Homemade organic fertilizers for container plants?

[Tropicaltoba]

I知 curious if anyone else is making their own fertilizers for container plants? I致e been using old leaves and coffee grounds in a worm bin and also have been trying some experiments with bokashi composting for fruit and high nitrogen wastes. I find the solids products work well for my large containerized that have worms in them, but I知 not sure what to do with all the leachates? I知 hoping to use them as a liquid fertilizer for my smaller plants but have concerns about toxicity. I was wondering if others have tried similar things?

[tru]

Maybe treat it as a concentrate, mix w water to experiment with? I think the only real way to tell would be an EC reader, not sure about the leachates maybe cheesecloth would work? I figure they're probably way smaller than that though

I've never heard of bokashi but after reading up on it sounds really interesting!

I keep a fishtank so all of the dirty water goes directly to the plants instead of down the drain, I have a compost bin going but I'm new to it all so idk how good I did, tried to do the whole browns to greens ratio but It's hard to say if it was done right

[elouicious]

I've done the same in the past-

Bokashi is great for composting on a small scale to produce liquid feritlizers

As tru said unless you have the same inputs to the bin, the leachate will always be a bit of a moving target but in general a dilution of 1:100 will be good for almost all applications

Really heavy feeders like some species of cactus can take it straight

What are your toxicity concerns?

(freshwater aquarium water changes are an amazing liquid fertilizer, I would like to begin experimenting with a protein skimmer from reef aquariums as well)

[pagnr]

A standard toxicity test is to plant 100 radish seed in a pot and count the germinations. High rate = very low to zero toxicity. Low rate of germination = higher toxicity.
You may need to standardise by knowing the germination rate of the radish seed, that should be 100% in most cases.
You could test toxicity of your fertiliser on radish seedlings in pots, if they go backwards it should be an indication.

[roblack]

Used to feed plants black water from freshwater cichlid tanks packed with fish, plants, and driftwood . Never bought fertilizer for the house and porch plants, as the back water was fantastic. Have considered keeping freshwater fish again, partly for the wastewater.

I would be afraid to use skimmate from a protein skimmer. Not sure if the salt is transferred well in the foam, but who knows what is in the cup. Marine tanks, water, and fish usually end up getting dosed with all kinds of stuff, including antibiotics and copper. Even if it is good for plants and fruit, doubt enough could be produced and fed to plants to make much of a difference.

[Tropicaltoba]

I've done the same in the past-

Bokashi is great for composting on a small scale to produce liquid feritlizers

As tru said unless you have the same inputs to the bin, the leachate will always be a bit of a moving target but in general a dilution of 1:100 will be good for almost all applications

Really heavy feeders like some species of cactus can take it straight

What are your toxicity concerns?

(freshwater aquarium water changes are an amazing liquid fertilizer, I would like to begin experimenting with a protein skimmer from reef aquariums as well)

I致e done a bit of reading that suggests there could be around 1-2% alcohol (my fruit waste probably turns into kombucha) and that if left to air 50% will evaporate over 5 days.

[Tropicaltoba]

A standard toxicity test is to plant 100 radish seed in a pot and count the germinations. High rate = very low to zero toxicity. Low rate of germination = higher toxicity.
You may need to standardise by knowing the germination rate of the radish seed, that should be 100% in most cases.
You could test toxicity of your fertiliser on radish seedlings in pots, if they go backwards it should be an indication.

I like this idea thanks

[Tropicaltoba]

Maybe treat it as a concentrate, mix w water to experiment with? I think the only real way to tell would be an EC reader, not sure about the leachates maybe cheesecloth would work? I figure they're probably way smaller than that though

I've never heard of bokashi but after reading up on it sounds really interesting!

I keep a fishtank so all of the dirty water goes directly to the plants instead of down the drain, I have a compost bin going but I'm new to it all so idk how good I did, tried to do the whole browns to greens ratio but It's hard to say if it was done right

I do use an ec meter for my fertigation (add small amounts of liquid fertillizer every time I water my small container fruit trees) and try to adjust it based on some salinity tolerate tables I found, but I知 not sure how that translates to organic fertilizer as there is hardly any sodium
Or chloride in it.

[tru]

https://www.gardenmyths.com/bokashi-tea-fertilizer/#:~:text=Levels%20of%20Sodium%20and%20Chloride,50%20being%20toxic%20to%20plants.

I found this article talking about sodium and chloride levels; They also tested bokashi vs nothing vs typical fertilizer and the typical fertilizer destroyed them, they say it is because bokashi does not contain much nitrogen

"Use bokashi for gardens with high nitrogen content, that can deal with excess salt easily"

[elouicious]

I think the salt concentrations mainly come from including cooked food- I could be wrong baut as long as you are only using raw food discard I can't see how the salt would accumulate

[Tropicaltoba]

https://www.gardenmyths.com/bokashi-tea-fertilizer/#:~:text=Levels%20of%20Sodium%20and%20Chloride,50%20being%20toxic%20to%20plants.

I found this article talking about sodium and chloride levels; They also tested bokashi vs nothing vs typical fertilizer and the typical fertilizer destroyed them, they say it is because bokashi does not contain much nitrogen

"Use bokashi for gardens with high nitrogen content, that can deal with excess salt easily"

Yeah I found that one too so I致e tried making two different types. One that is mostly fruit peels (should be high in potassium), and another that should be high in nitrogen cause it痴 all fresh leaves (passion fruit vine trimmings) along with meat and dairy waste (I知 not going into detail about this yet cause I値l sound like a lunatic). My plan is to try to adjust the fertillizer to the grow/fruiting needs of the plants.

[Vegan Potato Man]

I put a bunch of comfrey in a bucket and ended up with a bunch of juice.

I diluted it and tested it with my truncheon ec meter but I should have sterilized it since it had some nasty mold in there that attacked my plants.

Will update if I use it again after sterilizing.

[achetadomestica]

cricket frass
I usually mix a cup in a gallon of water and let simmer for 2-4 hours in the sun.
Also on the first of every month I have been giving my potted plants
fish emulsion. I have 4 jabos in pots and they really seem to be responding

[elouicious]

where do you get the cricket frass?

or do you have crickets in a box?

[Tropicaltoba]

Do you make your own emulsion? I too am curious where u get the crickets.

[achetadomestica]

where do you get the cricket frass?

or do you have crickets in a box?

I owned a cricket farm, Acheta domestica is the genus and species of the grey cricket.
I sold 89,000,000 crickets one year
Anyway I am getting the frass from my old farm.

[achetadomestica]

Do you make your own emulsion? I too am curious where u get the crickets.

I was driving down the road and saw a 5 gallon bucket on the side of the road.
I needed one more to collect rainwater and I stopped to get it and it was full of
fresh caught Tilapia and bluegill. They were just starting to stink. Someone must have
lost them going down the road and they landed perfectly without spilling
I put the fish in a pastic barrell and added some mollasses and water and I have a batch.
I mix one Tablespoon per gallon of water.

[Galatians522]

where do you get the cricket frass?

or do you have crickets in a box?

I owned a cricket farm, Acheta domestica is the genus and species of the grey cricket.
I sold 89,000,000 crickets one year
Anyway I am getting the frass from my old farm.

I knew there had to be a reason for your chosen avatar.

[pagnr]

Do you make your own emulsion? I too am curious where u get the crickets.

I was driving down the road and saw a 5 gallon bucket on the side of the road.
I needed one more to collect rainwater and I stopped to get it and it was full of
fresh caught Tilapia and bluegill. They were just starting to stink. Someone must have
lost them going down the road and they landed perfectly without spilling
I put the fish in a pastic barrell and added some mollasses and water and I have a batch.
I mix one Tablespoon per gallon of water.

Reminds me of a similar story from when I was a teenage member of the Aquarium Club.
One member told about when he went on a trip to the beach to catch small shrimp for live fish food, caught and collected in a big drum in the back of the station wagon.
On the way home on a backroad, he was T boned by another car, and the shrimp exploded onto the road, flicking and jumping.
Both cars wrecked.
When the other drive walked up, he only asked one question.
"where did all the shrimp com from" ?

[pagnr]

I do use an ec meter for my fertigation (add small amounts of liquid fertillizer every time I water my small container fruit trees) and try to adjust it based on some salinity tolerate tables I found, but I知 not sure how that translates to organic fertilizer as there is hardly any sodium
Or chloride in it.

NaCl has an EC, but so does CaCl KCl CaSo4 MgCl MgSo4 etc etc all those similar fertiliser components for the purposes of liquid fertigation
Even Urea CO(NH 2) 2. has an EC equivalent, although it is not exactly the same type of molecule as the others.
Organic fertiliser may have more complex larger molecules, but they probably eventually break down to smaller types like above.
On top of that your water has some level of EC before you add fertiliser.
Not a big problem, but keep in mind that fertilisers have an EC effect.
Also if you apply fertiliser to a pot and it dries out the EC increases in the remaining soil water.
That is why some fertilisers say don't apply in high temps, more so if the are heat release types.

[Plantinyum]

Organic fertilizers are def a safer option for pot culture, ive read that with the sintetics its easier to overdo on potted plants due to the confinement of the pot.
I also started making my own fish emulsion, i have set 2 10 liter bottles past summer, should be ready by june probably.
That said i am generally very bad at keeping up the fertilization schedules, so i only used it like 2- 3 times this summer, mostly doing the sintetic stuff ,also not on a schedule and probably could do way more.
I have 2 ponds with fish in my yard, both of them have accumulated like 10 cm of muck at the bottom, i will be removing a part of it, leaving the rest for the water lilies to enjoy as they are growing straight into it. I plan on dessicating the muck and probably mixing it with irigation water as needed. This thing is literally black, years of worth of acummulating of sediment and fish waste, i just imagine how fertile it is.
In summer when i am hand wattering i use the water from the ponds , then backfill them with my well's water, its a pain to cary so much water trough my yard ,but i have to change the ponds water periodically anyways, and i hate to just spill it out on the tiles, not gonna happen!

[Tropicaltoba]

Organic fertilizers are def a safer option for pot culture, ive read that with the sintetics its easier to overdo on potted plants due to the confinement of the pot.
I also started making my own fish emulsion, i have set 2 10 liter bottles past summer, should be ready by june probably.
That said i am generally very bad at keeping up the fertilization schedules, so i only used it like 2- 3 times this summer, mostly doing the sintetic stuff ,also not on a schedule and probably could do way more.
I have 2 ponds with fish in my yard, both of them have accumulated like 10 cm of muck at the bottom, i will be removing a part of it, leaving the rest for the water lilies to enjoy as they are growing straight into it. I plan on dessicating the muck and probably mixing it with irigation water as needed. This thing is literally black, years of worth of acummulating of sediment and fish waste, i just imagine how fertile it is.
In summer when i am hand wattering i use the water from the ponds , then backfill them with my well's water, its a pain to cary so much water trough my yard ,but i have to change the ponds water periodically anyways, and i hate to just spill it out on the tiles, not gonna happen!

I am jealous of people with ponds. Are u feeding the fish or do they just eat bugs? How are the mosquitos? I live in the mosquito capital of Canada and I want a pond but I知 worried I値l just ending giving my neighbour hood west nile virus. Also what sintectics?

[Plantinyum]

Tropicaltoba, i dont really feed my fish, i keep goldfish and some native species, which i want to replace with goldfish ultimately. I have bought 1 goldfish feed this summer, very small quantity and that was all i fed them the whole summer. I dont usually feed them becouse i have introduced river crustaceans,  dunno which species but are very small and have a stable poppulation of theese. I also have dragonfly larvae ,some stranje muck worms that show themselves trough the muck , and all other kinds of nasties.
My ponds are not heavily stocked with fish, so what in there naturally is sufficient at this point.
For the mosquitos i dont really know if the ponds are making a dent in the poppulation, i have never seen a flock of musquitos like flying above them. Ive seen them laying eggs on the water's surface, and i do have a substantial amount of mosquitos in the yard in spring and early summer, BUT at that time wherever i go there are awlays alot of mosquitos, forests are the worst place to go with summer outfit lol. 
Ive red there are some biological means of controlling mosquitos in ponds that do work, i just let mine run as naturally as possible, i will possibly get more goldfish this summer, this should help with their control.
Also if you make a pond u can add a strong watterfal or some kind of watter aggitation device, mosquito hate moving highly oxigenated water.
Sintetic ferts, i use whatever i get my hands on..npk ones, micronutrient ones, i found a hidroponic store where they offer some stuff that is usually hard to find here, like terra aquatica brand along others. I also use kristalon, which i think does a good job.
Here are both of them right now.

[pagnr]

i keep goldfish and some native species

Plantinyum, what native Bulgarian fish species do you keep ? Just wondering what they might be ?

 We have Carp, Tench, Redfin Perch ( Perca ) and Rudd/Roach introduced to Australia.

[Plantinyum]

i keep goldfish and some native species

Plantinyum, what native Bulgarian fish species do you keep ? Just wondering what they might be ?

 We have Carp, Tench, Redfin Perch ( Perca ) and Rudd/Roach introduced to Australia.

I only have two wild species in the ponds, one is crucian carp, which is kind of an invasive species in our area. The other one i dont really know the name of it, its a small elongated fish, dark grey in colour with quite prominent protrusions on the sides of the gills/head. They may stay so small due to the confinement of the ponds.
I also had wild juppies at one time, those died out the first winter, they are native in some southern areas of my country, invasive as f**k.
I also have 2 big lake clams in the bigger pond, i should get more of those for both ponds, they seem to love trailing trought the muck.
I would love to really stock the ponds with all kinds of native fish, but they are too small for heavy fish raising. Will stick with goldies since they are the most friendly and beautiful to look at, native fish are too shy, thought my crucian carps do eat food from my hand at this point.