10 Common Household Items to Use as Garden Fertilizers

10 Common Household Items to Use as Garden Fertilizers

These 10 common household items to use as garden fertilizer will add needed nutrients to your soil for pennies (or less). Turn your household wastes, simple kitchen products, and excess leaves into nutrient rich soil. These common household products make great additives to your soil and help to produce some amazing flowers and vegetables in your home garden.

Note: many organic gardeners use these tips and tricks to fertilize their soil and feed their plants. These are some great organic gardening fertilizer choices.

You’ve tested your soil and found some nutrient deficiencies, or just want to add nutrients based on plants to your soil as a natural garden feed. So now what? There are plenty of common household items you can add to your soil to bring it to balance, or to feed newly planted or existing flowers, shrubs and vegetables.

● Coconut Water (coconut milk) adds electrolytes and bacteria to the soil. Make a “tea” of 1 tablespoon of dried coconut powder to 5 gallons of water. Use this mixture once a week or every other week. Do not store this mixture, use it all at one time. Store the dried coconut powder package in a cool, dark place.

● Epsom Salt is a wonderful way to supply magnesium and sulfate to your soil. Magnesium sulfate is pH neutral and will not harm your soil. Organic gardeners love to use Epsom salt as the magnesium helps strengthen cell walls and improves plants’ uptake of nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur. Make your tomatoes, peppers and roses happy by planting with a tablespoon of Epsom Salt dissolved in a gallon of water. Later, during the growing season, add another tablespoon directly around the base of the plant before watering. Then water and the Epsom salt will absorb into the ground.

● White Vinegar mixed into water makes for a great acid feed. Test your soil before doing this. You don’t want the ph in your soil to be too low. Mix a tablespoon of vinegar into a gallon of water to feed your roses and hydrangeas once per season.

● Blackstrap Molasses is a great source of is a source of calcium, magnesium and potassium. The natural sugars in blackstrap molasses will feed the microorganisms in your garden. To use, add ½ cup of blackstrap molasses to a gallon of water, and spray on your soil. You can also spray along the roots of vegetables as they begin to flower.

● Bananas. Everyone loves bananas but your garden loves the peels. Simply toss banana peels right into your garden to give your plants a potassium boot as they break down. This makes your plants strong and healthy to help them fight off pests like aphids. Banana peels do not gain an odor as they rot.

● Coffee Grounds put nitrogen into your soil and do not have to be composted before you can add them to your garden. Not only can you get coffee grounds from your own kitchen you can stop by your local Starbucks and grab a free bag of coffee grounds ready to go for your garden. You can ask your local coffee shop for used coffee grounds many are more than happy to give them away. To quickly add coffee grounds to your garden you can mix into water for a powerful compost tea.

● Eggshells can go into your garden to slowly break down and give your plants calcium. Simply collect eggshells, dry them out and add them under your mulch or for quicker results you can grind them up and place in a small amount of vinegar overnight to break them down and make the calcium ready to be utilized by your plants. Or give your eggshells a whirl in your mini food processor to make eggshell powder to sprinkle. Ask your friends and family to save their eggshells. Remember, clean eggshells will not smell, and you don’t care if they break while being saved.

● Fireplace Ash will supply potassium and calcium carbonate to your soil. Fireplace Ash will also increase the pH of your soil.

● Whey Powder is a source of amino acids that leads to better quality plants, and larger vegetable yields. Read here as to why amino acids are the secret to better, bigger vegetables.

● Yard Waste makes great organic matter for your garden. At the beginning of the season you can till it right in but thorough the season you can put those grass clings to work by mulching your garden with them. Simply place a thick layer of grass clippings around your plants every time you mow and rake throughout the summer. In ornamental gardens you can gather enough to do a full section and place the grass under decorative mulch adding nutrients to the soil and reduce the amount of mulch needed for the area. And don’t forget fall leaves for an easy source of garden compost.

The best way to feed your garden for free is to make your own compost. You can up-cycle a large bin or pallet into a composer for your garden. Composting is easy, free, and reduces your impact on the earth by keeping your food scraps and yard waste out of landfills.

And as a bonus:

● Beer. Click here for ways to use beer in your garden and lawn.

Whether you are looking for inexpensive gardening fertilizer ideas, free gardening fertilizer ideas, or organic gardening fertilizer ideas… or all three! one or more of the choices listed above will be just the ticket to help maintain your soil, and produce lovely flowers and tasty, large vegetables.

Sources

● Priya Chemicals
● Academic Journal of Plant Sciences
● Epsom Salt Council

● Disclosure the links in this post may be affiliate links.

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