Dear Rodger: Way back in the 40's, when I started working as an apprentice in horticulture, we had two types of bone meal, steamed and not steamed. We use to make our own soil mixes, and used both bone meal and hoof & horn, which I doubt is still around. We had other basic fertilizers, dried blood, super phosphate, murate and regular potash, and so on. We mixed all of these by hand, which makes me realslise I still have never worn gloves when gardening, even when pruning roses. Perhaps I am suffering from some disease perhaps it made me "Mad about Bulbs!" Cheers, John E. Bryan Rodger Whitlock wrote: > > On 22 Jan 04 at 21:39, Robin L. Hansen wrote: > > > I'm just now getting to finish the fall issue of The Bulb Garden and > > Ms. Richardson makes note of the fact that she considers "modern" > > bone meal generally useless as bulb fertilizer. > > > > Can anyone tell me why? > > In ye goode olde Dayes, bonemeal was ground-up bones that had > fragments of meat still attached and the collagen still in place. > These days, bones are processed for gelatin and such, and are > nearly pure calcium phosphate -- which is nearly insoluble! This has > been true for quite a long time, I believe. > > Putting bonemeal on your garden won't harm it, but it probably > doesn't do much good. > > Don't waste your money on it. > > -- > Rodger Whitlock > Victoria, British Columbia, Canada > Maritime Zone 8, a cool Mediterranean climate > > on beautiful Vancouver Island > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php