The best organic fertilizer to feed your plants and garden

5 Organic fertilizers to feed your plants and garden

One of the most important aspects of horticulture is fertilizing. Whenever we grow crops in the soil, we remove nutrients. For food to continue to grow year after year, we need to replenish what we eliminate.

It is safe to say that walking underground is more important than what happens above ground.

The advent of synthetic fertilizers has always allowed us to feed the growing world, and this is the best on a global scale. But these days more and more gardeners are looking for natural alternatives to their own gardens. If you want to avoid the use of old yellow and green fertilizers sold at every horticultural center in the United States, you have plenty of natural and organic options.

I have put together a list of tried and true natural fertilizers that have been incorporated into your soil feeding habits. This is by no means an exhaustive list, and many of these fertilizers work well together.

Try experimenting with some of these ingredients to create superfoods in your garden. Some fertilizers work well with some plants and not so well with others. As with most horticulture, it all comes down to trial and error. The best advice I can give when adding a new natural fertilizer to your list is to keep good tips.

Let's go inside and see. I will give you a brief overview of each fertilizer, but for in-depth information on when, how, and where to use each, you can always click on each one.

1. Fertilizer

It is not surprising that compost tops the list for natural fertilizers. The use of biodegradable organic matter to add nutrients to the soil is as old as agriculture. When correcting the soil, compost is the complete set.

Fertilizer is rich in three of the most important nutrients for healthy plants - nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Adding fertilizer to your soil with each growing season is more than replenishing these vital nutrients; It helps maintain the pH of healthy soil, helps to retain soil moisture, and improves the overall condition of the soil.

If you are new to organic gardening, I recommend starting your journey by adding compost to your soil, whether you are using existing soil or using a pre-prepared mix.

Although compost is much easier to buy, it is still best to make your own; There are many methods for you to choose from.

2. Fertilizer tea

Once you have run your compost bin, you can make compost tea. Fertilizer Tea provides only the same nutrients as liquid manure in liquid form. Having a liquid fertilizer makes it even easier to feed individual plants, and if you use it only where it is needed, you will not waste any nutrients.

You can also use compost tea as a foliar spray, with the advantage that the nutrients are easily absorbed in liquid form.

Solid Fertilizer and Fertilizer Tea is the perfect compound fertilizer to meet the needs of your plant during the entire growing season.

Fertilizer Since tea is a liquid, it is an excellent natural fertilizer for houseplants.

3. Mycorrhizae

Although these microscopic fungi are not technically compostable, they do play a major role in plant health. These beneficial organisms attach themselves to the roots of your plant, increasing its area, which improves your plant's drought resistance and ability to absorb nutrients.

Mycorrhizae help break down existing nutrients in the soil and make it easier for your plants to integrate them.

You can add commercially available mycorrhizal vaccines to your soil, as many of us do, and one of the best ways to get the benefits of these useful fungi is to cultivate the garden without digging. Mycorrhizae are already in the soil as part of the microbes beneath our feet.

4. Worm castings

Worm molds, which is a good way of saying worm feces, are a natural fertilizer powerhouse. Now before we talk about what makes worm feces so special, you may be scratching your head and wondering how to harvest worm molds. Or you may not want to know.

trust me; It's so much easier and cheaper than you think.

Earthworm compost is a form of composting that not only finishes compost but also provides worm molds. It all starts with a worm pot. (Here you can create one for $ 15 in 30 minutes.) In short, you feed your worms kitchen scraps, and they feed on your worms. S provide you with finished manure and worm molds filtered at the base of the tower.

What makes worm castings so special?

Well, about everything. Consider all of this as a natural slow-release compost that does not burn even the most delicate plants, helps to aerate the soil, improves overall soil structure, helps retain moisture, and can prevent aphids and spiders from becoming a problem before they do...

Like regular compost, worm molds make excellent liquid worm tea. (Not made from real worms.)

5. Bone meal

Bone food is what looks like powdered animal bones. In general, bone meal is an adjunct to beef. The bones are cooked or pasteurized to kill bacteria, and the borders are ground. The resulting bone meal can be used as a slow-release fertilizer in your garden and your houseplant.

Bone meal provides plenty of phosphorus to plants, making it an excellent fertilizer for your flowering plants and bulbs. Bone meal contains naturally occurring nitrogen, but it is a trace amount. However, many commercially produced bone meal mixes will add nitrogen, so be sure to read the NPK ratio of the bag before you buy it.

Bone meal is a slow-release compost and is best added to the soil when planting your garden. The easiest way to incorporate it into the soil is to place a little at the base of each hole you make before planting one of your seedlings in the spring.

If you are going to use this for houseplants, mix it with your potting mix when replanting your plant.