What are some natural fertilizers for a vegetable garden?

Question

I'm planting a vegetable garden this year and I am on a budget. After buying the seeds, plants, and tools I don't have much left over and am trying to get by without buying fertilizer or adding manure to the soil. I also don't compost.

What I am doing is saving used coffee grounds to mix with soil before planting but am unsure which plants that works best with. I also heard burying banana peals works as well but am unsure about that. Any other ideas what I could do?

Answer 1

Worms love Coffee grounds, therefore their castings (Poop) will fertilize plants of all types. Food scraps of all kinds attract unwanted bugs, so you (Should) compost those peels before adding to the soil.

For less than 20 dollars (US) you can purchase "Miracle Grow" which is a fairly good all-around fertilizer that should get you through an entire season. Although not "Natural" it is inexpensive.

The thing with "Miracle Grow" is you need to stop using it once plants become established or you'll end up with really nice, bushy looking plants with little to no fruiting at all.

"Miracle grow" will help the plant roots establish quickly due to (High Nitrogen). Once that occurs and the plants look healthy stop using it, water appropriately and mother nature should take care of the rest. A sunny location and loose soil is equally as important as any nutrients you amend the soil with.

Also: At the end of the season throw down some "Winter Rye" seeds and allow them to continue growing without cutting. Come spring time work them back into the soil for enrichment. The root systems for winter rye run deep and break up your soil nicely as well.

If available, line in between your rows of plants with grass clippings (Not too thick) and allow them to dry before adding additional layers. They will break down and slowly release/leech nutrients into the soil.

Keep in mind that clover is not only an edible weed, but is excellent to allow growing within all of your plants to fix nitrogen into your soil.

Other than clover make sure to pull, hoe under, remove all other weeds so they don't compete with your vegetables for nutrients.



You can easily compost right in your garden by choosing a 2x2 foot section in a corner, digging out the dirt (A few feet down) and placing all of your plant scraps in the hole. Adding enough soil back atop the scraps to just cover them will initiate the composting process. Continue adding your scraps and a little soil atop as you go. When the hole gets full start another one. Don't pack the soil and scraps down as air is needed to effectively compost.

For a one time purchase you could get a nice rotating compost bin. then you'd never have to buy fertilizer again and all scraps that would attract unwanted pests and bugs would be completely isolated from your garden.

Answer 2

Coffee grounds are good but only like a couple of TBSPs a plant. You should definitely start composting as that is all free stuff and wonderful for the soil. You would be better off composting the banana peels. You don't need that much in the way of fertilizer. Go on line to you Agricultural Extension service and find out how to send soil samples. You take samples from around garden, mix and dry then put in a ziploc bag and send off. A report comes back telling you what you need for the garden. All it costs is postage. I do it most every year and usually use about 1/2 pound of 10-10-10. You don't need that much usually. Again make a compost pile, put all vegetable waste in it, no animal waste and you will have a good live soil to spread on your garden each year.

Answer 3

A lot depends on the soil you have now. A good rule of thumb is if you have clay it's akalyne and if you have red sand it will be acidic. Coffe is acidic so adding to an already acidic base will just cause more problems. If you compost them with other ingreadients around the house you will be fine.



Cow Manure is the best and cheapest and you can buy at most nursury stores. You could also buy alfafa hay and till it in to the ground. At the end of the day if you want to have a good garden you will have to add manure, compost or add fertilizer to almost all gardens. Without some sort of organic ingredient you will end up being short of something in your garden

Answer 4

When doing a cheap garden- Don't buy plants unless they are dwarf trees. $3 for 50-300 seeds or $3 for 1-4plants. Seeds are way cheaper and very easy to start. Only get organic non gmo seeds.

Make sure food trees/bushes you get are self fertile/self fruiting meaning you only need 1 and not 2 to have fruit.

Basic tools you need might be a large digging shovel, besides that you don't really need others. A hand digging shovel and good quality garden gloves are nice except a large shovel or maybe some kitchen tool could work also, and any sturdy gloves can be used.

Take back items you got that you don't need.



Compost. It's free and simple, just put decomposables, food scraps, plant materials in a pile outside.

You could buy some red wiggler worms and add them to the compost, as long as well cared for, they should increase in numbers, they help break down compost faster and their poop adds nutrients.



Coffee grounds and banana peels should be composted first. Composted banana peels and composted coffee grounds help. Banana peels and compost in general can be covered with some dirt to help keep flys/bees/bugs from being attracted to it.

Finished composted looks like soil and doesn't smell bad. Composted coffee grounds and composted banana peels alone are probably not enough nutrients, you should have a wide variety of nutrients for the soil. You should have a variety of composted: food scraps, plant materials, and worm castings or composted manure.



Collect as much rain water as you can and use that for watering the plants.



If your soil is hard and clayey, a good quality potting mix can be added to loosen it- get high quality stuff to help loosen the soil, it's basically a 1 time application, at least get some to test out a small area to learn the difference how much it helps the plants do better. If the soil is hard and clayey it's hard for the roots to grow.

Answer 5

Vegetables such as corn, peas, beans, spinach and beets like coffee grounds which you can also use as a mulch. Banana peels contain potassium and can be put in the planting hole or buried under mulch to compost. You can also use potash, which contains potassium, in the same way if you have a wood burning stove or a neighbor does. This is especially good for tomatoes.



I don't understand why you don't compost. Just dig a hole and put all your vegetable peelings in, but not meat as this will attract vermin. I do this with a trench which I top with the soil I dug out and grow pole beans.



You can also make your own fertiliser with weeds such as nettles, yellow dock, burdock, chickweed or comfrey. Put the leaves in an old bucket and add water. Stir weekly and after a month it will have matured. Be warned it stinks! Strain the liquid off and use it diluted 1:10.



If your soil is short of calcium you can use crushed eggshells which are also a good slug deterrent.

Answer 6

My thrifty mom uses fish fertilizer from Home Depot. She mixes it with water. I think it's a concentrate. It's stinky but not horribly so and inexpensive. She uses sand instead of compost to lighten her clay soil and improve drainage. I mentioned compost to her and she gave me a "huh?" look. She's an amazing veggie gardener. I only just starting to learn veggie gardening, but I love to grow flowers. Sometimes you can find compost and things on Craigslist cheap or even free.

Answer 7

used coffee grounds do not fertilize the soil. banana peels will prob just attract insects to your garden.

Answer 8

coffee grounds, chicken manure, cow manure.