Home made fertilizers...

[jacob marley]

If you want a real good home made fertilizer try and aquire so worm wee from some body with a worm farm .
I have found someone and was given 3 litres last sunday it should last this season out....jacob

[TonyF]

Cor ..you must have excellent pelvic floor muscles if you can fill a 5litre bottle Tony!!!!

Diuretics are wonderful thing

[Nicos]

aaahh..stop taking the piss...

[jacob marley]

aaahh..stop taking the piss...

Your the one taking it Tony is storing it ....jacob

[00264167]

ive been looking at wood ash as a high potassium fertiliser for tomatoes and found an interesting table in this journal:


Forestry -- Pitman 79 (5): 563 Table BL2

ash contains calcium and magnesium which toms need alot of, the only problem with it is its alkaline (ph10) but i dont see why it cant be mixed with water and brought down to neutral with lemon juice or vinegar then even set with jelly to release it slowly, what do you think?

[JimmerG]

Would ash mixed with ericaceous soil do the job?

And I'm pretty sure manure is usually slightly acidic (uric acid)

But I suspect a sprinkling of ash lightly forked into the soil would do a fine job, and would not adversely affect the Ph too much.

[snohare]

I've got a field of sheep right next to my plot, so I'll deffo give the droppings bit a go

Pips, I have used a lot of sheep droppings and I can confirm that they are wonderful all round fertiliser once aged, good for gross feeders like fruit; but with the fresh stuff in my neck of the woods at least you have to be meticulous with hygiene when handling them. Seperate marked gloves, handwashing with soap and hot water afterwards, no eating on site. They all have E.Coli of one sort or another in them, if you are unlucky enough for it to be strain 0157:H7 then half a dozen bacteria later you end up on dialysis in hospital, no matter how healthy you begin. The old stuff like my 5 year old pile that I nabbed, to the best of my knowledge is okay, no different from old FYM.
I've been actively adding a little bit of wood ash to all my beds on the assumption it will help the long-term, all round soil fertility, always wondered what was in it - ta for the link, 00264167 !

[jacob marley]

How i collect sheep droppings is wait until the sun has baked it and i use a litter picker to pick it up with that cut's out the contact with your skin easy ain't it....jacob

[pipscariad]

Pips, I have used a lot of sheep droppings and I can confirm that they are wonderful all round fertiliser once aged, good for gross feeders like fruit; but with the fresh stuff in my neck of the woods at least you have to be meticulous with hygiene when handling them. Seperate marked gloves, handwashing with soap and hot water afterwards, no eating on site. They all have E.Coli of one sort or another in them, if you are unlucky enough for it to be strain 0157:H7 then half a dozen bacteria later you end up on dialysis in hospital, no matter how healthy you begin. The old stuff like my 5 year old pile that I nabbed, to the best of my knowledge is okay, no different from old FYM.
I've been actively adding a little bit of wood ash to all my beds on the assumption it will help the long-term, all round soil fertility, always wondered what was in it - ta for the link, 00264167 !

Eek, that's scared me off a bit Snohare! Not that I do ever eat down at the plot (or not that I can ever think of), and I am a bit of an obsessive when it comes to handwashing, so I should be okay. So - if I do pick it up I need to leave it for a good few years? Might start a mini 'sheep' compost bin, mixed with my good old fave seaweed for good measure!

[snohare]

I need to leave it for a good few years?

There are specific areas that are more at risk than others, and Scotland, the North East in particular, is the worst. But since these "superbugs" can cause infection with just a handful of cells, rather than the usual 20 000 needed for traditional varieties, it pays to be careful ! It's not unusual for kids around here to pick up E.Coli 0157 from being in fields contaminated with sheep droppings, and you hear about it in the papers because they are in the intensive care unit. The Scouts will now only use fields that have been livestock free for at least six months; that might be the law, in fact.
Once the pathogenic bacteria start competing with other strains of bacteria outside the body of their hosts, their influence is vastly diminished. Being able to cause disease is an advantage when they are reproducing madly inside a body, but there is a cost: it makes them less capable outside in a different environment with changing temperatures, pH etc. Imagine a huge buffet where there is half a dozen people eating whatever they want, and then they suddenly have to compete with a thousand other hungry diners. Eventually they will clear off, or in 0157's case just be outcompeted by weight of numbers. (Long term, all pathogens evolve to be less dangerous to their hosts, so as not to become short of targets.)
So what I always try to do is add as much other organic composting material as possible (leaf mould, FYM etc) and leave for a year or more. Or just nip into an old abandoned mill that sheep used to shelter in years ago, and steal three square yards of the floor.
Seaweed sounds like it would change the conditions a fair bit, should work !