The Grass Doctor

What household products could I use to make an organic fertilizer for my plants?

How is it made?

Public Comments

1. lawn clippings vegetable and fruit scraps old flour or other ground grains pickling lime to neutralize any acidic components leaves raked in the Fall chipped tree branches wood ash take a plastic barrel cut a flap in the side, by cutting a 3 sided square, where one side is still attached. screw screw into the barrel opposite from your attached end, on the flap screw another to screw just across the cut from the other. this will serve as a way to keep the flap shut. stuff everything in the barrel add plenty of water to dampen...not make soup set outside in a shaded area once every week roll to mix the contents and add water to keep damp, until it looks like soil.
2. Organic ones. And, when making Compost, keep any Water that might drain off, as this Water contains nutrients that do not burn the Plants. /!\
3. Coffee grounds, egg shells, lettuce
4. You can also turn that into a soil! Now you know the products, then you should know how to turn it into a soil. In a clean pot, just put a little soil at the bottom. Put the products(it must be chopped to a very small size) in it. You can also add dried leaves. Crushed dried leaves. Cover it with soil, then water it for 3 weaks. After that, let it dry by itself in the pot. TADAA!!
5. Compost. Take biodegrable household waste (like vegetable scraps, waste paper, lawn clippings, leaves, etc, not plastic, metal) and put it in a compost pile or bin. You can get the bins at places like Home Depot or garden shops. Keep it moist and turned over and it will break down into very fertile soil. You just can't put meat or fish in the compost. Then spread it around your plants and watch them grow. Also, crunched up egg shells and used coffee grounds are good fertilizers if you work them into the soil.
6. Your own bodily wastes :) Now that's recycling!
7. Gardeners frequently injure their plants with too much or too many applications of fertilizer. Misapplied fertilizer will wash into streams and drainageways and encourage unwanted plant and algae growth in the water. New plants should not be fertilized for 6 to 12 months. Trees in the lawn area may never need fertilizing if a turf fertilizer program is followed. A decomposed organic mulch or compost around plantings is an excellent source of nonchemical fertilizer. A soil test for fertility and pH level will determine the appropriate type and application rate for fertilizing. Fertilizers are salts, much like table salt, except that they contain various plant nutrients. Nitrogen is important for leaf and stem growth and provides the rich, green color in a plant. Phosphorus provides for root and flower growth. Too much phosphorus will contaminate the local streams and drainageways; it has been banned from laundry detergents for this reason. Potassium helps build plant tissue and aids the production of chlorophyll. Fertilizing Trees: Trees that are not thriving because of poor soils may respond to moderate applications of fertilizer after the first hard frost in the fall. Measure the diameter of the tree’s trunk 4 feet above the ground. For each inch of diameter, apply 2 pounds of a 5-10-5 formula. Spread the fertilizer over the feeder roots, located in a band around the tree, starting about 6 to 8 feet from the trunk and extending out 10 feet beyond the ends of the branches. Apply water liberally to wash the fertilizer into the ground, using care that the fertilizer does not wash away. Trees with trunk diameters greater than 3 inches, measured 4 feet above the ground, may benefit from fertilizer placed in holes around the tree. Make the holes with a punch bar when the soil is moist after a period of rain or sprinkler irrigation. For each inch of trunk diameter, mix 3 pounds of 5-10-5 formula with equal parts of dry soil or sand, and distribute in each hole. Water the area to encourage the fertilizer to move out into the soil from the holes. Fill the top portion of each hole with rich garden loam. The treatment should not have to be repeated for several years. Fertilizing Shrubs: Most shrubs do not require fertilizer to thrive. Don’t fertilize shrubs that are making satisfactory growth. A soil test will indicate when you should add nutrients and in what amounts. However, if soil test information is not available and your plant’s appearance warrants — its leaves are off-green or yellowish and its twigs are short and thin — apply about one cup of a 5-10-5 fertilizer to medium-sized shrubs (4 to 8 feet tall) in the fall after the first hard frost. Small shrubs (under 3 feet tall) need about half this much, and shrubs larger then 8 feet require twice as much. Uniformly apply the fertilizer over the root zone, starting about 6 inches from the base of the shrub and extending out about a foot beyond the ends of the branches. Soak the fertilizer into the ground with a gentle spray of water to avoid burning the plant’s roots with the fertilizer salts. Too much water too fast will wash the fertilizer far from your shrub and send it into nearby streams or drainageways, wasting your money and time and harming the watershed. If you apply fertilizer in the late summer and early fall before the frost, your plants are likely to have a growth spurt. This will encourage vigorous tender growth late in the season, which may be killed by cold weather in early winter. A dry summer followed by a rainy autumn may also promote late growth that is tender to cold. Such conditions may also cause flowers to open in the fall on shrubs that typically bloom in the spring.