Use These 7 Homemade Fertilizer Recipes in Your Garden (2024)

FAQs

How do you make homemade fertilizer for vegetable gardens? ›

Kitchen scraps like eggshells, banana peels, and coffee grounds can all be composted or used directly in your garden. Similarly, if you have a fireplace and burn untreated wood, the ashes (used sparingly) can be a source of potassium. Befriend your neighbors: Connect with fellow gardeners in your neighborhood.

Most gardeners should use a complete fertilizer with twice as much phosphorus as nitrogen or potassium. An example would be 10-20-10 or 12-24-12. These fertilizers usually are easy to find. Some soils contain enough potassium for good plant growth and don't need more.

It is considered a gardener's secret ingredient to lovely, lush gardens, trees and lawns. Just as gourmet salt works with its companion ingredients to enhance flavors and bring a meal to its full potential, Epsom salt enhances fertilizer and soil vitality.

Coffee grounds contain several key nutrients needed by plants, including nitrogen, potassium, magnesium, calcium, and other trace minerals. These are all nutrients that plants need to grow. The grounds are particularly rich in nitrogen, making them a great addition to compost.

When applied to plant leaves and stems, baking soda does slow or stop the growth of fungi. However, the benefits are fleeting at best. Studies have shown that while baking soda impacts the growth of fungal spores, the spores and actively growing fungi are not killed.

Is banana peel fertilizer good for all plants? Using banana peel as fertilizer will boost some plants more than it does others, particularly those that blossom and fruit. However, since it isn't high in nitrogen, it's not going to be enough to help all plants grow to their best potential.

As well as tomato feed, other high-potassium fertilizers to consider include using wood ash or kelp meal. An example of a liquid tomato feed to use is the Great Big Tomatoes Fertilizer, available on Amazon. There are natural fertilizers that can be utilized to feed cucumbers.

Fertilize the garden with aged animal manure.

Spread aged manure in a ¼ to ½ inch (0.6-1.27 cm) layer over your garden soil. You can also till it or mix it in by hand. You can buy aged manure at your local gardening center. Put animal manure in the garden in the fall or winter, before you do any spring planting.

Nitrogen helps produce green leaves and stems, phosphorus helps produce root development, and potassium helps the plant withstand stress from heat or cold. A good all-purpose fertilizer would be a 10-10-10 NPK (nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium).

Seaweed and molasses are all great. Fish is a good organic nitrogen fertilizer, although a lot of products aren't as sustainable anymore because the little fishies in the oceans are dwindling rapidly.

What does vinegar do to plants? ›

Vinegar is a contact herbicide, which means it kills the part of the plant it comes into contact with. Systemic herbicides, on the other hand, are taken up by the plant's vascular system and delivered to roots, eventually killing the whole plant instead of just its top growth.

Although oats have good uses in the garden, too many may be bad because they attract birds and rodents. Unless you only want to attract birds, if you use it as natural mulch or fertilizer, they will eat oatmeal. Another reason that too much oatmeal may cause damage is its water retention performance.

Sheep and rabbit manures offer a rich nutritional content and arrive in the easily spreadable pellet form naturally. Both are especially good for flowering plants but are not often found in abundance, so may have to be used sparingly.

Acidic-loving plants such as azaleas, blueberries, hydrangeas, rhododendrons, and roses will benefit from a sprinkling of coffee grounds around the base of plants. Vegetable crops that may benefit from coffee grounds include carrots, cucumbers, peppers, potatoes, and radishes.

Organic fertilizers include animal by-products, plant-derived materials and mined minerals. These can be purchased individually or as fertilizer blends. Many of these materials also contain other nutrients, and some contain carbon, which will help maintain soil OM and soil structure.

Line a cookie sheet with newspaper. Spread your used coffee grounds out on the sheet, and allow them to dry completely. Sprinkle the grounds around the base of your acid-loving plants. This works because coffee grounds are rich in nitrogen, magnesium, and potassium—all-important plant nutrients.