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Every week, I receive food from Hungryroot. It’s a great service through which you can get meal prep or just general groceries. Much of the food needs to stay cold. Therefore, they put cold packs inside the box. They use an option called Enviro Ice. You can dispose of it in many ways, including apparently by using it as plant food. Should I do that?
What Is Enviro Ice?
Here’s what the Enviro Ice package looks like:
When it arrives, it’s frozen. It works just like any other cold pack for food. Apparently, you can simply reuse it if you want to do that. However, I don’t have a lot of use for cold packs. And I get one of these (which is probably about 9″ x 12″ every week. I certainly don’t need that many. So I need to figure out other ways to use them.
Options for Reusing / Recycling Enviro Ice
Here’s what the back of the package says:
All of this time, I’ve been doing the latter option. I leave the bag inside my sink until it’s no longer frozen. Then I cut it open and let it drain into the sink. The first time that I tried it, I was worried that it would clog the sink. But true to what the brand advertises, it does no such thing. It’s designed specifically to go down the drain. So I drain it, rinse the bag, and recycle the bag.
However, as I was doing this habitually last week, I re-read the package. I noticed that the first option is actually to use it as plant food. So, I got curious about that. Should I feed Enviro Ice to plants instead of to the drain?
Enviro Ice For Plants
According to their website, Enviro Ice is the only product of its kind. It’s a nitrogen-based product. This means that it’s good for plants. They say that you can pour the gel directly onto the soil. Alternatively, you can dilute it with water. There’s no particular benefit to the latter other than that it flows more easily.
They report that you get all of the benefits of nitrogen for your plants when you use this gel. It adds nutrients and improves growth. It’s food for your plants. They say that you can use it for both indoor and outdoor plants.
What’s My Hesitation?
All signs indicate that I should go ahead and try this in my own gardening efforts. So why am I hesitating at all? The truth is that I trust the product just fine, but I don’t trust my own instincts when it comes to planting. As I’ve confessed to you in the past, I don’t have a natural green thumb. I never really know what my plants want or need. I over-water and under-sun and all of the things that are bad for them.
So, what I’m worried about is that I won’t use Enviro Ice properly. Will I give the plant too much of it and not realize what’s happening until it’s too late? Will it change the balance of other things I give the plant (water, light, etc.)? If so, will it be able to correct that?
The great thing about gardening, though, is that the stakes are low. I already have the product. I can try it and see what happens. I’ll keep you posted.
Have you used Enviro Ice in gardening? What’s your experience been?
Read More:
- 5 Reasons To Use Fish Amino Acid On Your Plants
- 4 Cost-Effective Organic Garden Fertilizers
- Does My Brown Thumb Make Gardening a Waste of Money?
Kathryn Vercillo is a long time writer, crafter and author of several books. A resident of San Francisco, she is committed to helping others explore, articulate and share their own individuals stories. When she’s not evaluating investing opportunities Kathryn is an avid knitter, researcher, and blogger.
So have you done it? How did it go? I just got a pack today and am trying to decide whether to use it on my food garden. Other than nitrogen, I don’t know what else is in the gel. Do I really want my edible plants soaking it up?
right?? i want to know too!
I was ruprised to read that the two packs of enviroice Ireceived could be used as fertilier.. iplan tolcut a small piece out of the corner of the ack and drizzle a 6 incn circle around the base of my tomato plants and water it in. I’ll do it on only a few and see what happens!
I used this crap very sparing with water and it killed most of the stuff I put it on. Needs to be dumped on weeds in the woods. Totally worthless. DO NOT use.
I used the enviro ice and diluted it per package instructions, now I have 4 dead bushes. Called the company and she took my information, but so far no one has called back. I DO NOT recommend using this.
I’ve been using this for a couple months now and have had no adverse effects on any of my plants, quite the opposite in fact. I dilute it down quite a bit as I don’t want to burn the leaves. (As far as any info I can find, it’s just nitrogen and not any Phosphorous or Potassium like what’s in most other fertilizers, so I’d immediately be hesitant to just dump it on the soil without dilution.)
Good luck and happy gardening!
Thanks so much for the comment. Great to know it works!
I decided to use this on these bushes I have in the front yard. I rent and it looks like they just slapped these two bushes in front and they looked dead, hurt and ugly. I poured half the pack on one and the other half on the other when they had no leaves on it at all. Spring and rain came and they bloomed so nicely. They are actually pretty and they got sooo big. I want to order again just for the packet. Seriously I thought there was no hope for these bushes.
So I have found is that the smaller bags hold about 30oz and the larger bags about 90oz.
For outdoor flowers and vegetables, the ratio recommended is 6oz to one gallon of water. (Indoor plants need more dilution).
So 1 small bag to 5 gallons spread out should work well.
For the larger bags I’m seeing if I can dilute 1 to 5 gallons spread and then water the lawn to dilute it out the rest of the way. (Too many 5 gallon bucket to haul around in the heat).
I used it all last summer. I mixed one cup with two tab!espoons Epsom salts, one tablespoon chelated iron, one tablespoon fish emulsion and added water to make one gallon. excellent results.
Not directly about use as plant food (or inadvertent herbicide) but I do know one important thing. The Enviro Ice bags deteriorate and then leak. Over a a week or two, no problem. Over 3 months, serious leakage.
I’ve used enviro ice on plants in my yard and they are doing fine. Mostly I cut the bag and pour it at the base of the plant. We have lots of mulch and dead leaves for the mix to go through, along with rain, so it self dilutes. All plants are doing well. I’ve been contemplating adding it to my lettuce garden. Afraid to go all in so today I experimented with a pot that has lettuce. Nitrogen is supposed to be good for leaf production so i’m curious to see what happens.
I got some and used it last month. SO I have had a bell pepper plant for over a year and it usually only has a few peppers. I put this on and now have 5 peppers. I put on my cherry tomato plant and now have 30 or so little tomatoes. My basil looks better than when I bought it. I will get some more plants and try it on those. Seems to help blooms and then the veggies and fruit are doing very well. WORKS FOR ME. No green thumb at all. Usually kill every thing. This product makes me look like a gardener.
I have used Enviro Ice over the last year (Medication packs) on a patio ficus tree, geraniums, roses, blooming vines and my orange tree – ALL have improved in appearance, leaf growth, and quantity of flowers!! The ficus never looked so good – had it more than 10 years. All of my experiences were great – wished I had started using as fertilizer sooner.
Since I no longer get the cold packs, I have to find another more usual product – wish me luck!
I also receive hungry root and get these gel pack. I have started using them on my house plants. I have not wanted to put in my garden that grows herbs or vegetables because I don’t see evidence of it being OMRI- organic certified. I have had wonderful results with my plants I have on my porch and in my house. The first time I dumped directly in one of my plants. It greened up amazingly but the gel was really too thick and sat on top of the soil. Since then I have mixed with water, use a whisk to mix it up and watered my plants with it. Their leaves are so green and so shiny, and the plants look so healthy! I will keep using this method as long as I am getting this type of gel packs each week.
I’ve been using my Hungryroot Enviro Ice as plant food for several months now, in combination with water runoff from flushing our boat’s outboard motor.
Most of our plants love it. We’ve had improved blooming and foliage with marigolds, Iceland poppies, daylilies and other members of the lily family, Shasta daisies, blue spruce sedum groundcover, and hen & chicks echeveria.
Enviro Ice didn’t seem to do much for the ferns and junipers, but at least it didn’t hurt them. Don’t know yet about the rhododendrons (which I now know I shouldn’t have fertilized after spring, sigh).
Don’t use this stuff on peonies. We found out the hard way that too much nitrogen turns the leaves red-brown.
I don’t know what to do with this stuff in winter, other than save some of it for spring, and empty the rest of the bags down the sink and recycle the bags. If anyone has great ideas on this subject, please post…