bd
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Joined: Tue Jun 23, 2009 12:34 pm

Need HELP with organic fertilizer.

I would like to feed an indoor hanging wandering jew plant (hanging in the bathroom under a skylight) with a safe fertilizer. Even the "organic" ones say to keep it away from children and pets.

Is there anything truly safe that I can buy or easily make? (I am an amateur with plants and this is the first plant that I am trying to work with)

Thanks

top_dollar_bread
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bd wrote: Is there anything truly safe that I can buy or easily make? (I am an amateur with plants and this is the first plant that I am trying to work with)

Thanks
get some quality compost or earth worm casting, use either as a top dress or stir in water for a few minutes and use that as a liquid fertilizer.
you may also want to check out the compost tea thread that is a sticky..
another great way to make fertilizers is looking for certain weeds in your garden like dandelions, chicken weeds, clovers ect. put them in a blender mixed with water and feed that to ur plants..
I have been working with stinging nettles, basils, sage's and comfrey as plant tea's. I chop them up, let them ferment in a bucket of water for a week to 2 weeks and make bottled nutes with that.
I dilute the fermented plant tea with water and use as foliar or soil drench witch all work tremendously good. these plants can be grown easily or found near by and I'm really liking these results w/ my veggies and herbs.
here's a link with more info
[url]https://www.frenchgardening.com/tech.html?pid=3164873867231346[/url]
if you wish I can show you some images on how to make ur own nutrients with the above
best of luck

bd
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Joined: Tue Jun 23, 2009 12:34 pm

Any help you could give would be appreciated.

I certainly have enough dandelions and other weeds on my lawn.

1. can I use any and all of them?

2. can I just tear them up, put them in water for a few days and then water the plants with them?

3. Can I just make plain old Lipton or herbal tea like you would drink and use that.

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rainbowgardener
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Well the things that TDB specified, comfrey, stinging nettles, clover are all high in nitrogen, iron, and other nutrients and are known as compost accelerants. Dandelions are good because with the long tap root they bring up nutrients from deep levels that haven't been depleted. Not everything organic works as well. The tea has been dried and processed and much of the value of it for feeding the soil is gone, so I don't believe that it would add much. You want fresh green nutrient rich plants for this process.

bd
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Thank you very much. The problem is, I only have one plant - an indoor hanging wandering jew- which I almost killed from neglect and now am trying to bring back (it was a gift for my wife)so experimenting won't work for me. I was looking for a safe, foolproof fix for this. I see now it is more complicated than that.

(BTW, I understand that wandering jews are very hardy and that there are posts on other forums about how to get rid of it, so you can see what an accomplishment it is for me to have almost killed mine . :oops:

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rainbowgardener
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Not necessarily complicated. Depending on how organic you want to be, you can just buy fertilizer spikes for hanging baskets. They are slow release, so pretty safe though certainly no one should eat them (they would be tough and hard to chew and not taste good, so I wouldn't think even little children would be tempted). Just stick 2-3 spikes in and forget for a couple months. Or you can go more organic and buy supplements like bone meal, kelp meal, etc or combination organic fertilizers.



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