How To Make Your Own Organic Fertilizer at Home

by Lucien Beauley
(Manchester, N.H., U.S.A.)

Dried banana peel fertilizer

Dried banana peel fertilizer

In today's world, one must find any way to save money and for anyone trying to plant their own vegetables in their own little back yard organic garden can be expensive. Simply planting an indoor garden, fertilizer can be very expensive, especially organically derived fertilizer.

So, Where Do You Start?

Anyone with a little bit of determination can make their own plant food, especially if a small organic garden is being planned. You can buy prepared organic fertilizer that will serve most any grower's needs, but sometimes the expense can be prohibitive.

A Guide to a Better Way

Some backyard gardeners build a small compost pile or construct a bin and discard their refuse from table scraps and layer it on a regular basis with a little loamy soil and keep it watered.

How About an Unorthodox Approach

By making your own organic fertilizer you will save a lot of money. You can use simple organic waste and prepare it yourself very easily. One example when you or someone else in your household is about to throw out their banana peel, tell them to save it. The next step is to dry it in a small toaster oven or regular oven until you can pulverize it to powder in a small dish.

Example of the Analysis of Banana Peel and Other Organic Materials

Banana peel N=0 P=3.25 K=41.76
Cantaloupe rinds N=0 P=9.77 K=12.21

The values shown are for stem and fruit growth and as can be seen the K value for the banana will yield large fruit.
It should also be noticed that in order to maintain "green leaf" growth you should add either fish emulsion or blood meal.

Make Your Own Organic Fertilizer

In today's world, one must find any way to save money and for anyone trying to plant their own vegetables in their own little back yard organic garden can be expensive.
home made organic fertilizer, easy to make organic fertilizer, low cost organic fertilizer

For your interest, the NPK composition of other organic materials are: Banana peels = 0-3.25-41.76; cantaloupe rinds, 0-9.77-12.21; fish scraps (average composition), 4.75-1.5-6;

Jim says Lucien is showing us one way to make our own organic fertilizer here. If anyone else knows another method, let us know.

Comments for
How To Make Your Own Organic Fertilizer at Home

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Cottonseed for Fertilizer
by: Beth from Bradford, PA

My father and grandpa were organic gardeners and they mixed their own fertilizers from things like dried blood meal, bone meal, phosphate and so on.

After my dad died I came across a bucket marked cottonseed meal. Does anyone know what that might be used on? And if there is a shelf life to it. I am sure it's quite old.

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I recommend that you use your old cottonseed meal on acid-loving plants, like gardenia, azalea, and rhododendron.

I'm only recommending it because it IS old. If it was newer meal, I'd say not to use it, since almost all cotton these days is from a genetically modified (GMO) variety.

Even if it's lost half its fertility value, it's still better than no fertilizer, and better than a chemical fertilizer.

The Cost of Prepared Organic Fertilizer
by: Anonymous

How much prepared organic fertilizer cost?

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That's a good question, and one that there's no set answer for. It depends on where you live, and what currency you use, the product, how much you buy, and who makes it.

Prepared fertilizers are always going to cost more than the ones you make yourself, since you're trading your time for your money.

While commercial organic fertilizers from a manufacturer are made the same, batch after batch, you can never be absolutely certain what's in it and what's not.

When you make your own, you know exactly what's in it, even if this batch is a little different from the last batch.

All of that said, you can pay as little as $10 USD for a bottle of liquid or dry supplement to a serious chunk of cash for a foliar fertilizer.

I'm sorry I couldn't give you a definitive answer. There just isn't one.

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