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

FAQs

How do you make homemade garden fertilizer? ›

Quick how to: Add banana peels, coffee grounds, vegetable scraps, tea bags, and any other organic waste to a large, glass jar using a 1:10 ratio of compost to water. Mix in fresh or dried seaweed as an added nutritional bonus. Seal and shake the mixture once a day to agitate the tea.

Plant-based fertilizers such as cottonseed meal has been proven to work well, as do many of the animal-based products such as composted manure. Manure must be composted, or broken down over time, so the nutrients are released slowly. This will minimize the risk of burning the plants with a shock of too much nitrogen.

Most fertilizers that are commonly used in agriculture contain the three basic plant nutrients: nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Some fertilizers also contain certain "micronutrients," such as zinc and other metals, that are necessary for plant growth.

You'll need four to six tablespoons of coffee grounds, one teaspoon of cinnamon and one cup of club soda. Simply mix the ingredients until well combined and use on a bi-weekly basis for a slow release of nutrients without causing the soil's acidity levels to rise too much.

Fertilizing is especially helpful early on, when plants are making fast new growth. You can mix a continuous-release fertilizer, such as Miracle-Gro® Shake 'n Feed® Tomato, Fruit & Vegetable Plant Food, into individual planting holes, work it into furrows, or use a turning fork to mix it into beds.

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.

Sweet corn can benefit when plants are 8 to 10 inches tall and then one week after tassels appear. Spinach, kale, mustard, and turnip greens can benefit when plants are about one-third grown. These vegetables should NOT have added nitrogen: sweet potatoes, watermelons, carrots, beets, turnips, parsnips, and lettuce.

Vinegar as a fertilizer: Nope, doesn't work. Acetic acid only contains carbon hydrogen and oxygen – stuff the plant can get from the air. The other things that may be in vinegar could be good for a plant – but it seems an expensive method of applying an unknown amount of nutrition.

Water to moisten the soil and distribute the fertilizer to a 12- to 18-inch depth. Apply in early spring or autumn when roots are actively growing.

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.

What is a natural garden fertilizer? ›

Natural fertilizers are organic products that have been extracted from living things or from the earth. They can be either plant-derived or animal-derived. Some examples would be mushroom manure, blood meal, bone meal, cottonseed meal, kelp meal, poultry or horse manure (aged) and compost.

Knowing that most coffee grounds are acid-leaning, don't use fresh coffee grounds on plants that prefer alkaline soil. This includes asparagus, campanula, salvia, achillea and Mediterranean herbs like lavender, thyme and rosemary.

To use coffee as a plant fertilizer, you'll need to dilute it. It should look like weak tea. If you aim for about 1/4 coffee and 3/4 water, or even a half-and-half mix, in your solution (depending on how strongly you brew your coffee), that's about right, but you don't have to be fussy about it.

"A compost pile would be the natural fertilizer I would strongly recommend," says Kemper. To make compost, take all your scraps (like eggshells, fruit peels, and coffee grounds) and put them into a pile with leaves, sticks, and other organic debris.

Banana peels are something that many of us have at home and they make a great natural fertilizer for your plants. As many of you might know bananas are high in Potassium and in the plant world Potassium is an essential nutrient for plant growth.

Using Epsom salt as plant fertilizer may improve flower blooming and enhance a plant's green color. It can even help plants grow bushier.