DIY organic fertilizer recipes

MImedpatient

Well-known member
purchase EM1 or make Lactic Acid Bacteria Serum
purchase 5 gallon bucket w/ lid, o ring, and S valve for fermentation.
Root juice. equal weights of carrots, beets, parsnip, turnips, and if available dandelion root. Dice roots into 1cm sized chunks
mix root weight w/ an equal weight of brown sugar. add 5ml of em1 or LABS w/ this mixture after the juices have begun extracting.
place in bucket. make a 1 inch(2cm?) sugar cap on the mass. put lid /w s valve filled w/ water on tightly.
allow to sit for 4-6(8-10 in winter) weeks. remove lid, add 1-2 gallons of water, stir, strain, add an equal weight of molasses to stabilize the solution. and you have some potassium and sugar fertilizer.
use at 1-10 ml/gallon(depending on dilution rate)

Veg juice. take an equal weight spinach, kale, broccoli, lettuces(all kinds) cabbages, dandelion greens, kelp and alfalfa if you got some hydrated up or fresh. and dice it up into 1cm bits.
follow the same steps, except this one you shouldn't have to add any extra water to. this is a nitrogen and sugar fertilizer
use at 1-10 ml/gallon

Fruity blooms! equal weights apples, pears, grapes, banana and watermelon(extra juice to compensate for the banana), flowers from flowering plants, if you can find some.
this is gonna be the juiciest, but also hardest to strain because of the banana. follow the same steps, but allow longer time to strain, and once again you shouldn't have to add extra water. this is a phosphorus, potassium, and sugar fertilizer
use at 1-10ml per gallon

substitute whatever you have on hand that is cheap and affordable in each recipe. if you want you can go to grocery stores and ask for stuff that would otherwise be thrown out because it was over ripe or about to go bad and reduce costs even more. goring your own, or pulling your own dandelions(if you and neighbors don't use pesticide). It is on you to choose whteher or not you care if you use organic or regular produce to make these.
These fertilizers are great for assisting Mel's mix/super soil style growing. I haven't yet tried them standalone into a soilless mix.
 
I prefer animal based fertilizers. Nature evolved plants and animals that way. Human urine is free. Mix and apply at the rate of 1:12 urine to water. It has an NPK of 11:2:4. I hvae also done well with barn muck (sheep, goat, horse and cow dung). Arrange loosely on top of soil in a 3 foot ring around plants. Beware, sheep poop can be really hot (high nitorgen). One of the best animal ferts that I have used is alpaca poo. Are they organic? Depends on the farm I guess. I do not grow organic though. I grow bio-dynamic. Plants take up nutes the same regardless of the source. That from my notes from attending classes at UC Davis and Oregon State U. ag schools.
 
I prefer animal based fertilizers. Nature evolved plants and animals that way. Human urine is free. Mix and apply at the rate of 1:12 urine to water. It has an NPK of 11:2:4. I hvae also done well with barn muck (sheep, goat, horse and cow dung). Arrange loosely on top of soil in a 3 foot ring around plants. Beware, sheep poop can be really hot (high nitorgen). One of the best animal ferts that I have used is alpaca poo. Are they organic? Depends on the farm I guess. I do not grow organic though. I grow bio-dynamic. Plants take up nutes the same regardless of the source. That from my notes from attending classes at UC Davis and Oregon State U. ag schools.
poop is the base for my compost that I mic equal parts to aeration and peat/coco blend!!!!! I found human urine makes great fertilizer, but most people get pissed about pee in the fertilizer if they find out. so I avoid it. I shall respond to the light thread when I get new glasses! I want to talk about stuff with you! but I am not squinting with my face super close to a screen to edit my wordy ass statements. they broke quite good when they fell off my face yesterday.
 
Is chicken dung good for fertilizer? I can get all I want.

Longball

It is good, but it is really hot (high in nitrogen). You need to cut it in with something like sawdust that will absorb a lot of the nitrogen and then release it slowly as it breaks down. Or if your plants are in the ground, apply a light amount in a doughnut around the base more than a foot away from the stems. When I lived on a sheep ranch in Southern Oregon, the muck in the barn there was so saturated with sheep and chicken poop that nothing grew for 4 feet around the barn. It was too hot. Then just past that dead zone the grass grew super tall and blue-green. And that tapered off outward around the barn to a yellow short grass that matched the pastures about 10 feet out. That gave me the idea to use the muck in a doughnut away from the plants. With horse poop I found that it clumps and it had to be piled up for a year to compost before using it. Pig poop was too dense and stank too much to be of any use. Alpaca poo was the best, and could be applied pretty much at any rate. That has a lot of fiber in it.
 
Aloha & I use eco vita 7-5-10 that is ideal for nursery crops and herbs. The slow release will depend on temperature, rainfall and plant demand.
 
Aloha & I use eco vita 7-5-10 that is ideal for nursery crops and herbs. The slow release will depend on temperature, rainfall and plant demand.
awesome! but unless that is a DIY blend you made and sell, it's not so much the them of the thread. Right now I am using veg bloom. working my way back to organics.
having homemade DIY liquid fermented fertilizer recipes readily available was what I was trying to share here. I have made the ones I listed ans my plants very much enjoyed the addition of them to a compost tea. half before brew, half after. they liked them as a weekly feed by itself. the leftovers from making them fed the worm bin, which made even better compost teas becasue the worms were eating basically pickled fruits and vegetables. and as you know, pickles and probiotics are good for the multicellular organisms

It is good, but it is really hot (high in nitrogen). You need to cut it in with something like sawdust that will absorb a lot of the nitrogen and then release it slowly as it breaks down. Or if your plants are in the ground, apply a light amount in a doughnut around the base more than a foot away from the stems. When I lived on a sheep ranch in Southern Oregon, the muck in the barn there was so saturated with sheep and chicken poop that nothing grew for 4 feet around the barn. It was too hot. Then just past that dead zone the grass grew super tall and blue-green. And that tapered off outward around the barn to a yellow short grass that matched the pastures about 10 feet out. That gave me the idea to use the muck in a doughnut away from the plants. With horse poop I found that it clumps and it had to be piled up for a year to compost before using it. Pig poop was too dense and stank too much to be of any use. Alpaca poo was the best, and could be applied pretty much at any rate. That has a lot of fiber in it.
you speak truths about the composting of manure!

one of my friends is starting a compost company. him and his partner have sourced brewery waste(malted barley, rice, and oats), and alpaca poop, and sawdust. they are growing stinging nettle and comfrey that they blended kelp into the compost they planted it in so they can make more mineral rich compost.
 
so, Lactic Acid Bacteria Serum. wash a big ole jar, get some cheese cloth, or a paper towel, even an old tshirt works, and some string to tie the cheesecloth or paper towel on the jar as a lid.

Acquire milk to fill jar 2/3 up. cover w/ paper towel or cheese cloth and secure. let sit out on the counter or in the garage for about 3 days if its warm out, 7 days if its cool out.
after its ready, separate the curd and liquid, curd can be used to make cheese, or as a garden probiotic, in the compost. if it smells somewhere between cottage cheese, ricotta, and cream cheese, you made it correctly.
take the whey, and either store it in a jar in the refrigerator for about a month, or if you wish to make it shelf stable, add an equal volume of unsulfured molasses to the liquid culture.
use 5-30ml/gallon, your choice. I do 5ml as I am stingy w/ my cultures.

Lactic acid bacteria are some weirdos. they can live in both aerobic and anaerobic conditions. they love to eat sugar, and poop out enzymes and amino acids. they are best friends w/ so many of the plants symbionts, they are also "bulk" microbes. think about adding them as like dropping a whole bunch of crickets into a terrarium of small lizards. who doesn't want to feed the organisms that feed our plants a buffet?

They often fill niches that would be occupied by a disease causing microbe. Recall the story from the civil war. bunch of dudes dying on a battlefield, some of their wounds started to glow. it was a soil bacteria. people w/ glowing wounds had a lower rate of death from sepsis. because the soil micro organism filled the niches that organisms that would have killed the soldiers would have filled. this can often occur because there are so many non infectious microbes sitting in the way of an infectious microbe, l it gets dealt with by other means before it can reproduce.

Did I mention they make enzymes? enzymes in the rootzone = faster decomposition of rotting material aka compost. smaller compost particles means the plant and its symbionts(mycorrhizae, internal biosphere) do less work asking for things as the root symbionts have less work to do in mining w/ their own enzymes. its a massive equation of biology that ends with your plant doing less hard work so it can make more secondary metabolites like mono terpenes, sesquiterpenes, esters, carotenoids(reds and oranges), anthocyanins(blue red purple), and cannabinoids. Yes that can mean more thc. but it also means all the other cannabinoids that particular plant can make, will also be increased to the maximum it can do.

Enzyme tea
! cup of freshly ground malted barley, or oats w/e is cheaper when you go to buy it from the brew store per 30 gallons of water. put in a nylon. hang above the bubble stones in your reservoir. let sit for 2-4 hours. remove nylon and feed to compost, or worms. use tea on plants. use once a week, in between the weekly feed if your plants wet dry cycle allows it.

Enzymes and amino acids are really, really important for organic agriculture, and the lack of consistently reintroduced air and rain borne bacteria deprives the indoor, and to a smaller, likely imperceptible amount in many greenhouses.
We have to add them ourselves indoor.
 
i just picked up 5 gallons of rabbit poop today, i was going to make a tea, i have ordered 5 gallons of unsulphured molasses which hopefully arrives next week. any thoughts on humic acid in the tea. and should i use some of my compost in the tea. and should i pasteurize the compost if i want to use it, or would i be better off to mix the compost in with the hp pro mix.
 
i just picked up 5 gallons of rabbit poop today, i was going to make a tea, i have ordered 5 gallons of unsulphured molasses which hopefully arrives next week. any thoughts on humic acid in the tea. and should i use some of my compost in the tea. and should i pasteurize the compost if i want to use it, or would i be better off to mix the compost in with the hp pro mix.
Rabbit poop is so fun! my brother has a pet bunny, and her litter box is worm chow. the plants near where we compost it have to be whacked twice a week. rabbit compost can easily be safe to use when fresh, but IMO, poop should always be composted, unless its rabbit or I think alpaca fresh from the animal. I am sad He took the bunny home now that his floors are done.

I assume if its already composted you can mix it in w/ the promix at 1/3 the volume,

I like humic acid, but if you used a well made compost it should be unnecessary. If you make your own castings and use those instead of composted(which already has some humic acid to it) animal manure,(because you fed it to the worms). there should be plenty of humic acids. I've plopped a teaspoon of humic acids into the ferments when I make them, supposedly it gets things rolling faster, but I probably haven't used enough yet to see that happen if it does.
 
An addendum to the LABS recipe I posted. the one in the KNF handbook, with the rice wash water. a step I forgot about As I haven't made any in quite awhile. I am on EM1 as I am doing synthetics. creates a solid mass of milk fats like ricotta cheese starter. my method makes yogurt.
 
this if from this website https://www.fermentingforfoodies.com/probiotic-pickles/

All we are doing, is taking pickling a couple steps farther, and for most of the KNF style recipes, replacing the Salt we think of as traditionally needed for pickling, with sugar.

TRADITIONAL FERMENTED PICKLES: PROBIOTIC AND DELICIOUS
Traditional fermented pickles are really easy to make at home and well worth the effort for any pickle-loving person. There are a number of different ways to make fermented pickles. Each of them will result in an amazingly flavourful dill pickle.
Here’s an overview of everything you need to know to ferment pickles in your own kitchen.
CONTAINERS FOR FERMENTING PICKLES
There are a few different ways to make traditional fermented pickles. Personally, I do a mix of all of them regularly, mostly because we love pickles! There are pros and cons to each method, so choose whatever method will work best for you.
OPEN-AIR FERMENTING
Open-air fermenting involves keeping the cucumbers submerged below a brine and simply covering the top of your fermentation container with a cloth to prevent bugs from getting in. Here are some pros and cons to open-air fermenting:
  1. Con: Open-air fermenting requires a bit more work. You will need to check it every three days to skim scum off the top of the pickles and add water as it evaporates.
  2. Pro: It is easy for newbie-fermenters since no special equipment is required.
  3. Con: There is more risk of contamination with open-air pickles. Mold growing on the surface of your fermentation crock doesn’t necessarily mean it will have affected the pickles… but it’s definitely a risk.
  4. Pro: Using a fermenting crock allows you to make a HUGE batch of pickles all at once.
Here are the two common ways of open-air fermenting.
  • Mason jars with a weight: This is a very low-tech way to ferment. All you need is a large mason jar for the pickles, and a smaller jar, filled with water, nested inside the larger jar as the weight. Wide-mouth masons and small jam jars are a perfect fit. You can also buy weights specifically designed for wide-mouth mason jars.
  • Fermenting Crock: A fermenting crock (affiliate link) is a large stoneware container with a weight to keep the vegetables submerged. It is the most traditional way of fermenting and has the advantage of making large batches of pickles all at once.
SEALED FERMENTING
Fermenting in sealed jars is my preferred way to ferment. If you plan on doing a lot of fermenting, then it is definitely worth the investment. Sealed jars are amazing because:
  1. They greatly reduce the risk of contamination. If you start with a sterilized jar, there isn’t any way for unwanted mold or bacteria to get in.
  2. You won’t have to remove scum, watch for mold or burp the jar. Just pack your vegetables and leave them in a cool, dark location to ferment.
Here are a few common sealed fermentation containers:
  • A fido jar is a flip-top jar with a rubber seal. A good quality fido jar will be able to handle the build-up of gas during the fermentation. I don’t recommend a low-quality fido, as they are mostly decorative and might shatter under pressure.
  • An airlock is a way for gas to escape while keeping unwanted bacteria and oxygen out of the jar. These are usually used for homebrewing, however, you can buy mason jars fitted with airlocks.
  • The pickle-nipple turns any mason jar into a fido-jar like fermentation container.
 
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