Looking to go green and save green with your vegetable fertilizer blend? Vegetable gardening is so much fun and very rewarding, but no-one really want to buy chemical fertilizers for their cropping plants anymore. There are many, many solutions out there, but you can make your own fertilizer blend at home using kitchen scraps. Not only will you have an excellent vegetable garden, but you will be re-using and recycling even more waste. This is a terrific way to stay green while gardening!!
Things You'll Need:
- Blender or Food Processor
- Epsom Salt
- Vegetable & Fruit Scraps
- Large bucket with lid
Step 1: Save all cooked or raw vegetable & fruit scraps from meal preparation. This includes potato peelings, apple peelings, pea pods, or any other parts you would ordinarily discard. Even the water used to cook vegetables in is a good source of nutrients for your garden.
Step 2: Place the scraps in an ordinary household blender and emulsify. If scraps are dry, add enough water to assist the blender in creating a smooth puree.
Step 3: Pour the vegetable scrap puree into a large plastic bucket. Add 1/2 teaspoon of Epsom Salt per quart of puree and mix thoroughly with a large wooden spoon.
Step 4: Seal the container and let set at room temperature overnight or until you have enough compost to create liquid fertilizer for your garden. Each quart of mulched veggies will make one gallon of liquid fertilizer.
Step 5: Prepare liquid fertilizer for the garden. Simply mix one quart of pureed vegetables to one gallon of warm water. Shake to mix well.
Step 6: Pour liquid fertilizer directly on the soil around plants in the garden.
Tips & Warnings
*Using liquid fertilizer on a daily basis will prevent the bucket of vegetable scraps from developing an odor.
*Use cooking liquids to help emulsify foods in the blender or as a substitute for warm water when mixing the pureed veggies before applying to your garden.
*Do not use vegetable scraps that have been fried or that have fats added.
Thank you for posting this recipe. I am going to give this a try. A few questions:
ReplyDelete-How often do you fertilize your veggies? Is it possible to use to much?
-Do you use this on your plants too?
-Can you include egg shells, coffee beans?
Thank you!
Amy
I echo the above questions, plus, when do you begin fertilizing the plants, can I do it when they are still seedlings in trays?
ReplyDeleteOk. Here are the answers to the questions above.
ReplyDelete* I usually fertilize my veggies every two weeks. I just use one cup at the time.
* I never used on my plants, but I don't see any problem doing that.
* I always add egg shells and coffee grounds (not beans) to the garden, but never added to the fertilizer. With the egg shells, I let it dry really well and then I grind to a fine powder. And the coffee grounds I just mix it onto the soil.
* For the seedlings, just add 1T at a time, once a week.
Hope that helps!
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This post is very old, so I don't know if you still get these messages but here's my question. You say to use the fertilizer on a daily basis so the mixture doesn't have an odor. But how do you use it daily when you say to fertilize every 2 weeks. This seems like a great recipe but I'm not sure I understand the "how to use it" once I've made it. Could you elaborate? Thanks.
ReplyDeleteAlso you could tell me how much and how often you use egg shells and coffee grounds? I do square foot gardening.
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ReplyDelete