The EssentiaList

by Catherine Haug, August 13, 2011

Thanks to Jean H. for telling me about these related articles in Mother Earth News:

• Free, Homemade Liquid Fertilizers
• Homemade Fertilizer Tea Recipes

If you use fish fertilizer, have you considered that  you are supporting an unsustainable fishing industry? Or that you can make your own liquid fertilizers that are even better for your garden than fish fertilizer – and they will be ready in just a few days?

Read on for a synopsis of the articles. 

Why and When to Use Liquid Fertilizers

The following gardening situations are best fed with liquids:

• Starting seedlings, especially when using soil-less starting mix;
• Growing plants in containers, with frequent liquid feedings;
• Growing cold-tolerant crops like spinach or strawberries, because it is difficult for plants to take up nitrogen in the soil when soil temp is below 50° F.

“Water-soluble homemade fertilizers are short-acting (which makes them easier to regulate), but should be applied no more than every two weeks, usually as a thorough soaking. … You can apply your short-acting liquid fertilizers just when plants need them – sweet corn in full silk, peppers loaded with green fruits – with little risk of overdoing it.”

Watering before you fertilize helps protect plants from taking up too many salts.

Types of Homemade Liquid Fertilizers

See the Mother Earth News articles (above) for recipes to make the following:

• Dried chicken manure with wood shavings
• Seaweed
• Fresh grass clippings
• Urine

Prepare as indicated, then “allow the teas to sit for 3 days at room temperature, giving them a good shake or stir once a day. … [After 3 days fermentation begins], which you want to avoid, because they smell bad and their pH can change rapidly. … Then use them within a day or two.” Any unused fertilizer after 3 days can be “poured beneath perennials or dumped onto your compost.”

Urine as Fertilizer

“Human urine is much more concentrated than grass, manure or seaweed teas, and doesn’t need to be steeped. … The average adult produces about 1 1/2 quarts of urine per day. Diluted 1:20 with water, this would make about 7 gallons of high-nitrogen fertilizer.” Other ways to use urine:

• Used animal bedding (straw soaked with urine) makes great mulch!
• Collect human urine in a jar, then pour it onto a bucket of sawdust on your deck or onto a bale of hay in the garden, then use the sawdust/hay as mulch.

See recent ESP post On Composting, Mulching, Humanure, & Sewage Sludge about David Brown’s experimentation with a separating toilet to capture urine.

N-P-K: Nitrogen – Phosphorous – Potassium Ratios

Ideal N-P-K for most veggies is 3-2-1. A fertilizer approaching this is far better in meeting plant’s needs than the more typical ratio of 1-1-1 for commercial fertilizers. “Teas made from grass clippings and urine come closest to the optimum 3-1-2 ratio.”

• “Nitrogen helps plants grow new stems and leaves.”
• “Phosphorous is essential for vigorous rooting, and is usually in good supply in organically enriched soils.”
• “Potassium is the ‘buzz’ nutrient that energizes plants’ pumping mechanisms, orchestrating the opening and closing of leaf stomata and regulating water distribution among cells.”

“Grass clipping and poultry manure teas are rich in potassium – helps plants to have strong stems when used to feed young seedlings. … [Blend this] with a little nitrogen-rich urine gives a great fertilizer to promote strong growth in established plants.”

Sources and References

1. Mother Earth News: Free, Homemade Liquid Fertilizers, by Barbara Pleasant
2. Mother Earth News: Homemade Fertilizer Tea Recipes, by Barbara Pleasant
3. The EssentiaList: On Composting, Mulching, Humanure, & Sewage Sludge, by Catherine Haug with David Brown

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 13th, 2011 at 11:23 am and is filed under Gardening, Home & Ranch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.