White Fish Meal

[Laurel leaf]

I have on my hands a large supply of fish meal from Alaskan Pollock. I am trying to figure out its best use. I have a rotating compost bin system, a chicken coop, and a vegetable garden. Can this stuff get tilled straight into my garden mix? Should. Put it into my compost mix first?

[evtubbergh]

I would think add it to the soil directly. The food I use is also fish meal and unless it's very high in nitrates (like chicken poo) it won't won't burn the plants. It should be a fairly medium-slow release food that will do wonder for the nitrogen levels in your garden.

Don't forget to add other potassium and phosphorus sources as well as micronutrients. Wood ash contains potassium but I'm not sure about phosphorus although I think (and I stand to be corrected) that wood ash also contains some potassium. You can buy organic fertilisers free or certain elements.

[toxcrusadr]

Wood ash definitely has K and even some P. Just beware of its very high pH. If your soil is already neutral to alkaline, it's best not to add wood ash.

The fish meal will also have P in addition to lots of N. P is in the bones, assuming the meal contains the bones. Can you find any analysis data on it? Either from the web or whoever you got it from?

Here you go, see page 80. Seems like AK Whitefish meal has about 5%Ca and 3%P. Very good source of P. Make sure you don't use too much, P can stick around unlike N.

https://seafood.oregonstate.edu/.pdf%20L ... oducts.pdf

[imafan26]

If you bought the fertilizer the NPK should be on the bag. Realize with organic products the NPK is probably an average since there may be slight variations in batches.

[evtubbergh]

I came back to add that the bone meal has a lot of phosphorus but have been beaten to the punch. Don't over do it as already mentioned. With fertiliser, less is always more. It's hard to overcome the temptation to overdo it.

Remember to add trace minerals and K.

[applestar]

I would think it would get difficult to store unless it is completely dehydrated, and even then.

It sounds like a good material to use for prepping the bed by tilling in (but in moderation as recommended), and it sounds like equally good addition to the compost pile if you have a caged pile to keep out animals that may try to dig for it.

Last year, I bought a bag of pelleted Alaskan (brand) Fishmeal (maybe the same one toxcrusader got the analysis for). I mixed it into a wheel barrel full of compost, sand, and other stuff like greensand and rock phosphate, etc. and dug a quart of the mixture into the bottom of each planting hole as fertilizer blend.