About The Long Island Gardener Expertise Do you know the wrong fertilizer will keep your plants from blooming?
Do you know that too much Nitrogen can kill your grass, even if it does not burn the roots? Do you know that Roses need a LOT of Nitrogen to bloom -- and why is that?
There's some complex chemistry in those plant foods. The secrets behind N-P-K are the key to the ultimate lawn, the the biggest flowers, the most fruits and vegetables. And if you don't get it right, you could be sorry.
I'll show you what you did wrong, and how to fix it.
Experience Homeowner with gardens indoors and outdoors, lawns back and forth. I wrote my first gardening column for our college newspaper, teaching roomates about the right way to feed those windowsills gardens. Today I look for challenges. Organic Fertilizers are the key to proper feeding of all our plants. Can you make your own fertilizer? Some people think so -- but there are side effects. I have been there, done that for 54 years and there is nothing like the voice of experience when it comes to Horticulture and Fertilizers.
Publications Numerous and sundry but only in college did I write about plants.
Education/Credentials B.A., Botany and Mass Communications.
Question can i make a tea from dropping? how much water/droping how much to use in veg garden?
Answer The 'Cock-a-doodle-DOO' organic Fertilizer lineup from Pure Barnyard is 100 percent granular poultry 'litter'. Here's the internet catalog page:
and the posted MSDS sheet describing the ingredients:
www.purebarnyard.com/_pdf/MSDS-DOOFertilizer2.pdf
Fearless organic leader Marion Owen penned instructions on using Chicken Dung and posted them on her website:
www.plantea.com/manure.htm
'Manure Matters -- How manures measure up' saves its highest compliments for Chicken droppings. Says Owen: 'Poultry Manure (Chicken in particular) is the richest animal Manure in N-P-K.' Some farmers actually feed it to their Cows; ruminants digest it with no complaints and convert it into microbial proteins.
Most authorities caution against using any un-composted Manure, including Chicken Manure, on vegetables. There are just too many pathogens out there to make raw Chicken droppings a safe fertilizer. If you FIRST Compost it thoroughly (something that can take 6 months from start to finish) USING THE HOT COMPOST METHOD, you will destroy the pathogens, and the end product will be safe to use anywhere as a direct amendment or as the ingredient in Compost Tea.
Manure Tea involves steeping Manure in Water. We know that the Water must be aerated to culture aerobic bacteria, which is the kind we need to generate nutrients and battle undesirable microbes. It's easy to do this. Just pick up a $20 aquarium pump and some plastic air tubing, plug in, and you're set.
You can use as much of this as you want. The more, the merrier.
