Make your own environmentally-friendly fertilizer from kitchen waste or seaweed.
Sometimes plants need help to grow and thrive, particularly in areas with poor soil conditions. An effective way to keep plants healthy and speed up the growing process is to use fertilizer. Many people worry about using chemical fertilizers and would prefer to use an organic and environmentally-friendly alternative instead. Choose from a range of commercial organic fertilizers or make your own organic fertilizer at home. Does this Spark an idea?
Commercial Organic Fertilizers
Garden centers, nurseries and hardware stores now sell a range of environmentally-friendly and organic fertilizers made from only natural ingredients such as bone meal, fish meal or blood meal produced from the byproducts of food processing. Others contain nutrient-rich earthworm casts, kelp or vegetable waste. Commercial organic fertilizers come in several different forms, including slow-release granules and liquid plant food.
Fruit and Vegetable Waste Fertilizer
Make your own environmentally-friendly fertilizer at home by saving up kitchen scraps, such as vegetable scrapings and peelings and rotting fruit. Use only uncooked fruit and vegetables to make the fertilizer. Place a container in the kitchen and add waste material instead of throwing it in the garbage can. The waste will quickly decompose and you can then use this as a fertilizer in the garden.
Coffee Grinds and Eggshells
Collect used coffee grinds from your filter coffee machine and place them on a few sheets of kitchen paper to dry out. Nitrogen occurs naturally in soil and is an essential nutrient for growing plants. Coffee grinds contain nitrogen and sprinkling them around plants will give them a quick nitrogen boost. Plants also need calcium so crush up old, dried eggshells and scatter them around plants to give them extra calcium.
Seaweed Liquid Fertilizer
Collect seaweed on your next visit to the beach and use this to make your own environmentally-friendly liquid fertilizer. Plants require potassium to stay healthy and seaweed is an excellent source of potassium. Mix the seaweed with water in a container and let it rot down for around two months. Use this liquid as a fertilizer to give plants a quick boost. Dilute the seaweed fertilizer with more water before adding it to soil.
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