Is Organic Fertilizer Worth the Money? // Milorganite vs. Ringer vs. Scotts

today is September 1st 2019 and my entire 2019 lawn care season has been a battle of different fertilizers testing them side-by-side head-to-head so you can know which one is the best bang for the buck and in my backyard I've been doing head-to-head against the gold standard which is milorganite versus ringer laundry store versus Scotts Turf Builder I'm gonna show you a time-lapse of everything that I've done in my season this year what the results were all throughout it and what it looks like today and my thoughts on which one I think is the best coming up [Music] if you need shade on your deck or patio this summer check out Toya grid pergola kits you source the lumber locally and can assemble this modular system in as little as 30 minutes check the video description for links to videos and more information about Toya grid welcome to handy dad TV I'm Chris Hyder your virtual dad in the cloud today we're talking lawn care I'm gonna actually wrap up my entire 2019 lawn care season and let you know which fertilizer brand has produced the best results when I got started everybody thought I was nuts everybody was talking about how great milorganite was in fact it was so popular that you couldn't get it it was sold out of all of the local stores so another alternative for fertilizer in terms of organic is ring or lawn restore that one is a bit more expensive but gave me good results last year and then of course for 20 years that I've owned a home I've always used synthetic fertilizer not unlike this Scotts Turf Builder so I did a head-to-head test on those throughout my backyard and right now it all looks pretty bad all right let's start with some stats on these three fertilizers that I used in my backyard this year so Scotts Turf Builder is a thirty seven and a half pound bag now this is generic Turf Builder lawn food it doesn't have any additives for weed control or pest control or anything like that 3204 is the analysis on this one that's 32 percent nitrogen $41.98 is what I paid for that bag at my local home depot and when you do the math 32 percent nitrogen and a thirty seven and a half pound bag that comes down to three dollars and fifty cents for a pound of nitrogen out of turf builder next we have milorganite here milorganite is a 6 4 zero analysis that's six percent nitrogen that is a thirty six pound bag which I paid $14.98 for the prices may have changed since then because the demand has been rising so when you do the math 36 pounds of fertilizer 6 pounds of nitrogen you get six dollars and 94 cents per pound of nitrogen in that bag of Milo finally we have ringer ringer is a 1006 analysis it's a 25 pound bag they sell for 32.7 T 5 cents most of the time you can only find it online and when you do the math 25 pounds with 10% nitrogen that comes out to a whopping cost of 13 dollars and 10 cents per pound of nitrogen one of the other things I've been doing in the backyard is I've been using next products for the first time in a test area so aerate is one of my favorites as well as RGS and micro green these are ones that I've been testing and I'll let you know how those results were as well now let's take a look at the various different fertilizers first up turf filter this is a white fertilizer as you can see there's all mixed in very nicely so the prills are all pretty consistently small so it spreads very easily and every pril has all the nutrients in it that you need so it's it's really an easy fertilizer to work with it is a synthetic fertilizer so it can burn your lawn if you spill this bag out you will definitely kill your grass so if that does happen get out your shopback and get up as much as you can and rinse the rest now milorganite milorganite is this signature dark black gray color and the pearls are all about I say almost the same size a little bit bigger than the Scotts Turf Builder this has a signature a biosolids scent to it that Alan Haynes says smells like success my wife says it smells like poop and finally we have lawn restore from ringer safer I don't know what it is this stuff looks and smells like fish food the pril sizes are pretty big and they're very lightweight all right let's do this sniff test we're gonna start with turf builder now that synthetic fertilizer doesn't it doesn't really have a scent fact that the bag is open in the garage or the shed you can't tell slight chemical scent but not bad milorganite milorganite is the most pungent out of all of them it has a blueberry smell as Alan bean puts it I can't say that it smells like poop but it definitely is a strong smell and ringer laundry store this one I always said smells like fish food almost a hoppy brewery smell but when you've spread it on the lawn you don't really notice it at all and you certainly don't notice it in the garage so nothing offensive about that one so definitely milorganite is the one that takes the cake where smell is concerned all right I began my 2019 lawn care season with an application of fertilizer on March 30th I put down 3/4 of a pound of nitrogen of all three of these fertilizers a week later on April 7th I put down my first next application in that test area I used aerate and RGS now a day later on April 8th you can see here that Scott's gave me a really early green up now it was still cold at that point of the spring it hadn't warmed up yet and I've heard that organic fertilizers take heat to activate them and release their nitrogen cells understandable that Scott's would give an early green up so here you can see on April 18th the entire neighborhood was looking green including my lawn you couldn't tell any difference although you know you can certainly see that Scotts was a little bit darker couple weeks later on May 3rd Scotts was definitely the darkest but the others were close behind but Milo was definitely starting to take the edge against the lawn restore on May 7th I put down another application of fertilizer three-quarters of a pound this time and I also applied magickal for my pH adjustment and on June 1st I put down another application of our GS on the next plot then here on June 6th you can see Scott's is definitely outperforming the Milo and the ringer but Milo is doing better than ringer and the next is looking slightly better at this point a few days later on June 10th I put down another application a fertilizer this time a half a pound of nitrogen on each of them and at the end of June I put down more next products in that test plot I put down RGS humic 12 and micro green now here on July 4th although it's a bad sun angle you can clearly tell scotts is outperforming then Milo is the next and ringer looks the worst but the next area is absolutely darker a couple weeks later July 20th the Scots and the next areas are visibly greener and this is when we're starting to get into the heat of the summer everybody's lawns are stressed including mine and boy we really did have a tough summer this year so scottson next looking great then you'll see here August 27th now this lawn had not had any fertilizer since June 10th it's absolutely been beaten to a pulp because of the hot summer it's not looking well any of it but the next area is clearly looking better than the rest of them so that really was helping it make it through the stress of the summer all right right here I am standing where the mark is between Milo and ringer to the right now you can see it's really bad all the sections of it and you really can't tell any difference from where the original marks were over here scots this one is the ringer in the spring you can tell the difference now you can't over on this side here is where i've had the next products that's my test plot for next and i got to tell you that's the grass that looks the best now that's for two reasons it's not just next but I originally had some signs of disease over here in July so I put down an application of Scots disease X that I did not do in the rest of the lawn so some of this damage here is disease but I gotta say this grass is the thickest that I've had throughout my entire lawn I can tell when I'm mowing it is the one that takes the most effort to get through and I can't cut too much of it at once it is thick it is dense it is beautifully green so two things number one the disease was taken care of and number two the next products just really made this section outperform what it's been in the past couple of years now one thing I will say is this section in the back here is definitely drier than the rest of it and that's to be expected I don't have a sprinkler head over here so this area gets no irrigation but it does have the benefit of shade from the trees it's holding its own but it doesn't look good but it looks better than the rest so what am i closing thoughts on these three guys well it was clear that Scots gave a quick green up in the spring and maintained the green for as long as it was being fertilized for the past couple of months with the heatwave and the fact that it hasn't been fertilized again it's not looking much different than the rest of them as far as the other two I think milorganite produces a much better green than lawn restore even throughout the spring even throughout the early summer you could clearly tell the milorganite was definitely greener so I would go with a combination of Scots and milorganite if you can get milorganite by it early in the season just by as much as you're gonna need plan on a couple apps of milorganite when it gets warm but use a synthetic like Scots first thing in the spring and I think that will produce the best consistent green throughout the year so what are your thoughts on these results did I change your mind in any way did it confirm what you already suspected just go ahead and leave a comment below and let me know what your thoughts are I'd love to hear from you and thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next one [Music] you [Music]

Channel: HandyDadTV

Views: 137,055

Rating: 4.7789412 out of 5

Keywords: milorganite fertilizer, milorganite vs ringer, milorganite in summer, milorganite alternative, milorganite before and after, milorganite vs scotts, ringer lawn restore vs milorganite, milorganite results, fertilizer testing, slow release fertilizer, biosolids fertilizer, handy dad tv, handydad.tv, handydadtv, lawn care, lawn care tips, the lawn care nut, allyn hane, organic fertilizer, ringer lawn restore, gci turf

Id: XASkxfrAqLY

Length: 12min 1sec (721 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 29 2019