Using natural organic fertilizer is nothing new. Years ago, people gardened to produce better, cheaper, and healthier veggies than store-bought.
A good garden starts with the enrichment of the soil. Adding organic matter, compost, and homemade plant food – natural fertilizer – is the trick.
PinAll of us have heard of organic gardening. This technique involves producing vegetables and fruits in an all-natural way.
All the nutrients and fertilizers used are natural, organic materials. They involve no commercial chemical fertilizer or synthetic fertilizer loaded with harmful chemicals.
How To Make Organic Fertilizer – All-Natural
Making your own natural, organic homemade fertilizer is both easy and cheap. It often uses components you already have around the home.
Organic material from leftover food and grass clippings to organic DIY fertilizers made from plant or animal remains.
Plant-based fertilizers include:
- Compost
- Cottonseed meal
- Soybean
- Kelp
- Seaweed
- Wood ash uses like these
- Alfalfa meal fertilizer
Animal-based fertilizers contain:
- Fish emulsion from fish parts
- Fish meal
- Blood meal
- Animal Cow manure and Steer Manure
- Bat guano
- Worm castings
- Bone meal fertilizer for plants and soil
NOTE: Always get a soil test to make sure you add the organic soil amendments the soil needs for the plants you grow.
Fertilizer ratios areexpressed in numbers ofNitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium. These are vital nutrients for strength, aerial storage, root development, and plant health.
As humans need carbohydrates and proteins. Plants need and love “organicNPK fertilizer” for survival.
Additionally, plants use calcium, magnesium, sulphur for photosynthesis. Plants break down water and CO2 with the help of the sun into hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon, which they turn into food.
PinOther micronutrients required for plant growth are:
- Boron
- Iron – Details on iron chelate fertilizer for plants
- Copper
- Manganese
- Molybdenum
- Zinc
Based on these requirements, we will look at some homemade organic fertilizing options and ways to produce them. [1]
DIY
Tomatoes are heavy feeders requiring lots of nutrients.Learn more aboutNatural Homemade Organic Tomato Fertilizer
How To Make Natural Fertilizers: Organic Compost Tea Recipe
Compost Tea builds soil nutrients, adds beneficial microbe populations, and more!
Quick Tips on Making Compost Tea
- Fill a 5 -gallon bucket 1/3 of the way with good-quality finished compost from the compost pile.
- Fill the bucket with water to a few inches from the top.
- Allow the mixture to steep for 3 or 4 days.
- Stir the mixture often.
- Strain the mixture with a porous fabric
- Pour the remaining compost into the garden or send it back to the compost pile.
- Dilute the remaining liquid fertilizer to a ratio of 10:1 of water to tea.
- Spray mixture over leaves with a sprayer.
Details on How To Make Compost Tea For The Garden.
Lawn Fertilizer and Weed FertilizerRecipe
- Fill a 5-gallon bucket with 2/3 parts of fresh grass clippings.
- Top off with a few inches of water.
- Allow mixture to sit for for 3 days at room temperature and stir the mixture at least once a day.
- Strain the liquid and dilute this liquid fertilizer with equal parts of water.
- Spray this rich nutrient-content mixture over leaves for rapid growth.
Similar to grass fertilizers, weeds are also high in nitrogen. They easily grow below your feet; hence, you need not grow them.
Weeds to compost that form excellent homemade organic material include:
- Horsetail
- Chickweed
- Nettles
- Burdock
- Comfrey
The steps of making an organic homemade plant fertilizer using weeds are exactly the same as grass fertilizer.
Natural Plant Fertilizer: Fish Tank Water Recipe
Used fish tank water contains excessive nitrogen, which is favorable for plants. But be careful to remove all newborn fish from the water. Also, the contents should not come from a saltwater tank.
- Apply dirty and untreated water from the fish tank on plants.
Make Your Own Fertilizer: Vinegar Recipe
Vinegar and acetic acid work very well for plants that love acid. Use as a replacement for rose plant food or houseplant fertilizers. (Always test first)
- Mix 1 gallon water and 1 tablespoon of white vinegar.
- Apply this mixture to your plants and repeat after every 3 months.
DIY Plant Fertilizer: Fireplace Ash Recipe
Fireplace ash fertilizer is an excellent source of potassium and calcium carbonate. Use it as areplacement for lime.
Massage or work in the fireplace ash as a soil amendment. This fertilizer should not be used on acid-loving plants when the soil is alkaline in nature.
Making Your Own Plant Food: Banana Peels & Coffee Grounds
These are two different fertilizers that are very easy to prepare.
Recipe #1 Banana Peels
- A Banana peel contains potassium, which is essential for plant growth. Roses love potassium.
- Throw the banana skins or peels in a hole before planting. Or bury the peels under mulch to allow them to compost. This helps improve soil fertility, resulting in bigger rose blooms.Along with the banana peels, use Epsom salt to give roses blooms with more vibrant color.
Recipe #2 Coffee Grounds
- Tomatoes, blueberries, androses benefitfrom thenitrogen in coffee grounds.
- The liquid version of the coffee grounds or powder sprinkled on top of the soil around your plats helps the plants to grow well.
- Mix 6 cups of coffee grinds in 5 gallons of water.
- The mixture should settle down for 3 -4 days before applying to the soil.
How To Make Your Own Fertilizer: Manure Recipe
- Composted manure of goats, chickens, horses, and cattle is available to people who raisethem.
- Use aged and composted manure for best results.
- Fill small, recyclable, permeable cloth bags with manure.
- This manure needs to steep for 3-4 days in a shaded area before adding to the soil before planting. The bag can then be discarded or buried.
Worm Castings
PinUsing worm castings or worm tea is very easy. The recipe:
- Mix a handful of wriggler worms with kitchen scraps or cardboard scraps – aka compost.
- This mixture should steep for a week and then applied to your soil.
Egg Shells
- Wash theeggshells.
- Crush them and work the crushed pieces into the soil especially near tomato or pepper plants.
- The calcium in eggs prevents rotting of roots.
- Eggshells contain calcium carbonate (93%).
- Use eggshells as a soil conditioner replacement for lime.
Cat & Dog Food As Organic Food
Organic dog food can be recycled and used as a fertilizer. It contains proteins and micronutrients to benefit the soil.
- When you prepare the soil for planting, spread this composted pet food into the soil with water. The food decays naturally in a few days.
- The food needs to be covered to keep all animals including your pets from eating the food before it decomposes.
- For this, the soil needs to be covered with cardboard and then a wet layer of mulch. The wet layer of cardboard and mulch prevents the growth of weeds.
- The soil should be thoroughly watered for 3 to 4 weeks.
- The only care needed is to avoid pet food containing chemicals and sodium in high content (more than 3%). The chemicals and sodium are harmful to the plants.
Apart from these, molasses, seaweed, alfalfa meal and plants, soybean meal, even human urine can serve as very good natural fertilizers when used for the plants which can benefit from these for better and healthier produce.
John at GrowingYourGreens shares his pick of natural fertilizers that supersize plant growth in his backyard “organic farm” vegetable garden. John always has some great tips!
Best Fertilizers To SuperSize Plant Growth
Chemical fertilizers provide a “quick hit” for plants. But, with organic fertilizers you’re feeding the garden soil with a different kind of slow-release fertilizer.
Organic natural fertilizers do not always come in big 50 pound bags. Some are hiding right inside your house.
