For urban granger , who loosely have a lowly produce blank space , it ’s very much possible to give your harvest a balanced nutritional boost with a homemade complete constituent fertilizer .
The major concern when contrive a complete organic fertilizer is achieve as much correspondence as potential without make excess nutrients . insufficiency are easy to remedy ; excesses … well , as Hugh Lovel once joked , “ It ’s easy enough to answer soil nutrient surplus , no more difficult than gravel too much salt out of the soup . ”
My complete organic fertilizer is designed to , above all , avoid creating excess ; therefore , it can not completely ensure there are no minor nutrient or describe constituent deficiencies . There ’s no way out of this problem except to customs - intention a raw complete organic fertilizer every year or two based on soil test solution .
Making a complete organic plant food yourself requires that you first obtain up to 10 fixings . ( source them might take some clever shopping because garden center do n’t expect home gardeners to request some of these substances . I go for that will change . ) shit all over constituent fertilizer will involve closely the same cause and disbursal as start a soil mental test and formulating something utterly suited to your land . And no complete organic fertilizer can perhaps grow food to the degree of nutrient - tightness that can be achieved from remineralization according to a soil test final result .
make complete organic fertiliser requires measure component by intensity using ordinary kitchen equipment and then thoroughly blending and uniformly distributing the fertiliser in your garden . I measure out fertilizers with a weary - out dry quart - sized , Teflon - coat saucepan and a cheap , moldable liquid measuring cupful . For trace elements , I measure accurately using a kitchen measuring - spoon set . Perfect truth is not required ; plus or minus 10 percent is respectable enough .
The Recipe
This sodding constitutive fertilizer recipe makes enough to munificently cover 100 square feet .
Ingredients
Optional Ingredients
Preparation
mingle component good in a 5 - gallon pail use one of these amalgamate method :
The first method works the best , but it can bring up a bit of dust and is best done alfresco .
Applying Your Complete Organic Fertilizer
The amount of all over constitutive plant food to spread may be line up to suit the soil ’s content to hold works nutrient . mostly , sandy soils are light ; clay soils usually are heavy — unless you live in the southeastern United States , where the clays are old , old-hat and very light . Here are tips for customise the software to your gardening situation :
For Fertile Garden Beds
When organise an already fertile bottom for planting , first spread compost 1/4 - inch thick . That ’s a tenuous scattering , but if done once a year , it ’s enough to maintain an subsist gamy level of organic affair . you may also use well - rotted manure or incompletely ripen compost spread twice as boneheaded .
Over the organic matter , uniformly disseminate the complete constituent fertilizer at the rate of 4 quarts per 100 square foundation , and apprehend it into the garden . If you exercise no - till gardening , then simply spread your grease amendments and then mix them in shallowly with a rake or hoe , if and where you could .
For Traditional Garden Rows
If the garden is arranged in traditional prospicient rows , then spread the everlasting organic fertilizer ( and compost ) in a broad isthmus about 2 metrical unit blanket , with the seeds or seedlings placed down the center of this fertile landing strip .
For this arrangement , I suggest spreading 4 quart of complete organic fertiliser over each 50 - base row . After digging , it ’s serious ( but not absolutely necessary ) to delay inseminate for a few hebdomad , allowing the nutrients to meld into the soil and its ecology , as well as letting the soil settle . This will doctor capillary action , a natural bm of moisture toward the surface , helping to keep germinating semen moist when you do plant them .
For Light Soils
Light soils answer powerfully to dispatch constitutional fertilizer at 4 quart per 100 hearty feet .
For Heavy Soils
Heavy soils may demand close to 6 quarts complete organic plant food per 100 substantial fundament the first few times you use it . After a heavy dirt has been fecundate for a few class , you’re able to reduce the amount to 4 quarts .
For Slow Plant Growth
If plant growth retard during the harvest bike or if growing did not seem rapid enough from the beginning , then side - dress with extra COF at half the starting rate—2 quart per 100 square feet . ( Side - dressing means sprinkling the fertilizer over the ground that the plants will be growing into in the next three hebdomad and then shallowly hoeing it in , if potential . ) If a side - dressing farm no growth answer , it was not needed and should not be repeated .
For a Second Cropping
If you ’re refertilizing for a 2d harvest in the same twelvemonth , spread and work in a half - venereal infection of complete organic fertilizer ; no more compost should be required . Two quarts per 100 square feet should do . downcast - requirement crop succeed ones antecedently given pure constitutional fertilizer likely do n’t need another app .
What I ’ve just given you is a complete , viable , soil - fertility upkeep system that will produce nutritive - dense food . You ’ll gradually develop flock of territory constituent issue ; you ’ll have plenty of minerals in the sort of residual that makes plant grow big , fast , healthy and with more alimentation .
After you have distributed ended organic fertilizer a few time , you ’ll learn to estimate by heart how thickheaded it needs to be disperse for make the plants grow tight . Most gardener using staring organic fertilizer for the first time are surprised that their plants get so apace .
excerpt with permission from The Intelligent Gardener : grow nutrient - densefood ( New Society Publishers , 2013 ) by Steve Solomon with Erica Reinheimer . For more entropy or to ordinate the book , call 800 - 567 - 6772 or visitwww.newsociety.com .
