning to pet owners about using organic fertilizers.

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	Smart Start organic fertilizer comes in small paper packets to plant whole, under the new plant. (Photos courtesy of Maureen Gilmer.)
	Use Smart Start to give your bedding flowers a long-range diet.

Some treasures too tempting to be left alone

By Maureen Gilmer

I'm sure it was the wild Australian Dingo blood that made her do it.

The feral hunter ancestry of Dot, my Queensland Heeler, makes these dogs truly remarkable. She's not prone to digging at all, and normally tiptoes around all my delicate plants.

I had just planted a whole flat of snapdragons and returned outside in the evening air to find them in total disarray. Most were unearthed but undamaged; others still stood beside carefully scratched-out holes. Of course, Exhibit A was Dot's earth-cloaked muzzle.

I'd planted that bed using Smart Start fertilizer packets. They're an ingenious organic fertilizer sealed in convenient tea bag-like paper packets that gradually decompose underground. They go into the planting hole, along with the new plant. They give your plants a rich source of organic nutrients long after planting time. My experiment this year was to see how they would fare with annual bedding plants.

Dot surgically extracted half of the packets I'd planted with the snapdragons. She ate them--paper and all. I immediately thought to call the Poison Control Center, as I had when my boxer, Ruby, had chowed down on a bunch of blue fertilizer pellets. I studied Ruby's lips and gums, finding them burned to a bright pink by the chemicals. The poison-center guy said she probably vomited them up and to look for signs of it. Lo and behold, out behind the house were two pools of blue goo.

This time it was different because the packets were all organic. A look at the box label told me what made them so irresistible to Dot. Each packet contained a blend of fish meal, bone meal and feather meal as well as alfalfa meal and potash. Most of those items would be a large part of the wild dingo's diet.

I scolded Dot and replanted the snapdragons. The next day this stealthy heeler with her obsessive personality could not resist going back for a second course. These dogs learn quickly and usually obey, but the packet smells held her spellbound. I gave up after the third replanting; she would not cease hunting for treasure until every last packet was unearthed and consumed.

Dot taught me many things. First, she let it be known that dogs, and possibly cats, may find animal byproducts in organic fertilizers irresistible. But when these products are tilled into soil over a large area, the scent is not concentrated enough to draw them into digging. When byproducts are used in concentrated packets like Smart Start, the smells are rich at a single point.

If the fertilizer packet is planted deep, and perhaps covered with a foot of soil, the smell may not present such a lure. But when used in more shallow holes with veggies or bedding plants as I did, there is a risk that pets may start digging. If I'd dug deeper holes for the snapdragons and put Smart Start underneath the seedlings rather than on the sides, the dog might have left them alone. But maybe not.

I also learned the value of using organic products. Dot did not lose her appetite after consuming the first 20 packets. In fact, despite some diarrhea, she was eager to go back for more the next day. Heelers are known to be omnivorous, but other less rugged breeds might react differently. Consider this and all fertilizer products harmful to pets and children.

I am a fan of any kind of organic gardening product that is as easy to use as the former synthetic chemical fertilizers. While I once used blue tablets, I am now still actively using Smart Start, albeit a bit deeper in light of Dot's interest. You can learn more about Smart Start and many other easy to use organic plant and soil foods at the Whitney Farms website, www.whitneyfarms.com.

Despite their early struggles, the snapdragons flourished without the chemicals. And with far more deeply buried treasures, Dot thankfully has now returned to her formal reverence for my garden.

(Maureen Gilmer is a horticulturist and host of Weekend Gardening. E-mail her at mo@moplants.com. For more information, visit: www.moplants.com.

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