How do I make cheap fertilizer. I don,t have time to compost and I don,t
have time to pile leaves over my soil because it is almost summer. Well it,s always summer here in southern california.
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rainbowgardener
- Super Green Thumb
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well you asked a question and then ruled out the main answers. Cheap to a serious gardener isn't quite the right question any way (not that we are suggesting any one needs to spend a bunch of money on their gardening hobby). But you want to be thinking how best can I enrich my soil within the limits I have. If you are wanting a garden now and don't have anything to enrich your soil with but leaves, then spread the leaves over your garden bed and mow them, to start breaking them down, then till them under. Before you till them under, go around to all your local starbucks and beg all the coffee grounds you can. Spread the coffeegrounds over the leaves and till the whole thing under. Then start your compost pile so that going forward you will have the world's best soil amendment, free and you won't be adding anything organic to landfills....
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The Helpful Gardener
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- Location: Colchester, CT
Got to agree with RG, there is cheap and then there's good. Good AND cheap comes with elbow grease as the price...
A good organic soil makes it's own fertilizer. As you build biology (bacteria, fungus, protozoa) they all comprise themselves of proteins, fats and carbohydrates. Now little critters like this don't sound like they'd add up, but there are 6 billion organisms in a teaspoon of good organic soil. That adds up to tons of biology in an acre of soil. Those proteins for instance, are carbon with at least one amine group attached (amines are nitrogen based, and are the building blocks for amino acids). Cell walls are a fat called phospholipids; the carbon has two fatty acid chains, some gycerol (base for sugar) and a phosphorus. As the next bigger guy eats the little guys, these nitrogens and phosphorus are released and VOILA! Nature fertilizes itself. This can be a profound amount of foods in a healthy soil. How to get biology? From good compost.
So if you can't make compost yourself, then buy it, but this is how you are going to cut down on fertilizer costs long term. In the meantime here's The Helpful Gardener's homemade recipe to stimulate soil biology or compost...
2 cups molasses
1 cup powdered chocolate (NOT Duch processed)
1 cup powdered kelp (try a health food store or online)
Mix a quarter cup or so in a gallon of water for compost starting or a half cup in five gallons for watering lawns and garden. this is a balanced food for both bacterial and fungal sides with a little more push towards bacterial (which grass, perennials and veggies like better). I'd halve the molasses and double the chocolate for trees and shrubs, which prefer a more fungal soil...in either case use this as a soil drench and water in afterward...
Remember, this will only stimulate existing biology and if you've been using chemicals for a long time you've killed most of those, except for the toughies, which are often bad guys, so supplying healthy biology with compost is still necessary. But if things are doing okay already and chemicals haven't been in the picture for a while (if at all) then this will boost the naturally occuring flora and fauna, and your plants right along with it...
HG
A good organic soil makes it's own fertilizer. As you build biology (bacteria, fungus, protozoa) they all comprise themselves of proteins, fats and carbohydrates. Now little critters like this don't sound like they'd add up, but there are 6 billion organisms in a teaspoon of good organic soil. That adds up to tons of biology in an acre of soil. Those proteins for instance, are carbon with at least one amine group attached (amines are nitrogen based, and are the building blocks for amino acids). Cell walls are a fat called phospholipids; the carbon has two fatty acid chains, some gycerol (base for sugar) and a phosphorus. As the next bigger guy eats the little guys, these nitrogens and phosphorus are released and VOILA! Nature fertilizes itself. This can be a profound amount of foods in a healthy soil. How to get biology? From good compost.
So if you can't make compost yourself, then buy it, but this is how you are going to cut down on fertilizer costs long term. In the meantime here's The Helpful Gardener's homemade recipe to stimulate soil biology or compost...
2 cups molasses
1 cup powdered chocolate (NOT Duch processed)
1 cup powdered kelp (try a health food store or online)
Mix a quarter cup or so in a gallon of water for compost starting or a half cup in five gallons for watering lawns and garden. this is a balanced food for both bacterial and fungal sides with a little more push towards bacterial (which grass, perennials and veggies like better). I'd halve the molasses and double the chocolate for trees and shrubs, which prefer a more fungal soil...in either case use this as a soil drench and water in afterward...
Remember, this will only stimulate existing biology and if you've been using chemicals for a long time you've killed most of those, except for the toughies, which are often bad guys, so supplying healthy biology with compost is still necessary. But if things are doing okay already and chemicals haven't been in the picture for a while (if at all) then this will boost the naturally occuring flora and fauna, and your plants right along with it...
HG