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.
Fertilizer - Best Ratio to Mix Coffee Grounds, Cow Manure and Compost?
Expert: The Long Island Gardener - 8/5/2008
Question QUESTION: Interested in knowing if the combination could be effective, and if so, the best ratio of mixing coffee grounds/cow manure/compost to make fertilizer.
ANSWER: We can't determine this with your Compost because we don't know what went in, therefore we don't know what's left.
But we can figure for Coffee Grounds and Manure N-P-K ratio:
Coffee Grounds: 20-3-2
Cow Manure: roughly 6-2-5
If you mix them 50/50 you have a high-Nitrogen 26-5-7 fertilizer. But you need to know the pH of this mixture, because it could be VERY Spicy! It's the Manure that throws that God Only Knows variable into the N-P-K equation.
Just be careful.
L.I.G.
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: Thanks, LIG...re: Compost Substance, I was thinking in terms of almost exclusively dry leaves...I read a tip that suggested leaves and coffee being a good combination that could be mixed with water to make a "tea" fertilizer, but that it would need to be used fairly quickly (limited shelf life)so that a dry/semi dry mix would be better.
Answer First, I want to correct my answer to you yesterday. I was quite tired and I should have stopped, but I skipped a step in the Math and completely misled you about the N-P-K formula.
Final formula would be 13-2.5-3.5 for N-P-K. Sorry.
The product you're referring to -- steeping Leaves + used Coffee Grounds (or perhaps you meant leftover Coffee; same difference) -- in H2O briefly, then using it as a liquid fertilizer, is technically 'Compost Leachate'. There is not a great deal of nutritional value and virtually zero boost in microbes in the final product, because those microbes are very effectively glued to the Compost particles.
The 'limited shelf life' you mention refers to the way microbes use up Oxygen in the leachate. If you let the Leaves/Coffee steep for several days, the microbes population grows and grows, until there is no Oxygen left. Then they die. In move the anaerobes -- potential pathogens that turn your high-powered stew into a rank liquid. Without preservatives, Leachate won't last.
Then there's Compost Tea. This is an Oxygen-charged aerobic culture of friendly microbes. Basically you take your aforementioned Coffee and decomposing Leaves, add a substantial amount of rainwater, leave it out under a tree (the UV in sunlight kills good Bacteria) and aerate constantly with a fish tank pump with a piece of plastic tubing to pump in the air.
A day or two later, you have a microbiologist's dream come true, a bubbly, fragrant soup filled with millions of microbes.
If you add a few Tablespoons of un-sulfured Molasses, you'll boost the Bacteria. If you add a few dashes of powdered Oatmeal or Malt, you'll feed Fungi. Studies show that some common Weeds find it more difficult to grow in Lawns where the Soil is low in Nitrates -- where the microbes are Fungi.
