A Better Way to Fertilize Your Garden - Homemade Organic Fertilizer
(Page 3 of 6)
June/July 2006
By Steve Solomon
There is yet another drawback: All inexpensive chemical fertilizers dissolve quickly in soil. This usually results in a rapid burst of plant growth, followed five or six weeks later by a big sag, requiring yet another application. Should it rain hard enough for a fair amount of water to pass through the soil, the chemicals dissolved in the soil water will be transported as deeply into the earth as the water penetrates (this is called “leaching”), so deep that the plant’s roots can’t reach them. With one heavy rain or one too-heavy watering, your fertile topsoil becomes infertile. The chemicals also can pollute groundwater. The risk of leaching is especially great in soils that contain little or no clay.
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Organic fertilizers, manures and composts, on the other hand, release their nutrient content only as they decompose — as they are slowly broken down by the complex ecology of living creatures in the soil. The soil temperature determines the length of this process. The rate of decomposition roughly doubles for each 10 degree increase of soil temperature. Complete decomposition of most organic fertilizers takes around two months in warm soil. During that time, they steadily release nutrients.
Chemical fertilizers can be made to be “slow-release,” but these sorts cost several times as much as the type that dissolves rapidly in water. The seed meals in my organic fertilizer mix are natural slow-release fertilizers, and they usually are less expensive than slow-release chemical products.
The Quick and Easy Guide to Fertilizer
Organic Fertilizer Recipe
Mix uniformly, in parts by volume:
4 parts seed meal*
1/4 part ordinary agricultural lime, best finely ground
1/4 part gypsum (or double the agricultural lime)
1/2 part dolomitic lime
Plus, for best results:
1 part bone meal, rock phosphate or high-phosphate guano
1/2 to 1 part kelp meal (or 1 part basalt dust)
*For a more sustainable and less expensive option, you can substitute chemical-free grass clippings for the seed meal, although clippings will not provoke the same strong growth response. Use about a half-inch-thick layer of fresh clippings (six to seven 5-gallon bucketfuls per 100 square feet), chopped into the top 2 inches of your soil with a hoe. Then spread an additional 1-inch-thick layer as a surface mulch.
How Much to Use
Once a year (usually in spring), before planting crops, spread and dig in the following materials.
Low-demand Vegetables:
1/4 inch layer of steer manure or finished compost
4 quarts organic fertilizer mix/100 sq. ft.
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