Grow Your Own
(Page 13 of 13)
May/June 1970
By Jeanie Darlington
If the slaughterhouse by-products don't appeal to you, there are various meals - soybean, linseed, peanut, coconut oil, corn gluten, and cottonseed meal. Cottonseed meal is the only one that most garden shops carry, but remember that until DDT is banned, the cotton crop will continue to be sprayed with it. I am told that the seed is well protected inside the hull, so you can make up your mind about this. These meals analyze 4-7% N, 1-3% P, and 1.5% K. They are valuable soil and compost additives and can be used at a rate of 10 Ibs. per 100 sq. ft.
RELATED CONTENT
When iron ore is smelted to form pig iron, you're left with BASIC SLAG. It is rich in calcium and contains various trace elements such as boron, sodium, molybdenum, copper, zinc, magnesium, manganese, and iron. It is alkaline in action and is best applied in the fall.
SEAWEED and KELP are high in potash (5%) and in trace elements. Use it fresh from the sea as a mulch or in the compost pile. Some people wash the salt off and some don't. I wonder if the salty seaweed or kelp wouldn't be a good snail and slug deterrent when used as a mulch. It is also available in a meal form at some health food stores.
Finally, there are the natural mineral rock fertilizers. PHOSPHATE ROCK (30-50% P) and COLLOIDALPHOS PHATE (18-30% P) contain phosphorus, calcium, iron sodium, magnesium boron and iodine. GREENSAND (6-7% K) and GRANITE DUST (3-5% K) are excellent sources of potash. Apply the rock powders as a top dress ing or mix them into the soil at 10-15 lb. per 100 sq. ft., or add them to the compost pile. The availability of nutrients in rock powders is increased by applying them along with animal or green manure or compost, because the decay of the organic matter helps release the locked up nutrients in the ground rock.
This is by no means the end of the list of organic fertilizers. Depending on where you live, you may find bat guano (1-12% N, 2.5%-16% P), dried jelly fish (4.6% N), feathers (15.30% N), red snapper and grouper fish scraps (13% P), NYC garbage rubbish (3.5% N, 1.4% P, and 3% K), hair (12-16% N), hoof and hornmeal (10.5% P), silkworm cocoons (9.5% N), and wool waste (5-6% N, 24% P, 1-3% K): And I could go on.
You will most likely find the following organic type fertilizers in nurseries - bone meal, blood meal, cottonseed meal, hoof and horn meal, dried steer manure, and Milorganite. Beware of commercial compost unless it says organically composted. See the Fertilizer Directory on page 84 for organic fertilizer suppliers.
In the Bay Area, David Pace of the Organic Farm and Garden Center sells the following things, mostly in 100 lb. bags, for reasonable prices; phosphate rock, granite dust, blood meal, cottonseed meal, dolomite, fish meal, hoof and horn meal, kelp meal, limestone and oystershell flour.
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