Homemade fertilizer

Homesteading & Country Living Forum

Help Support Homesteading & Country Living Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Newbri

A Gabonese Prepper-ish woman
Neighbor
Joined
May 27, 2021
Messages
388
Location
Libreville, Gabon
A few months ago I was spending a few days at a family member's place and an aunt of ours was cooking fish.

After cleaning the fish, I saw her dump out the fish water on a teeny baby tree that was kind of dying. And I asked her why she did that, wouldn't it kill the tree even more?

She told me that she fish water actually helped plants grow. It is something that I've seen in passing since then but I thought I would ask the forum their thoughts on this.
Also, do you have any recipes for homemade fertilizer. Something cheap and simple that I'd be able to put together if/when I live far away from a city. What have you found to work best? Are they kind of a one size fits all? Or do you have different recipes for different fruit/veggies/etc.
 
I would clean out our fish tank, and dump the water on our roses. They loved it.
Rabbit poop is the best fertilizer around. Find someone with rabbits. The poop is not "hot" like chicken poop, and can be used right away in your plants.

Rabbit poop is on the list, yes. I'm going to look around for anyone who breeds them.
What do you mean by the rabbit poop isn't "hot" like chicken's?

i have seen people use fish heads and guts for fertilizer but they did bury them deep and cover them with hmmm sulfur? otherwise the racoons would dig them up.

Ben
Speaking of sulfur, I recently saw something about making onion juice and using that as fertilizer.
 
Rabbit poop is on the list, yes. I'm going to look around for anyone who breeds them.
What do you mean by the rabbit poop isn't "hot" like chicken's?


Speaking of sulfur, I recently saw something about making onion juice and using that as fertilizer.
Chicken poop is too good. It will burn up plants if not allowed to age and "coo off".

Yes you could water it down and make a weak tea.

I have an unplanned benefit that keeps most of my garden boxes well fertilized. I installed them undr some telephone lines were the local birds like to perch. They lightly fertilized my gardens daily.

Ben
 
Yes there are all kinds of things you can use as natural fertilizers. It would be a good idea to know the PH first. Because wood ash is one but it's alkaline and can make the soil to base if your not acidic. All types of living remains have some use as fertilizer. Compost can be made out of most all natural sources except fats / oils and some would argue that. Blood meal and bone meal both have excellent properties. Tree chips from powerline crews rot down in to wonderful compost in a few years even faster with some nitrogen added IE Urine and or manure. The list is almost endless. As to the other part of your question yes different things require different types of fertilizer. More commonly a whole lot of things can use the same fertilizer. You learn which are which as you go.
 
If I recall correctly, and of course if it was true, the Indians told the pilgrims at Plymouth Rock to bury a fish with their seed crops. I'm sure facebook "fact checkers" would label it false, but the fertilizer I use on my houseplants is a "fish emulsion"
 
I use common weeds (preferably just before flowering and definitely before going to seed). Use them as mulch. I also chop and soak the weeds in water for a day or two. (Some people soak it for days and days until it stinks to high heaven. I am not a fan of anerobic bacteria, no matter how wonderful "they" say it is.) Then I strain the tea and use it as a soil drench, then throw the spent weeds in the garden (with soil sprinkled on top to boost beneficial microbial action in the garden's soil).

Sometimes I just throw the spent weeds into the compost trench. I do cold composting by digging a shallow trench and add stuff like this and other things (but never diseased plants). Each time I make a "deposit" of weeds, kitchen scraps, etc, I add to the length of the trench. Soon this trench becomes a super-fertile row for future plants.

I also plant things like comfrey and borage for their super nutritious leaves for the above purposes as well.

Fish heads, bones, and guts are fine and good...I use them when I get the chance (but not too often...because no matter how I deal with it, it attracts bears), so I am considering trapping minnows for burying into the compost trench and in select areas of the garden...

I rake leaves, chop them up, and spread them thickly as mulch. The resulting 'leaf mold' is awesome and adds to the vitality of the soil.

I also plant cover crops, then "chop and drop."

I don't have a tiller...don't need it, the earthworms do the tilling for me.

Over time, I have turned poor soil into "black gold" this way.

I do lots of other stuff... and just ought to write a book and get it over with, lol
 
Last edited:
the world famous permaculturish geoff lawton coined termchop and drop or his former business partner bill molson...its real simple like grizzgal said chop and drop.

i use to plant trees in early spring as a side job planting 1000's of trees each spring.one place was so bad not a single tree lived on multiple planting and nothing grew..so the few weeds that would we had to leave to grow. ever seen a giant patch of poke weed. after a few years of it growing,dieing off and building organics up we got trees established. that was 30 years ago and today what was once a rock pile now is a forest filled with life.

i use to get flak over not taking refuse from garden to a compost bin. its extra work for me..plus a biggie is the nightcrawler worms in garden need it to eat on. they eat it and deposit casting all in garden. theres people spend time and energy composting in bins and sifting worm casting out for garden...why? i am lazy..i dont need or want to do that..chop and drop in place and save time and effort.

we humans over complicate things often.
 
david the good bought a property with crap soil on it 9 months ago. he is chopping and dropping and more. he built a terra perta bed and its working out great. but that takes a hge effort the way he done it and depth. i think terra perta beds can be built to depth of only 18inches and maybe even a foot and do real well for most people.

 
we humans over complicate things often.

That is very true 😀 which is why I want simple yet effective. You can call me lazy, haha. But I'm trying to work smart on this, not hard. Hard can be for other aspects. If I can find simple enough of a fertilizer, I'm happy with it.

Here are tips I've found that I'll play around with:
1. Rice water: we eat a lot of rice here, so that can be done everyday.
2. Banana peel powder: months ago my sister had made some of that powder but for cosmetics reasons and I'm trying that in the soil.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top