organic fertilizer

Check the organics thread there are a lot of great recipes on there

 

Yo Mike!

Kudos on the decision to garden organically!

If I may, and please let me know if I'm an ass and you already are aware, but I'm going to briefly explain how an organic garden works and this might help you with your question about organic fertilizer.

An organic soil works on the premise that there is living "soil microbes" in it - ie: assorted bacteria and fungus. These soil microbes are so very necessary in making your soil work for your plants to grow and thrive in. This is why you'll often see reference to a "living" organic soil. Wht we're really trying to do is to nurture a living environment, think of it like a terrarium.

These bacteria live by "munching on" organic matter - all organic matter in our soil. They don't have (haha!) teeth so what they do is to release enzymes - enzymes which break down organic matter - pretty simple. They break down OM into its tiniest basic elements and organic compounds, at a point which your plants can now utilize these elements and compounds as plant food. Very simple - very cool stuff. This is called "Nutrient Cycling" and nutrient cycling is THE basis by which organic gardening works.

Plants use 83 Macro (the big ones like Nitrogen, Phosphorous & Potassium) and Micro (the smaller less used) elements to grow. Hydroponic and the general grow store bottled nutrients are an educated mix of most of these elements. Unfortunately science has a hard time duplicating many of the organic compounds which are found in soil like PGR's (plant growth regulators or Azadirachtin which is the pesticide found in Neem trees or Triacontanol, a growth hormone which is found jn Alfalfa and this is where organic gardening really helps to make plants healthy, lush & vibrant. (Good adjectives eh? Lol)

So the soil microbes break down OM into its base elements which our plants can use as food but these elements need to come from somewhere; some kind of organic matter which contains them and this is why different soil amendments are added to soil mixes - so that the microbes can break them down into usable plant food. Kelp Meal (Ascophylum Nodosum) is an excellent example as it contains all 83 elements necessary for proper plant growth! Pretty cool huh?!

So Nutrient Cycling of OM/soil amendments is the backbone of organic gardening. These microbes also need to come from somewhere and this is why we add compost and vermicompost (worm castings) to our organic soil mixes - to ensure high microbe activity (and to add organic matter). Worm castings also contain a fairly high level of Calcium Carbonate; calcium is a major player in the stabilization and buffering of soil pH. It is of the utmost importance to make sure that you've got around 25% to 35% worm castings and/or compost in your soil mix for the very best results.

So you need to feed your plants. You need to add some soil amendments directly into your soil mix to make this easiest and make sure that you can use water only without having to add supplemental bottle feeding throughout your grows. My very first choice is kelp meal; I won't garden without it. You can easily find this right at most garden centers and even some of the box stores. The "Epsoma" company sells convenient 5 pound bags at these places for cheap money. DON'T get seaweed extract/liquids - you want and need Kelp Meal.

Depending on how involved you want to get into this, especially for your first organic soil garden I will suggest that, on top of the Kelp Meal that you find/buy/use a blended organic fertilizer. You can find these at the same easy stores - again, the Epsoma company makes several fine blends such as their Bio-Tone, Garden-Tone, Tomato-Tone, etc... They are all fairly similar so I don't believe that it'll matter an awful lot which one you get. You can click here for details and ingredients - http://www.espoma.com/p_consumer/tones_overview.html

I believe that the Dr. Earth and Down to Earth companies also make some blended organic fertilizers, plus there are other companies that do this too. You'll be good if you just find a "blended organic fertizer".

So - mix a total of 3 cups of a mix of kelp meal and blended organic ferts into your soil - for each cubic foot (7.5 gallons) of soil. Use one cup of kelp and 2 cups of the blended fertilizer and mix it all in well into each cubic foot of your soil and wet it and then allow it to sit for a few weeks (or longer if at all possible) to nutrient cycle - your microbes need to break these items down to make them available as plant food. Once this is done and the soil has sat a little bit you'll be able to just keep your soil moist throughout your grow with NO ADDED BOTTLED NUTRIENTS. You will not need to check or adjust your soils pH. You will not need to flush. You WILL be able to recycle this soil by adding a little more compost/worm castings and one cup of fertilizer mix (for each CF of soil) between grows, saving you a ton of money! No bottles and re-using your soil? Awesome!

Stol by the organics forum here http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/ and get to reading - there's many a fantastic organic gardener ready to help. Again - great decision that I promise you will not regret.

Sorry for such a long winded post! Lol

J

 

thank god someone else did this way better than I would kudos to everyone on this thread.

 

There was nothing brief about that lol

If your not going to use any chemicals I suggest upping your wattage to comp for the lack of well steroids your plants will get

 

 
I disagree. Nature has been doing a great job long before chemicals. In fact, my organic grow just yeilded more than I've ever had using nutes. I find my plants get bigger faster organic than they do on nutes.

 

Really that's interesting I would have never thought

 

Kelp meal, bone meal, worm casting, guano, molasses, etc. Those are all organic. Do some reading on what each one can be used for. There are lots more organic choices out there as well.

I'll also say this as well: There are some helpful people on this site and some that have no clue what they are talking about even though they think they do. Experience is better than anything you read in a book or online. I was told multiple times that you can't grow directly in worm castings... I did my entire last grow in worm castings and my current grow is 37 days in, in worm castings. I over watered then burned them with bug spray that claimed to be plant safe, so they had to recover for a week or so early on, which stunted growth. My point here is to try whatever you want and tune most of the know it alls out.
 
Day 36
 
View attachment 125272
 

 

 
Those plants aren't getting something.

 

 
They are recovering from over watering and very bad burn from a bug spray that claimed to be safe to use on plants right on the bottle. It wasn't and they were burned badly at the bottom. They are still recovering, but back on track so I'm giving them until monday to really get back to normal. They looked great before I used the spray.
 
The one in the middle and the front left have started regaining their darker green color over the last 24 hours. I'm guessing they stopped taking in nutes temporarily because they both turned light green/yellowish after the burn.

 

Organic fertilizers should always be more preferable than chemical ones. Making a perfect Organic need right amount of proportions and right ingredients. You can go for available organic fertilizers in market too from
bio fertilizers manufacturers as they are processed to perform better. Leaving a reference here for more information Spirulina Fertilizer & Steam Rich