Makes for healthy eating and a satisfaction that we can still do it.
If you live near a beach or enjoy fishing, make your own fertiliser!
General directions for using fish or fish scraps as fertiliser:
- Put the fish material in water (just enough to cover them) and mix in some leaves, sawdust, or other high-carbon material which helps to minimise the smell of fermenting fish.
- Cover the mixture and leave it outside for a week or more. This gives time for the leaves etc to break down, and for anaerobic bacteria, which in fertiliser will help fend off pests and disease, to develop.
- When it is ready to use, strain the liquid through cloth or a sieve and dilute with water until it is approximately the colour of weak tea. It can then be used in the manner of liquid fertilisers.
- Additionally, add a small amount of natural soap as a wetting agent - so it sticks to the foliage or soil better.
Seaweed as fertiliser - it may take a long time for it to compost in water, so boiling is recommended. Cook the seaweed until the water is green, and it can be stored in a closed container or used when it has cooled. Also, some people use powdered kelp as an ingredient of home-made fertiliser, so perhaps drying and powdering it would be useful.
Always start with a very diluted solution and possibly only on a few plants for testing. These liquid fertilisers can become very strong and may burn your plants!
And more great ideas from Organic Pathways.
Another version from the a seaweed association in Ireland
We have an abundance of seaweed on our shore and we are members of the seaweed association in Ireland. To make seaweed fertilizer is very simple, look for knotted seawrack,that’s the one with the little bubbles you liked to burst as a child. To get the salt deposits off it either wash it in fresh water or leave in the rain for a couple of days. Get yourself a reasonably large barrel; I use a 40 gallon plastic barrel with the top cut off. Into the barrel we put are equal amounts of either by weight or volume of this freshly washed Seaweed & ordinary water. This mixture need to be stirred about every 2 to 3 days and the process to arrive at seaweed fertilizer takes about 8 weeks.
Using this seaweed fertilizer we grow lettuce, onions, tomatoes, courgettes, peas, etc which have a much better flavour than the grown to order supermarket offerings. The fermented liquer is very high smelling but contains all the trace elements found in nature, manganese, potassium, Iron, in minute quantities all necessary for healthy plant growth. Don’t expect to grow vegetables that all look the same size and shape, they will be big and small and sometimes mis-shapen but you will never taste better.
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