Author Topic: Any experience fertilizing or mulching with seaweed ?  (Read 3111 times)

wonderfruit

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Any experience fertilizing or mulching with seaweed ?
« on: February 21, 2016, 01:25:52 AM »
I am at south florida. Not to far from beach. Soil is sandy. Lack nutrients. Does any body have any experience collecting seeweed from shore and use it as a mulch or. Fertilizer. Thanks
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buddyguygreen

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Re: Any experience fertilizing or mulching with seaweed ?
« Reply #1 on: February 21, 2016, 01:36:28 AM »
Not the best idea as its vary high in salt, depending on what you want to grow

DimplesLee

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Re: Any experience fertilizing or mulching with seaweed ?
« Reply #2 on: February 21, 2016, 01:50:10 AM »
Coconuts love fresh seaweed of all kinds (provided your ground cover crop is edible peanuts you'll be fine). If you are growing other trees or other edible (or not) groundcover though those may not be too keen on the salt build up.
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From the sea

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Re: Any experience fertilizing or mulching with seaweed ?
« Reply #3 on: February 21, 2016, 07:38:06 AM »
I use it all the time with no ill affects, I rinse it a little and spread it around the trees. There isn't as much salt it in as people think. I mulch with sea grass and seaweed 2" thick, 4 times a year.

Saltcayman

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Re: Any experience fertilizing or mulching with seaweed ?
« Reply #4 on: February 21, 2016, 07:47:07 AM »
I use it all the time with no ill affects, I rinse it a little and spread it around the trees. There isn't as much salt it in as people think. I mulch with sea grass and seaweed 2" thick, 4 times a year.

Agreed.  Have used fresh seaweed with no rinse for years with no ill effects. When it dries it tends to blow away so best to top it with another mulch like pine straw...

From the sea

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Re: Any experience fertilizing or mulching with seaweed ?
« Reply #5 on: February 21, 2016, 08:00:38 AM »
+1 sorry forgot to mention that.

treefrog

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Re: Any experience fertilizing or mulching with seaweed ?
« Reply #6 on: February 21, 2016, 08:38:25 AM »
when i lived closer to the beach, i used it all the time on pretty much everything.  now, i bring a garbage bag of it back each time i go to the coast.  i throw it in with the compost pile after a rinse.  most of the salt in seaweed is on the surface, and rinses off easily.  one benefit of seaweed is that it has ALL the trace elements.  everything that can leach out of the soil has done just that, and in the passage of a few hundred million years, all that leachate has made its way to the sea.  seaweed has it ALL!  perhaps not in the proportions we might like, but it's all there.
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Vernmented

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Re: Any experience fertilizing or mulching with seaweed ?
« Reply #7 on: February 21, 2016, 09:02:10 AM »
I also used quite a few batches. The first ones I rinsed and the others I just used salty. If you soil is super sandy I don't think there is much of an issue with salt build up. If you use organic methods you really have nothing to worry about. The salt has tons of minerals in it as well. I have heard of people using ocean water to fertigate their salt tolerant fruit trees.
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wonderfruit

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Re: Any experience fertilizing or mulching with seaweed ?
« Reply #8 on: February 21, 2016, 07:36:03 PM »
Thanks for your input.  I l do it. And share experiences.
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LivingParadise

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Re: Any experience fertilizing or mulching with seaweed ?
« Reply #9 on: February 22, 2016, 02:45:22 PM »
It is common to use seaweed in many coastal areas for fertilizer, and often people just use it straight. People around the world in ancient times used it all the time, and they did not have access to an easy way to rinse it - they just used it straight, often mixed with sand. They had no problems. There are many homes near me that oceanfront and have their own mini beaches, who are looking to give away seaweed all the time. I have been so busy I have not had time yet to try this, but I hope to make an arrangement with someone sometime soon.

You might be interested to read this article on the historical use of seaweed as fertilizer:
http://www.fao.org/docrep/006/y4765e/y4765e0c.htm
 

BahamaDan

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Re: Any experience fertilizing or mulching with seaweed ?
« Reply #10 on: February 22, 2016, 03:23:43 PM »
I'm honestly not sure where all the bemoaning about it being too salty to use as a mulch comes from, doesn't seem to be from people who have actually tried it in their gardens as the accounts of From the Sea and Saltcayman match that of my own which is it works great used straight. A particularly effective combo I found for bananas (I have super sandy low organic matter soil too) is too heavily mulch with horse manure and then layer a thick mulch of seaweed on top of that, the bananas went gangbusters and sent roots upwards against gravity into the mulch.

I've used it for various other fruit trees too (tamarinds etc) with no ill effects, besides it having a whole host of trace minerals it also contains beneficial plant growth hormones (some seaweed can grow 3 feet in a day). If you are still somehow concerned about salt, just give it a quick hose over before laying it down. You're sandy soil is a pro in that too much of anything can easily be washed out of the upper profile of it if you water enough. The nice soils Ireland built up to grow their potatoes was from soil, manure and seaweed over generations.

A nifty trick is also that you can make your own liquid seaweed fertilizer (which can be terribly expensive in stores). Fill a bucket 1/2 to 3/4 with seaweed, add water to full, cover and store downwind from the house (can smell a bit while breaking down). After a couple weeks to months the seaweed will have dissolved completely, and you can dilute 1:10 or 1:20 with water and fertilize or spray foliarly!

Hope I've convinced you :)
« Last Edit: February 23, 2016, 11:14:55 AM by BahamaDan »

wonderfruit

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Re: Any experience fertilizing or mulching with seaweed ?
« Reply #11 on: February 23, 2016, 12:20:39 AM »
 :) :) :)
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gozp

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Re: Any experience fertilizing or mulching with seaweed ?
« Reply #12 on: February 23, 2016, 10:07:28 AM »
I use Sea90 salt as an alternative & dilute it to 1tsp to 1 gallon as natural products from the sea contains 90+ trace elements which the soil does not contain nowadays.