fertilizer?

[EricIvins]

Wow.......All you have to do is take the plant out of the soil, and wash it it really well.......Replant in your Vivarium and you're done.........

I've done this many times with multiple Vivariums and never have had any issues.......

 

[Tom]

Wow.......All you have to do is take the plant out of the soil, and wash it it really well.......Replant in your Vivarium and you're done.........

I've done this many times with multiple Vivariums and never have had any issues.......

If a decorative plant is infused with systemic pesticides, which most of the commercial nurseries are now using, and you plant it into a vivarium with an animal that can and will eat it, like a tortoise, it most certainly will be an issue if they get enough toxins into their system.

Am I wrong?

 

[tyguy35]

No your not wrong. I always thought it would be in the plant as well. And could speed like the flu into the soil to other ad animals. Well of you think about way way way back during the Dino ages animals were all huge even bugs. Polution and maybe pesticides have what I think played a part in making everything smaller doesn't grow as large or as strong. Even with people I notice kids today are tiny.

 

[Tom]

Excellent post Steve. Very well made points. I especially like the explanation of feeding plants plant food is fine, but feeding plant food directly to torts, is not fine. Simple thing to say, but I think many people don't realize that things have changed after the plant metabolizes the nutrients...

Since my little patch of dirt has nothing to do with feeding the third world, I still favor Angela's more natural methods on my little plot of land. It suits me and my tortoises just fine.

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No your not wrong. I always thought it would be in the plant as well. And could speed like the flu into the soil to other ad animals. Well of you think about way way way back during the Dino ages animals were all huge even bugs. Polution and maybe pesticides have what I think played a part in making everything smaller doesn't grow as large or as strong. Even with people I notice kids today are tiny.

Well now I've got to disagree with you on some points.

Chemicals and viruses do not spread in the same way.

Animals and bugs were at their current size long before the invention of pesticides, pollution and the entire industrial revolution. That has nothing to do with the size of today's fauna...

Kids today are actually being born much larger than ever before, growing faster and maturing faster too. At least all the studies I have seen indicate this to be the case.

 

[tyguy35]

I was watching something on discovery showing how much larger everything was due to clean air although I watched it years ago maybe I took it the wrong way. I was just noticing from when I went to school I kept seeing the new grade nines comes in and try were always smaller shorter meaning. Maybe I was that small and I was growing faster haha I don't know. But they were alot smaller but ya I know what you mean kids are reaching stages at. Faster pace.

 

[Tom]

Are you a teenager? I remember being in high school and remarking on how you'd the freshman looked... Of course I'm sure that my upper classmen looked at me the same way. Then in college, if I passed a high school, I would think to myself how those kids looked too small and young to be in high school. Funny how your perception changes as you age. Mentally, I still think of my self as a young man, but kids look at me like an old man now...

 

[tyguy35]

Ya exactly. Maybe im seeing what your seeing. I always thinkthwy are to small to be in highschool. No I'm 21.

 

[Tccarolina]

Excellent post Steve. Very well made points. I especially like the explanation of feeding plants plant food is fine, but feeding plant food directly to torts, is not fine. Simple thing to say, but I think many people don't realize that things have changed after the plant metabolizes the nutrients...

Since my little patch of dirt has nothing to do with feeding the third world, I still favor Angela's more natural methods on my little plot of land. It suits me and my tortoises just fine.

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I agree, it's certainly not required, and I hope people reading this don't think I'm insisting that they fertilize their plants, just that there isn't anything unsafe about fertilizer if applied properly.

I fertilize my pens early in the season before rain, because I need the wide variety of plants in the pen to produce well, and create the lush spring environment they would experience in the wild. Since my pens are stocked far more densely than they are in the wild, they mow it down faster.
I don't fertilize beyond the initial application, because the lichens that grow on the rocks in their pen will die with the chlorinated tap water, and I can't count on rain to move the fertilizer into the root zone by late spring and summer. My pens are watered with buried drip hoses.

Steve

 

[Tom]

Are you a teenager? I remember being in high school and remarking on how you'd the freshman looked... Of course I'm sure that my upper classmen looked at me the same way. Then in college, if I passed a high school, I would think to myself how those kids looked too small and young to be in high school. Funny how your perception changes as you age. Mentally, I still think of my self as a young man, but kids look at me like an old man now...

Supposed to say "... How young the freshman looked..."
Darn iPads...

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Excellent post Steve. Very well made points. I especially like the explanation of feeding plants plant food is fine, but feeding plant food directly to torts, is not fine. Simple thing to say, but I think many people don't realize that things have changed after the plant metabolizes the nutrients...

Since my little patch of dirt has nothing to do with feeding the third world, I still favor Angela's more natural methods on my little plot of land. It suits me and my tortoises just fine.

---

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I agree, it's certainly not required, and I hope people reading this don't think I'm insisting that they fertilize their plants, just that there isn't anything unsafe about fertilizer if applied properly.

I fertilize my pens early in the season before rain, because I need the wide variety of plants in the pen to produce well, and create the lush spring environment they would experience in the wild. Since my pens are stocked far more densely than they are in the wild, they mow it down faster.
I don't fertilize beyond the initial application, because the lichens that grow on the rocks in their pen will die with the chlorinated tap water, and I can't count on rain to move the fertilizer into the root zone by late spring and summer. My pens are watered with buried drip hoses.

Steve

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Haha lichens... Your trying to keep lichens alive and I'm fighting off tumbleweeds...

Just struck me funny how everyone's environments can be so different even in the same state.