Question

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Followup To

Question -
Hi Long Island Gardener,
My name is Donald. I live in Malaysia, hot climate.
(1) Have you any receipe making organic fertilizer?
By the way, I'm keeping bonsai. Most of them are planted in normal bigger pot, not yet in bonsai pot.
They're still training trees.
(2) Does human multivits capsule/tablet form, blended with water considered organic? What vitamin mustn't be given to tree?
Thanks and nice talking and knowing you.

Donald

Answer -
Hello, Donald from Malaysia!

I am surprised you are writing all the way to Long Island, NY for an organic recipe for fertilizer.  But I'm delighted to pass a few on to you.  

I do have to warn you however that it is my understanding that Bonsai is a very technical art which has some specific requirements.  Possibly giving your Bonsai plants the wrong fertilizer will alter their growth in an undesirable way.  So please check your Bonsai Instruction Manual to make sure this is OK.  Bonsai is a way to interrupt growth patterns of a plant - and fertilizers will affect their growth.  Be careful.

I refer you first to Brent Walston "Fertilizing Your Bonsai" (www.evergreengardenworks.com/fertiliz.htm).  I think he clearly explains everything you need to know about this subject.  The one thing I disagree with is his statement about frequent fertilization.  Brent believes that occasional, or even frequent, fertilization are more convenient and just as good as fertilization that some people do with every single watering.  In my experience, it is the most natural thing to include some fertilizer with every watering.  We dilute the fertilizer more, but giving low doses all the time is the best way to feed your flowers and shrubs, no matter what you're growing -- with some occasional exceptions.

Now, where would we get the ingredients for organic fertilizer?

My part of the world is probably very different from your part of the world.  But this is what we can do here.

Eggshells blended with water: 12-4-1
Ground Seashells (must be pulverized to a very fine powder): 9-7-0
Wood Ashes: 0-3-14
Crushed Granite: 0-0-5
Epsom Salts: Magnesium
Feathers (shredded): 15-0-0
Hair (shredded): 14-0-0
Fish: 5-3-3
Horse Manure (must be aged): 7-3-6
Duck Manure (must be aged): 6-14-5
Chicken Manure (must be aged): 11-8-5
Rabbit Manure (must be aged): 24-14-6
Worm Castings: 5-5-3
Coffee Grounds: 20-3-2

Mix as needed.

Used aquarium water can be saved during water changes and applied to plants directly. Beer is highly nutritious, contains enzymes that are great for soil and a lot of Nitrogen. Some gardeners swear by mixtures of Ammonia and Gatorade, as a cocktail of trace minerals and Nitrogen, but you must be VERY careful with the Ammonia and diluate it heavily.

If you have access to Bone Meal, Blood Meal or Cottonseed Meal, any of those will be excellent slow-release sources of Nitrogen or (in the case of Bone Meal) Phosphorous.  Some people put sugar in their soil to give a boost to beneficial bacteria.

Any questions?












Thank you very much for the advices.
Yes which of the contains in human-multivitamins that are not good for trees/bonsai? Because I planned to throw few caps onto the soil but scared doing.

Answer
Yes, those human multivitamins - Well, I thought that was explained very sensibly in the link I included, "Fertilizing Your Bonsai".

But this is such a common misperception with so many people it is certainly worth addressing here further.

Two years ago, a group of students at a Science Fair in California did an experiment called "Effects of Human Vitamins and Dietary Supplements on the Growth of Parsley Plants" (www.usc.edu/CSSF/History/2004/Projects/J1409.pdf#search='human%20vitamins%20plants').

They fed Calcium, Iron, Vitamin C and Vitamin D to potted Parsley for 2 weeks.  Then they measured the heights of all the plants.

The plants fed Vitamin D and Calcium grew the most.  The ones fed Iron and Vitamin C appeared to be reacting negatively with the Iron fed Parsley actually growing less than the control Parsley fed only water with no Vitamins.

So this is a bit of a dilemma and not quite as simple as you would think.

We do, after all, feed Chelated Iron to "Anemic" plants.  But the mechanisms for growth and metabolism of these additives are very different from plant to plant and certainly between the two kingdoms!  You could not take an anemic child, feed the child a glass of Miracid and see an improvement.

Feeding Human Grade Calcium and Fish to your Bonsai would not hurt it.  But it would be a terribly expensive way to fertilize your plant.  It would miss many of the minerals it needs to thrive or even to live.  

Quick story: We had a baby bird hatch here and noticed it had been abandoned in the nest by its mother. Determined to save it, we scrambled about for a recipe to feed the baby bird. The baby bird held on for 3 days, and then it died. When I discussed this sad ending with an acquaintance, she offered her own advice: "I would have fed the baby bird milk."  It was the most natural solution in the world to her, to feed any baby milk - and the conversation ended abruptly when I pointed out that this is not a mammal we were feeding, it was a bird.

People anthropromorphize trees, cars, the weather, their desk at work, their plants. People talk to their plants. People play music for their plants. People feed their plants vitamins.

You can buy a lot of supplements in the health food store and I cannot think of a single one that would actually hurt a houseplant.  I don't know what Iron the students at the science fair used, but it was not the kind the Parsley needed.

There are people who maintain you should never feed a deciduous bonsai (http://www.rancidsawdust.com/pfood.htm) at certain times of the year.  

At the same time, you could never expect a human being to survive on the basic N-P-K formula that is the basis for almost all commercial fertilizers.

Clover grown in the lawn is able to seize molecules of air and produce its own Nitrogen. What human being do you know who is going to live on that?  Same goes for your plants.

A long time ago a book came out, "Plants Are Like People." It was a blockbuster best seller; the author toured for years.  As popular as the concept is, plants are only incidentally like people.  They belong to an entirely separate Kingdom, at the most basic level we are different.  And feeding vitamins to your plants may be fun to try, but a serious gardener I think would do a reality check and figure out it is not only cheaper, but healthier, and perhaps even more ethical, to buy fertilizer.