Anyone else making their own fertilizers?

[Figarosmom]

I make banana peel water for potassium which helps make stronger fruits, veggies and flowers. And I go out in the alley and gather nettles to make nettle tea which is rich in nitrogen for good root , stem and leaf production. Really any weed cut up and cramed into a bucket with water and left to sit for a few weeks makes a good concentration fertilizer . Has to be watered down like 10/ 1, 10 parts water to 1 part concentration. It really smells though so keep it covered.

[blue_jay]

1. Haven't tried it yet but open to learning

Thanks for the info!

[Duncanpup]

2. I have a furry fertilizer operation.

Dunc the golden chunk. And where he uses the yard the grass is really a nice green.

[Figarosmom]

4. Yesh i had those

A golden named Buster and a Akita/Shepard mix named Muzzy. The fertilizer was pretty good and plentiful.

[Duncanpup]

6. 😂

[no_hypocrisy]

3. There's always composting. You're returning natural minerals to the soil

which are absorbed by your plants, vegetables, and fruits.

[Figarosmom]

5. Yeah that is good too.

Takes a while and never enough. But it's good on combo with rest.

[MiHale]

7. I grow and use comfrey...

and field horsetail for the ‘live’ fertilizers. All the grass clippings are composted alongside the fruit, veggie scraps and garden debris.
I found a website that describes comfrey quite well, link below.

https://www.theimpatientgardener.com/growing-my-own-fertilizer/

[Figarosmom]

8. Yeah

Thats another one for potassium. Can put leaves around your plants or make a tea concentration.

Thanks for the link. I do watch Gardeners World . In fact thsts why I'm up so late. During g the day Monty Don does his history of gardens shows or Big Dreams ,Small Spaces or the My Dream Farm which I do watch. His history presentations are all full of art history and world history to tell why gardens were the way they were in certain times in history. But Gardeners World is on all night. I love the show and all the hosts of the show. Monty, Adam Frost. Rachael, Carol and the rest of them. They even show how disabled people can garden, the different tools and methods. I would encourage everyone to watch it on the Monty Don Channel on XUMO, PLUTO, AMAZON, BRITBOX or PLEX

[onethatcares]

9. I compost everything

from the kitchen to the kitchen. My neighbor gives me 5 gal buckets of chicken manure that I mix with the compost to heat it up. She also gives me gallon size bags of eggshells which I use to make calcium carbonate, I bought a 3 dollar coffee grinder at a thrift store to make a fine powder of the shells and mix them with 5% white vinegar then dilute with h2o . The particulars for that are on the interwebs.

I've also experimented with wood ash to soften the soil and biochar but haven't used either long enough to evaluate.

[Figarosmom]

10. All those are good

Old time methods. Especially adding kitchen refuge an egg shells to your compost as well as ash. Lucky you having a neighbor that has chickens and doesn't use their chicken poop in their own garden.

[wiggs]

11. Compost tea every other week. Used espresso pucks tossed into beds or onto compost pile. I'll also

use some fish/guano emulsion occasionally.

[Figarosmom]

12. Good stuff

No one is using seaweed yet.

Last time I used fish emulsion it really stunk up the area. And it was the the kitchen garden, rather the closest to the house. Couldn't open the windows for fresh air for a week and anytime it rained after that.

[Emile]

13. I have a huge compost pile and a goat manure pile.

Using my John Deere small utility tractor with loader bucket, I turn it over and over throughout the year. I just spread last years compost on the garden and now need to borrow my neighbors three point tiller and work it into the garden soil. My Amish neighbor brought me another load of goat manure and like last year will add garden waste, egg shells, grass clippings, etc etc to it and spread it out on the garden next spring.

[Figarosmom]

14. Good neighbors are so valuable.

My Granddaddy was an old time dairy farmer, before the machines in the hills of West Virg. and he relied on his neighbors and vise versa. We would go every summer to help get in the hay for winter. They didn't even have indoor plumbing. Now I look up the little town which at the time was a gas station , general store/post office and feed store and on line it says there are now 37,000 people. Must have plumbed the area from a nearby lake.

[Jack Valentino]

15. YES, going to use the dandelions to make a potassium rich fertilizer this year...

particularly good for tomatoes, as I have read...

About time they were good for something, no?


(will throw the banana peels in also, if I aquire any--- although that seems doubtful this year)

[Figarosmom]

16. I like dandelion leaves in sandwiches

Last edited Tue Apr 22, 2025, 01:59 AM - Edit history (1)

Salads, soups, anywhere you would use spinach. But it would make a good fertilizer too.

[Jack Valentino]

19. apparantly rich in potassium which is good for tomatoes...

read an article about creating a "stew" out of them,
and using the water therof for a fertilizer...

sounds good to me, always have an abundance of dandelions here---
and they are free

[AllaN01Bear]

17. howdi

if u have access to fireplace ash or wood stove ash , dump it on the fertliser when cool. makes a great additive to soil. personal experiance here . friend of mine would catch and bury fish next to plants and the loved it.