making organic fertilizer

A Better Way to Fertilize Your Garden - Homemade Organic Fertilizer
Your crops will thrive with this organic soil-building plan.

June/July 2006 By Steve Solomon
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Steve Solomon’s garden soil and crops show the effects of steady applications of his homemade organic fertilizer. Solomon has written nine books on gardening and maintains an online gardening resource at http://www.soilandhealth.org.
MURIEL BROWN (CHEN)

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Because my garden supplies about half of my family’s yearly food intake, I do all I can to maximize my vegetables’ nutritional quality. Based on considerable research and more than 30 years of vegetable growing, I have formulated a fertilizing mix that is beneficial for almost any food garden. It is a potent, correctly balanced fertilizing mix composed entirely of natural substances. It’s less expensive than commercial organic fertilizers, and it’s much better for your soil life than harsh synthetic chemical mixes (see “Chemical Cautions”).

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In my gardens, I use only this mix and regular additions of compost. Together they produce incredible results. I’ve recommended this system in the gardening books I’ve written over 20 years. Many readers have written me saying things like, “My garden has never grown so well; the plants have never been so large and healthy; the food never tasted so good.” The basic ingredients — seed meal, various kinds of lime, bone meal and kelp meal — are shown below. The complete recipe is on the tear-out poster located within this article.

Complete Organic Fertilizer
To concoct the mix, measure out all materials by volume: that is, by the scoop, bucketful, jarful, etc. Proportions that vary by 10 percent either way will be close enough to produce the desired results, but do not attempt to make this formula by weight. I blend mine in a 20-quart plastic bucket, using an old saucepan as a measuring scoop. I make 7 to 14 quarts at a time.

This mix is inexpensive judged by the results it produces; it’s also inexpensive in monetary terms if you buy the ingredients in bulk from the right vendors. Urban gardeners may have to do a bit of research to find suppliers that have the right ingredients. Farm and ranch stores as well as feed and grain dealers are the best sources for seed meals, which are typically used to feed livestock. If I were an urban gardener, I would visit the country every year or two to stock up. The other ingredients usually can be found at garden shops, although they probably will be sold in smaller quantities at relatively high prices per pound. You may find the best prices by mail order or on the Internet.

Seed meals and various kinds of lime are the most important ingredients (see “Basic Organic Fertilizer Ingredients”). These alone will grow a great garden. Gypsum is the least necessary kind of lime, but it’s included because it contains sulfur, a vital plant nutrient that is deficient in some soils. If gypsum should prove hard to find or seems too costly, don’t worry about it — double the quantity of inexpensive agricultural lime. If you can afford only one bag of lime, in most circumstances your best choice would be dolomitic limestone. You also could alternate agricultural lime and dolomite from year to year or bag to bag.

Bone meal is usually available at garden centers. Guano, rock phosphate and kelp meal may seem costly or difficult to obtain, but they add considerable fortitude to the plants and increase the nutritional content of your vegetables. Go as far down the recipe as you can afford, but if you can’t find the more exotic materials toward the bottom, don’t worry too much. However, if concerns about money stop you from obtaining kelp meal, rock dust or a phosphate supplement, I suggest taking a hard look at priorities. In my opinion, you can’t spend too much money creating maximum nutrition in your food — a dollar spent here will save several in health care costs over the long term.

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Applying the Fertilizer Mix
Before planting each crop, or at least once a year (preferably in the spring), uniformly broadcast 4 to 6 quarts of fertilizer mix atop each 100 square feet of raised bed, or down each 50 feet of planting row in a band 12 to 18 inches wide. Blend in the fertilizer with a hoe or spade. This amount provides sufficient fertility for what I’ve classified as “low-demand” vegetables to grow to their maximum potential and is usually enough to adequately feed “medium-demand” vegetables (see “Which Crops Need the Most”). If you’re planting in hills, mix an additional cup of fertilizer into each.

After the initial application, sprinkle small amounts of fertilizer around medium- and high-demand vegetables every three to four weeks, thinly covering the area that the root system will grow into. As the plants grow, repeat this “side-dressing,” placing each dusting farther from their centers. Each application will require more fertilizer than the previous. As a rough guide, side-dress about 4 to 6 additional quarts total per 100 square feet of bed during a crop cycle. If the growth rate fails to increase over the next few weeks, the most recent application wasn’t needed, so don’t add any more.

Chemical Cautions
Nonorganic synthetic fertilizers should come with labels warning against giving plants too much. One reason I don’t recommend the use of chemical fertilizers is that it’s too easy for inexperienced gardeners to cross the line between just enough and too much.

Chemical fertilizers are too pure. This is particularly true of inexpensive chemical blends — even so-called “complete” chemical fertilizers are entirely incomplete. They supply only nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Unless the manufacturer intentionally puts in other essential minerals, the chemical mix won’t supply them. Especially troublesome is that chemical fertilizers rarely contain calcium or magnesium, which plants need in large amounts along with tiny traces of several other minerals. Plants lacking any essential nutrients are more easily attacked by insects and diseases, contain less nourishment for you and often don’t grow as well as they could.

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


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