What commercially available brands (I don't want to have to order online or anything) of organic fertilizer have you fellow gardeners used with good results - and which ones are animal free?

The area where I garden (well heck, the whole neighborhood) has extremely poor soil. I've had it tested by the county extension office and it needs copious amounts of EVERYthing...

I use earthworm castings and some compost, but don't really have access to enough of these to make a huge difference. (Without buying commercial, which I may do).

I've read a lot of labels that contain blood meal, bone meal, common crab waste (eeew!), feathers and/or egg shells... My gardening neighbors think if I use earthworm castings I shouldn't have a problem with the other animal derived ingredients, but I'm just not sure...

Ideas? Fertilizers you like? Thanks!

The cheapest industrially produced nitrogen is for all practical purposes, animal free.

http://shakahara.com/nitrogen.shtml

It is made from air, and natural gas or petroleum.

If you want organic plant food, use compost and cover crops. Things composted when still green have more nitrogen than things composted after they have turned brown. Use nitrogen fixing cover crops. Compost, green manures, and cover crops takes lots of time and effort, and if done well will provide about 2/3 of the yield of modern "chemical agricultural.

To bring up your yield to 100 percent, you can use commercial plant food. It is very light and cheap. Personally, I use the organic methods as much as possible, make huge amounts of compost, then take up the slack with commercial N.

I like seaweed/kelp emulsion. Water soluble and easily fed once a week. You could also find a local horse farm that you trust and ask for manure. A lot of places will be happy to let you take it. Just make sure you compost it well first, or it'll burn the younger plants.

A certain amount of seaweed is a good idea, but I don't think you can depend on seaweed alone, for plant nutrition. Plus, it is very expensive.

Horse excrement works very well, but if everyone turned to organic agriculture, there would not be enough for everyone. Before the invention of the haber process, there was always a shortage. Further, the plant matter that horses are fed is most often derived from industrially produced N. So you by using horse excrement you are simply getting your industrially produced N second hand, instead of directly from the factory.

http://shakahara.com/nitrogen.shtml

And check out the link to the Sci Am article by Valclav Smil. It is a must-read.

I've been using diluted human urine, provided by my husband. Male urine is a deterant to critters, wheras female urine can be an attractant. Dilution is one part pee to ten parts water. This mainly provides nitrogen. So far it seems to be working very well, and is of course perfectly safe.

Urine is not perfectly safe. What is relevant is the total amount you use, per acre, per annum, not the concentration at which you apply it.

All urine contains concentrated heavy metals. Urine from animals that eat other mammals has an even higher concentration of heavy metals than urine from herbivorous animals. Cooperative extension recommends against using urine from carnivorous and omnivorous animals. They recommend only herbivorous urine. However even that has a fairly high concentration of heavy metals.

The best source of nitrogen is from the same source that animals that supply urine and feces get it from -- soil micro-organisms that cause living things to decay (decay bacteria) and from soil micro-organisms that "fix" aerial nitrogen (nitrogen-fixing bacteri). The latter are often symbiotic with various plant roots.

Perfectly safe from disease is of course what I meant.

Vegetarian urine should be not especially high in heavy metals, certainly would contain less heavy metals than animal manure from herbivores fed supplements containingheavy metals.

"Perfectly safe from disease is of course what I meant.

Vegetarian urine should be not especially high in heavy metals..."

That sounds right. Assuming that your husband does not have a bladder infection or urethral infection.

I wonder how many square feet of garden area the urine from one vegetarian human might have enough nitrogen for. How many bushels of melons, corn, whatever, you could grow, with the urine from one person. You might certainly be able to grow a small amount of food this way. You certainly would not be able to grow all the food for one person this way. But where in between?

Personally, I think human waste should be restricted to ornamentals. It just seems that it should go thru a few cycles of nature, before what comes out goes back in -- not just one cycle. Just common sense tells me that the further away our waste goes, in space, and time, the better, up to a certain point, beyond which limit it doesn't make much difference. The materials used to feed plants are recognizable in the flavor of plants. I have read several stories about farmers who could tell you if a crop was fed with horse excerment or chicken excrement, and of vegetable farmers and fruit farmers who take this into account, since it affects the flavor and salability of a crop.

Most of the fertility of the soil in my gardens comes from composted (using sheet composting/mulch) plant materials, and now I am planting more legumes amongst the other plants, for nitrogen fixation.

Overall I think composting/mulching plant materials is the best way to increase and preserve soil fertility,even though it can take a few years to reach the optimum this way. :)

Most of the fertility of the soil in my gardens comes from composted (using sheet composting/mulch) plant materials, and now I am planting more legumes amongst the other plants, for nitrogen fixation.

Overall I think composting/mulching plant materials is the best way to increase and preserve soil fertility,even though it can take a few years to reach the optimum this way.

I agree that composting, elsewhere composting, or in-place composting (mulching with degradables), is the best way to improve the soil. What compost or degrading mulch does is increase soil organic matter which is (1) a source of nutrients (2) improves soil tilth which helps roots absorb nutrients better and (3) improves soil tilth which keeps soil nutrients from being leeched away as quickly as they otherwise would. Soil also serves as location-maintainer or "housing" or "residency" for plants, by keeping them from being blown away by the wind.

I don't like to use the word "fertility" though, as I think it is extremely misleading.

If you provide me with lots of restaurants and supermarkets and nearby housing, public utilities, and public transportation, you don't make a town more "fertile" to me; you make it more inhabitable or better yet, more hospitable and a better source of food, nutrients, for me. To make it more fertile for me, you would have to provide me with lots of me's of the opposite sex and time off from work to get to know them.

By adding things to the soil to make it a better place for green plants to grow, I think "soil fertility" is the wrong phrase and "soil hospitablilty" might be a much better phrase. The opportunity for plants to have plant-sex is only ONE of the many many things that are enabled by increasing soil hospitability to plants.

A fact that most people don't seem to understand and isn't stressed by idealistic enthusiasits of organic growing: Given the high nitrogen requirements of most food-plants, planting a few legumes among non-legumes is apt to actually reduce the amount of nutrients available to the nearby non-legumes. While the legumes get some of their N from the symbiotic bacteria they provide a niche for, they also get some of their N from the soil, making less N available for the other nearby plants. To make things worse, legumes generally require, overall, more N than other plants. That is what stirred them to evolve their extra booster system in the first place. So they actually take away as much N as any other plant does, from the soil, and for their remaining increased requirments, they use that extra N that has been fixed by the bacteria they harbor.

Since there is a net gain in soil available N, by planting legumes instead of some other cover crop, legumes make better cover crops, and green manures, as far as nitrogen enrichment goes, than other plants. But they don't necessarily make better intercrops. They contribute N both due to their decay, and due to the amount of N that is fixed, from the air. But that contribution doesn't occur while they are growing; it only occurs when they decay. While they are growing, they are nitrogen competitors. Also, if you want to grow a crop with high N requirements, such as lettuce, growing a single crop of legumes before hand, is not going to supply enough nitrogen. The soil will have more N than if you didn't plant them, but still, not enough.

Another misconception people have about legumes is that legumes grown for food don't need any special soil, that any soil has enough N. This is simply not so. Yes, you can grow, for example, edamame without adding much compost and without adding a source of N to the soil, but very often you won't get nearly as high a yield as if you add something that provides some N. I've found that to get a high yield of edamame, I have to add a little bit of ammonium sulfate or whatever, to my soil. Not nearly as much as I have to add to get a high yield of sweet corn. But if I don't add any, and just depend on lots of compost, the yield will be only about 2/3. Adding too much ammonium nitrate will produce a larger yield of leaves but a smaller yield of beans, so I have to be careful. This is not the case with sweet corn or lettuce. Excessive N will be wasted, but won't reduce yield.

This is not to say that growing, say, beans and corn together, is a bad idea. However it shouldl not increase the corn yield per acre. You will have to space the corn further apart. The main reason for growing beans and corn together is that the corn provides a trellis for climbing beans. But in doing so, it reduces the corn yield per acre. This is not nec a bad thing, since you will have a bean yield, instead. And the total corn plus bean yield will be at least the same, as if you planted them separately, instead of together. So there is no net loss of yield. But you will still have to provide nutrients for the corn. You can't depend on the legumes alone. I should add, that flour corn and other dry corns do not reuire quite as much N per acre as sweet corn. I haven't tried this one out, but it is conceivable that if put enough N in soil to get a decent sweet corn yield, you will actually have too much N for a good pole-bean yield. It might be better to grow only hard-corns with pole beans, and not sweet corn. I'd have to test that one out.

I agree your term "soil hospitability" is better than "soil fertility," soilman. We want soil to be hospitable to life.

Many people who have farmed for years seem to think legume intercrop is useful. So I don't know for certain I'll take your word over theirs. I understand the bacterial nodules work to produce nitrogen even while the plant is living, though the plant may be using some of the N, some may be used by adjacent plants. I wouldn't depend on legume interplant for all N, though. I try not to depend on any one thing in my gardens, but have redundancy, as is found in natural systems. :)

I don't like debating aobut gardening. I'd rather just discuss it. :)

" I understand the bacterial nodules work to produce nitrogen even while the plant is living, though the plant may be using some of the N, some may be used by adjacent plants."

According to what I understand, most of the available-nitrogen compounds produced by the root nodules of legumes are immediately absorbed thru the roots and taken to the leaves where the leaves make amino acids and nucleic acids and other nitrogenous phytochemicals from it. Only after the plant dies and decays does this nitrogen become added to the soil and usable by other plants.

Hmmmm... think I'll just go buy me some Miracle Grow Organic and be done with it...

Yes, I guess you're right soilman. Interplant would only be helpful if the plants were cut and used as mulch or compost. :)

It isn't that it woulnd't be helpful Ludi. What it wouldn't be is helpful to the particular other plants that you are planting it among. It will, overall, do more good than harm. Just, not as soon as many people seem to think it will. And of course, planting corn among climbing beans, does good for the beans.

"Hmmmm... think I'll just go buy me some Miracle Grow Organic and be done with it.."


There are lots of disadvantages to this, except maybe for the first year or 2.

You need not only nutrients to help plants grow, but you need a good tilth -- soil texture and physical and chemical properties. You can get your plants to grow big without improving tilth, by using more N than you would otherwise need - and thus contribute to eutrophication. Plus soil micronutrients would not be absorbed as well. And there are still thing about soil we don't know that contribute to green plant flavor and nutrients available from the green plants. There are "mysterious" attributes of soil that contribute to flavor and plant nutrient content. We DO know however, that good tilth contributes to flavor on the long term, better than simply adding targeted macro nutrients and micronutrients.

TNS,I agree with soilman. If you use Miracle Gro, it's important to include organic material along with the chemical fertilizer. That's what I did for a few years, but now I'm trying to just use organic materials.


I think what I'll do, soilman, is plant extra legumes and cut and mulch them in place, so they can decompose to add nitrogen to the soil. I did some more reading about this issue and the sources said though growing legumes provide some nitrogen to plants adjacent, the amount is "negligible" or "unsubstantial," as you had said. :)

Do you know if much or any extra nitrogen remains if one harvests the beans/pea pods? Or has it all been put into the seeds?

"Do you know if much or any extra nitrogen remains if one harvests the beans/pea pods? Or has it all been put into the seeds?"

there is plenty nitrogen in the leaves and stems. While the seeds have a higher percentage of N, by weight, the seeds are only a tiny percentage of the whole plants, so taking the seeds away to eat them had no practical impact on the usefulness of legumes as green manures and for nitrogen fixation. It is best to turn them in or cut them or pull them for compost, while they are still green. Wait for them to get as big as they will get, before turning brown. That is when the N content is at its peak per dry weight. Nor sure where it goes when the turn brown. There seems to be nowhere to go. But that is what coop ext says -- harvest green for max N. I suppose the N is still there, but becomes less available once the plant has turned brown. Is no longer in easily and rapidly decomposable amino acids.

I have long been using a mixture of dry peas, oats, and hairy vetch, as a green manure. It grows very rapidly. You can harvest the dry pea seeds, at green or yellow stage, for pea soup.

Johnnie's selected seeds has this combo premixed.

The oats provide deep roots and prevent soil erosion and help improve soil tilth. The peas and hairy vetch are both legumes. The hairy vetch grows very rapidly and luxuriously.

I recommend their little pamphlet on green manures and cover crops. It is concise and covers a lot of the basics you need to know regarding which seeds to get.

You can also save pea seeds for next year. Vetch and oats will reseed by themselves if left long enough. as will the peas.

The vetch is becoming sort of a weed as will many cover crops. I am spying patches of it popping up, yards from where I planted it, where there is supposed to be lawn grass, as well as regrowing in the same spot, even tho I didn't re-plant it. Better to have a good cover crop as a weed, than some other weed. But perhaps you may want to be more careful than I was, about harvesting before it goes to seed.

For more permanent carpet of cover you can use one of the alfalfas or clovers -- i forget the name now. It is in the Johnny's pamphlet. This is also encrouching on adjacent lawn grass. However since it is a perennial, this is what happens. If you harvest it before it goes to seed, you are circumventing its perennialness. That said, it doesn't seem to seed itself out too far from wher it was planted. I am only seeing it maybe 8 feet away from where I planted it.

Thank you very much for this info, soilman. :)

As I said before, I don't think there is any harm in mixing legumes and, say, sweet corn. But you have to realize you will not get an increase in yield per acre of corn by doing so, and probably not an immediate increase in the legume, either. If say normall you plant 1 sweet corn plant per square foot and 1 climbing bean per square foot, and if you get 100 sweet corn ears, say per plant, and 10 beans per plant, then you will have to plant 200 square feet of corn combined with beans, to get the same 100 ears of corn, and 100 beans, you would get, if you planted 100 square feet of each, separately. You can't magically get 100 beans and 100 ears in 100 square feet.

There is only enough nitrogen per sq foot for either 100 beans or 10 ears, not for both.

If you don't spread out the corn, to make room for the beans, you will not have enough nitrogen for the corn. The nitrogen that the bean root nodules fixed will not help the corn until the next season. And the net gain will be only a little.

However when you till in the corn and been residue, whether you plant them in 200 square feet together, or 100 sq ft of one, and 100 of the other, you will have a tiny bit more nitrogen for you next year of planting, than if you tilled in 100 sq feet of corn and 100 square feet of buckwheat.

The other point is that because there is a net gain in N from legumes, organic growers like to exagerate, and propogandize the misinformation that this is a wonderful, huge net gain, that magically makes you able to get large yields, right away, and year after year, without adding any other source of nitrogen. They wildly exaggerage the usefulness of legumes.

The fact is that in very poor soil, one crop of legumes is not going to make it wonderful for corn, the next year. It is only going to help a little. It might take 10 years of growing legumes on the same patch of poor soil, to make it into just moderately rich soil that will finally support a decent crop of corn. Then you can grow corn, and will have to grow legumes for 6 more years, to replenish the N that the corn took out. If you want to intercrop with legumes the first year you grow corn, you still will have to spread out your corn -- there is only so much N per square foot, and the bean plants need about 1/2 of it. Maybe less. The bean plants need less N than than the corn plants.