A snake oil for every purpose. That's what we get out of advertising these days. With all of these so called advances in horticulture, our results still aren't doing any better than my fathers garden. As a matter of fact, dollar for dollar, he is kicking my ass! I get as good results but it's expensive in comparison. My prize winning, heirloom tomatoes, I had it loosely figured ended up costing me 2 dollars each. His? About a nickel and yet they look identical and maybe even giving the edge to him overall. What does he do that is so special with his houseplants? Friggin chicken poop. Chicken poop that he gets himself for free that he composts and dries so it doesn't burn his plants and so that the smell don't piss my mom off. That's it? Nahhhh. ..he is holding out, he just must be and this is some kind of oneupmanship he is using against me to keep the hierarchy intact. So, I finally swallowed my pride and asked him how he does so well, expecting revenge for the last time we went fishing and I caught the bigger fish and ragged him a bit about it. Instead, he goes out behind his shed, and fills a 2 gallon ziplock baggie with some of his magic poop from a metal garbage can and donates it to me and proceeds to tell me (eye roll) how to properly top dress my plants and to cover this new treatment with a layer of my potting mix so that it doesn't smell once the poop is reconstituted. The other thing he gave me is a baby food jar of this powdered micronutrient he refers to as "perk", to which he cautions me that it only takes a pinch per plant and only one application unless I repot. I asked him why so little and he says it's because it's all I need and it is really hard to find anymore, if at all. Well, kiss my ass! One treatment of the old man's magic poop and powder and my indoor plants have gone bionic. 2 to 1 over any designer brand snake oils I have gleaned from reading these forums. How can this be? Scientific study and all the organi-gurus told me that unless my poop was spelunked out of some specific bat cave, or squeezed from the South end of a rare sea bird or a magic forest on the West coast of the US, I would have less than stellar results and perhaps even outright failure. So now, here I sit like the Maytag repairman with nothing left to do to my plants other than water them every so often and make sure they don't get root bound and watch them grow almost to perfection. The only other product he swears by as an almost cure all for those who are the types that just know to put gas in their car without checking the oil, is fish emulsion. Seems he likes this because he can mix it with some water and give it to mom to spruce up her house plants with and hers are all doing great as well. Now I see why he and mom always have spare money to loan me after the internet and the specialty stores have bled me dry. And after all the countless hours I have spent educating myself about specific soil biology, etc, he is still smarter than I after all.