HelpfulGardener.com

But the clay has shown me it's pretty healthy stuff! I've never had a tomato plant like these before.

Yeah! Here here!

This is very interesting, I mostly use stuff from the yard to compost with house scraps and maybe some manure. My gole is to get to 100% organic.

And a fine goal at that, Tom!

HG

No words to describe the beauty of your info OPA.
thanks a lot

LOVE IT! Thank you so much for posting this. I'm new to gardening, but was determined to be organic from the get go. Now I have an idea about what I put in my compost and how it effects the NPK values.

Congrats on going organic and welcome to gardening. You will find, as I have over some 50 years of gardening, that there will be, as Jim McKay used to say in sports but is true of gardening as well, thrills of victory and the agony defeat. Learn all you can from family, friends and garden site members who have tried it all before and you too will enjoy the journey.

I have never seen such a good list. David

So glad I peeked at the thread. Good to know some of this for my composting ...

Impressive list. I did not realize tobacco leaves had so much nitrogen. Is it safe to compost considering tobacco may have tobacco mozaic virus which can infect many plants?

opabinia51 wrote:I have 8 pages of this stuff... .

Very interesting lists; thanks for posting.
I was curious to know more about your source(s) for the list?

Very cool information. Thanks!

Understanding your soil & what it needs is the hard part I guess.
I made up a cool fertiliser using corn meal, blood & bone, dolomite line, seaweed meal & a few other goodies. It really pumped my vegetable garden along lol

Permaculture & organic compost methods are great too.

Very helpful thanks

Another list of NPK of everything including manures.

Realize that source material for the compost and feed for the animals will impact the final product.

The nature of organic "fertilizers" is such that it is mostly in a form that needs to be mineralized by the soil microbes and the mineralization rate is affected by many factors such as temperature, moisture, the type and number of organisms present, etc. Nitrogen is released slowly so the total nitrogen is not available or in a form that is readily absorbable immediately.

https://www.lundproduce.com/N-P-K-Value- ... thing.html

how come you don't have the NPK for cow manure or chicken manure?

A couple more resources with analysis of organic fertilizers:

https://www.mofga.org/LinkClick.aspx?fil ... &tabid=133

https://www.ext.colostate.edu/mg/gardennotes/234.html

I'm new today is my first day and I'm overjoyed and very thankful for this info. I just started having compost workshops and this would be excellent to share with my gardeners. Thank you for sharing.

caters wrote:how come you don't have the NPK for cow manure or chicken manure?

Online link for several animal manures all very low in the same range, chicken is a tiny bit higher in nitrogen but still low.

https://www.allotment-garden.org/compost ... s-compost/

NPK of wood ash is 0-1-3 to 0-1-4 depends on the wood. Add any type urine even people urine NPK after 48 hrs at 70 degrees is 10-1-4

https://www.lundproduce.com/N-P-K-Value- ... thing.html

Gary350 wrote:
Online link for several animal manures all very low in the same range, chicken is a tiny bit higher in nitrogen but still low.
https://www.allotment-garden.org/compost ... s-compost/

Man, one can get totally lost on that site there's so much info. Thanks

opabinia51 wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 15, 2005 2:41 am

Wood Ash: 0/1.0-2.0/6.0-10.0 (A note on Wood ash: Wood Ash can contain chemicals that could harm plants and also carcinogens so, they should be composted in moderation)

This is true. Wood ash contains, lye = caustic soda = sodium hydroxide. This is why wood ash makes such good home made lye soap from fresh burned wood. You can wash dishes or wash your hands with wood ash it works better than factory made soap. Sodium Hydroxide is neutralized naturally by humidity & oxygen in the air in about 3 to 7 days. I sprinkle wood ash around plants making sure to keep it 1" to 2" away from plants. A very thin layer of wood ash on the soil surface lye will be gone in 24 hours. If you till large amounts of wood ash in the soil don't plant there for a week then lye will be gone. I like to put 1 gallon of wood ash in 5 gallons of water wait 3 days then use it to water plants. Wood ash contains about 20% to 30% calcium for BER and large amounts of Potassium that promotes lots of blossoms that turn into lots of fruit. Wood ash is especially good fertilizer for tomatoes & peppers. I burn brush & tree limbs in Fall and save wood ash in open top buckets all winter then 6 months later when I need fertilizer lye is gone.

Remember that where organic fertilizers are concerned, there is no "guranteed analysis", unless you analyze each batch. It is why many organic products do not often display the NPK values on the front but are shown as percentages on the back of the package. The nutrient values in organic sources depends on the quality of the sources, temperature, and the presence of a healthy soil web to break the organic fertilizer down to a form that is available to plants. Some organic nitrogen are more readily available than others and animal sources of nitrogen are usually richer than plant sources of nitrogen. Fish meal is moderately available, Blood meal is relatively fast. What is stated in the package will be total nitrogen. The nitrogen in the form of ammonia is more readily available than nitrogen bound to proteins. The organic nitrogen numbers on the label are usually a lot lower than synthetic forms. At best maybe 50% of the organic nitrogen might be readily available , the rest may take up to two years to be converted into an available form by soil organisms.

Where the nitrogen is applied matters as well. There are nitrifying and denitrifying bacteria in the soil. One makes more nitrogen available the other releases the nitrogen back to its gaseous form back to the environment. Nitrogen on the surface will volatize faster than nitrogen that is buried.

Nitrogen should be applied at intervals when the plants need it. It makes it difficult to plan it out with organic fertilizers since they are better at releasing nitrogen slowly over time. You don't want or need a lot of nitrogen when you plant seeds. The nitrogen requirements go up when the true leaves come out and the plant is actively growing. This is usually when organic sources of nitrogen usually have a harder time keeping up with the demand. Don't forget, the plants only get the leftovers. The soil microbes are converting the organic matter, not for the sake of the plants, but to nourish themselves first.