Fertilizer

The term fertilizer is used by farmers and gardeners or material intended to supply the plants they are cultivating with nutrients to enhance the plants' growth.

Animal Manure and bird guano are powerful natural fertilizers.

In the early 19th century the first use of artificial fertizers was recorde.d. Byproducts of industrial processes were found to be useful fertilizers. Other artificial fertilizers were developed as products in themselves.

Nitrogen based fertilizers

Plants require Nitrogen to grow. However most plants cannot use atmospheric Nitrogen. Plants can only consume Nitrogen compounds, like urea or ammonia. One traditional method for boosting the Nitrogen compound components of garden soil is to grow plants that fix Nitrogen, like legumes.

Artificial fertilizers are packaged with three or four numbers listed on the container. The first number is the amounnt of Nitrogen in the fertilizer. Phosphorus, Phosphate and Sulfur are the other numbers listed on fertilizers that comply with the NPK guaranteed analysis standard.