More and more folks are growing food gardens this year. That’s good because even mainstream communication channels are starting to discuss food rationing. California is in an exceptional drought and the Central valley that provides a huge amount of fruit and veggies to our grocery stores, is now facing dramatic water restrictions. Life is changing quickly and whatever you can grow to offset your rising food bill will be helpful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course, growing plants of all types requires you provide them nutrients. NPK stands for nitogen, phosphorous and potassium. Minerals are needed as well. Used to be you could easily find fertilizer to help provide for rapid growth for the fruit and vegetables. Now farmers are having a hard time finding fertilizer. There are many reasons for this which I won’t go into here, the important thing is we need to get creative. Let’s walk through our alternatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Animal manures. Sheep, goat and rabbit manures are cold manures and can be used immediately if desired. Chicken and cow manure should be composted. A cold compost can take you six months or more. But we want it now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You can decrease the time required before using chicken ? by hot composting it. At this time of year I can ready a new batch of compost in 21 days using my rotating composter. Get the compost over 160F for a week. My compost also includes coop bedding used coffee grounds and the few kitchen scraps I don’t feed the chickens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Don’t have animals? Use the chop and drop method. Literally chop all sorts of greens on the ground and let it decompose in place. That also will take a bit of time. You can make a compost tea to speed things up and provide a very gentle fertilizer soup. Comfrey or any legume work well to add valuable nutrients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Don’t have any of that? Save some of your pee (assuming you eat relatively clean and are not on meds) and mix with rain water 10:1 (10 parts water) to have a liquid fertilizer that has nitrogen (from urea), phosphorus and potassium. Human urine NPK ratio is 11-1-2.5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finally, if you have fireplace (or burn pit) ashes, gather them up in a bucket, douse them with some fertilizer water, let it sit and absorb the use. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
My garden is fertilized by ?,?, & me.<\/p>\n\r\n