Probably more important is the seeds - are they certified heirloom or are they modern? Its the smell of a food that triggers full digestion - if there is little or no scent - then you take little or no nutrients from the plant.
Certain manure and rotting dead things (like fish heads) tend to work....
I use very little man made frets on my garden. Utilize chicken crap.and ashes from fire piles. Then I compost everything that does not go back to the chickens including my left over round bales (hay) that the cows missed. Waste not, want not
Compost from my own garden and kitchen scraps have been more than enough. If you don’t yet have your own, try to find at a local organic farm or coop. The compost at garden centers is typically from clippings soaked in pecticides/herbicides.
Rule #1 is never use tap water with ANY chlorine/chloramine for your garden. Charcoal filters are not enough. You want to let the soil life fully thrive and do all the work.
Keep your compost pile moist enough to decompose but dry enough for air to get in. It should feel like a wrung out sponge and have no bad smells. I like to use a huge corkscrew to loosen up the bottom without heavy lifting.
Once it looks black and mostly unrecognizable, filter out the small compost with a 1/4” screen and then let that age for a few months in a bucket with holes on top until it has no smell. If you take a handful and squeeze, it should feel springy like a sponge and never clump together. It should leave no smell of any kind on your hand. Truly magic stuff.
One of the biggest mistakes is using compost that is not fully aged or mixing in “hot” organics like manure/guano that have not been composted. Unfinished fertilizer will actually pull nutrients away from your plants
We use Milorganite on our lawn and gardens. Works great!
Fertilizer is a feed. A chemical or natural substance added to soil or land to increase its fertility. If the soil being used doesn’t have it, the crops don’t grow. Even the most fertile soils need help depending upon the crop and the location. Some like sodium are used to decrease the acid in soil.
Nitrogen was mentioned. Nitrogen is vital because it is a major component of chlorophyll, the compound by which plants use sunlight energy to produce sugars from water and carbon dioxide (i.e., photosynthesis). It is also a major component of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. Without proteins, plants wither and die.
Depends upon the soil needs to grow plants. Some locations are better/different from others.
rwood
Ping
All fertilizers are a salt compound but not all salt compounds are fertilizers. Over fertilizing can give salt toxicity and render the land useless until corrected. Compost and other additives are supplements. They are a safer bet if you don’t know your soil requirements. The best bet is to get a soil test and see just what your soil specifically needs.
Any input?