Okay so today I wanna talk about trying out that Espoma Bone Meal stuff everyone keeps yapping about. Honestly, I saw it mentioned like ten times in different gardening groups. Figured it was time to see what the fuss was about, ’cause my tomato plants last year? Kinda pathetic.
Getting Started & What I Used
First things first, I gotta get my hands on the stuff. Headed down to the local garden center – the one near the old hardware store, you know? Wandered the aisles past the shiny bags of fertilizer pellets looking for something simple. Found it, Espoma Bone Meal, big green bag with a picture of happy roots. Smelled kinda dusty, like old books and dirt mixed. Price wasn’t bad. Grabbed it.
The Actual Digging In
My plan? Sprinkle this magic dust on my new flower bed where I’m planting those zinnia seeds and some roses later. Garden soil there feels pretty tired. Weekend rolled around. Put on my grossest gardening gloves – the ones with holes – and dragged the bag out back.
Here’s exactly how it went down:
- Cleared the spot: Pulled out the weeds, the tiny rocks, bits of plastic bottle someone chucked in my yard. Dug it up maybe 6 inches deep with my rusty spade. My back kinda complained.
- Cracked the bag: Poured some bone meal into this old yogurt cup I saved. It looked like, well, pale dirt powder. Fine texture. Still smelled dusty.
- Mixed it rough: Started flinging handfuls of the bone meal onto the dug-up soil. Maybe 3 or 4 cups total across the whole bed? Wasn’t measuring perfectly, just scattered it like I was feeding chickens.
- Mixed it deeper: Grabbed the spade again and turned the soil over and over, trying to mix that bone meal powder down into the dirt. Wanted it not just sitting on top. Sweating like crazy by this point.
- Watered it down: Finally gave it a good soaking with the hose. Wanted that bone stuff to start soaking into everything, you know?
Waiting… and Seeing
Planted the zinnia seeds right after. Roses were coming next week. Honestly? First couple weeks? Nothin’. Just dirt and hopeful seeds. Then the zinnia sprouts popped up crazy fast. Way thicker stems than last year’s scrawny things. The roses? Dug their holes bigger, threw a bigger handful of bone meal in the bottom of each hole before dropping the bush in. Watered.
Couple months later, those roses? More flowers than I expected on such young plants. Roots when I checked later seemed strong, not wimpy. Were they exploding because of the bone meal? Can’t prove it 100%, but they looked way happier than any I’d planted before just using plain old bagged soil.
What I Think Now
Overall? It wasn’t hard at all. Just digging dirt, chucking powder, mixing it in, watering. Didn’t need fancy tools or a science degree. Smelled weird, sure, worked the arms and back, yeah. But my plants looked healthier, faster. Root stuff seems like it might be key. Definitely gonna keep tossing that dusty bone stuff when I plant anything new now. Cheap, easy, plants seem to like it. Good enough for me!
