Synthetic Fertilizer? Bad for You & Bad for Your Soil!

Tis the season for mainstream garden writers to recommend dousing gardens with synthetic fertilizers. I’m here to encourage you to think twice about taking that advice. You can manage your soil and your garden so that you never need to use synthetic fertilizer again. As motivation to ditch the synthetics, I’ve included notes and article quotes with links which document the dangers of synthetic fertilizer. To point you in a better direction, I also include a note from one of my favorite Substack garden writers, and at the end (under ‘The Solution’) you will find a link to four of my articles on building soil naturally and organically. You can do this!

To access the notes, click anywhere on the note. The note will then open in a new tab. You won’t find advertising or paywalls on notes, and they often have more information than first meets the eye, as well as links to even more info. You are welcome to comment on or share the individual notes, or on the entire post when you get to the end. :)

Let’s get started:

“Decades of research have identified links between nitrate exposure and disease including colorectal cancer, thyroid disease, and dangerously low oxygen levels in infants. Other potential health risks of nitrate exposure include bladder and gastric cancers, ovarian cancer, and birth complications like low birth rate and preterm birth. A 2019 study estimated that nitrate contamination in drinking water may contribute to as many as 12,500 cancer cases in the United States each year, costing Americans up to $1.5 billion annually in medical expenses.” Quote from the article: From Fields to Faucets.

“Phosphate fertilizers represent a major concern because they often contain high levels of heavy metal impurities. Cadmium is present as an impurity in phosphate rocks used to manufacture these fertilizers, and repeated applications lead to persistent accumulation in soil. Superphosphate fertilizers may also contain cobalt, copper, lead, zinc, chromium, and nickel as contaminants.” From ‘Major Sources of Heavy Metals in Agriculture and Their Impacts • Food Safety Institute.’

~ ~ ~

For some great alternatives to chemical fertilizers, you will find links to all four of my previous articles on building soil naturally and organically, right here.

(If you find a paywall on any of these articles, a $5.00 subscription will bring the paywall down on my entire archive for one month. You can unsubscribe before the end of the month to avoid reoccurring charges. If you honestly can’t spare the five dollars, send me a Substack message with your email address and I’ll comp you a one-week pass. No questions asked.)

~ ~ ~

Thanks for reading!

Share

Please feel free to forward, share, restack, excerpt, or quote this or any of my articles or notes, as long as your post automatically includes (or you add) a link back to the original here on Substack. If you just want to use my sources without any of my writing, neither links nor permission is required. Do contact me about any other ways you might want to use my writing, as all other rights are currently reserved.

Introductory commentary, copyright Harvest McCampbell, 2026. Copyrights and photo credits for each linked article found at their websites.

~ ~ ~