Coffee grounds – making fertilizer at home
Did you know that you can make at least seven effective fertilizers in your very own backyard? Let me step you through the process of making fertilizers at home. Here are the ones that I talk about;
- Compost
- Worm castings
- Worm Wee tea
- Liquid Fertilizer
- Urine (yes I went there)
- Chicken manure
- Coffee grounds
All are very effective additions to any backyard veggie patch giving the soil and your plants a boost a couple of times a year. If you are really interested in Urine which is the easiest and most abundant (after a few home-brew beers) homemade fertilizer, then here is some more info from Wikipedia.
Urine contains large quantities of nitrogen (mostly as urea), as well as significant quantities of dissolved phosphates and potassium, the main macronutrients required by plants, with urine having plant macronutrient percentages (i.e. NPK) of approximately 11-1-2 by one study or 15-1-2 by another report, illustrating that exact composition varies with diet. Undiluted, it can chemically burn the roots of some plants, but it can be used safely as a source of complementary nitrogen in carbon-rich compost.
When diluted with water (at a 1:5 ratio for container-grown annual crops with fresh growing medium each season, or a 1:8 ratio for more general use), it can be applied directly to soil as a fertilizer. The fertilization effect of urine has been found to be comparable to that of commercial fertilizers with an equivalent NPK rating. Urine contains most of the NPK nutrients excreted by the human body.
It really is great stuff and it is such a shame to flush it down the loo.
Well listeners and readers, I hope you found my tips interesting, enlightening, and helpful for your garden.
May your garden grow abundantly and be bountiful!
I put a whole container (the ones they tap into) of coffee grounds throughout my bed this week to avoid the snails and slugs but also a light sprinkle into my worm bed. Its like crack for worms. Great Post but listening is a Sat am in bed with Gav thing.
Oh, i also bottled some of the worm wee last week and packaged it up as a birthday gift for another gardener. Lucky him, thrifty me.
My neighbour uses Urea I believe as a commercial fertiliser to fertilise his pasture paddock. I can attest to it being an effective fertiliser although I would much prefer to use a more natural one. And when you know what you eat is good quality food then you know what is in your urine too. About to listen now. 🙂
We have a plastic bucket that has a broken bottom to it. Rather than throw it out I dug a slight hole and put the bucket in the soil near our lemon tree in the greenhouse. Jas can water where he stands (and is send off to the orchard these days) but Allegra heads into the greenhouse and wees in the bucket. She gets a small tub of water to wash it down to keep the smell down and to dilute it but her wee goes straight towards the roots of the lemon tree. I’ve been caught short in the garden myself and made use of the bucket in the greenhouse too, looking all around to make sure the neighbours aren’t out firstly. 😉 My lemon tree is small but it is doing well. 🙂
Oh Lordy Jess, im getting visuals!!
Pee freely, I say!