How to Fertilize Your Garden

Fertilizing your garden is an important aspect for having a healthy and thriving garden. Knowing what kind of fertilizer to use can be confusing. There are two types of fertilizers available, chemical based and organic. For vegetable gardens, the safest fertilizer is organic. The chemical based fertilizers are best considered for gardens and lawns that are not producing food.

Organic fertilizers are available at gardening stores. You could also make your own organic fertilizer along with composting and see amazing results. The best homemade organic fertilizer is a mixture of seed meal, lime, bone meal and kelp meal. Dolomitic and agricultural lime is the most important ingredients boosting the calcium and magnesium carbonates in the soil. Bone meal will boost the phosphorus levels and kelp meal provides a wide variety of trace minerals enabling the plant to be resistant to frost and cold weather. Adding ashes from burned wood will help add potassium to your garden.

Begin composting each year by using grass clippings, dry leaves, crushed eggshells, coffee grounds and any uncooked vegetable scraps. Turn the pile to promote composting each week. Adding this mixture of compost to your garden will add nitrogen to your soil. Mixing manure or finished compost into your soil each spring will help your plants by releasing nutrients into the soil at a slower rate. Well dried, composted steer manure or rabbit droppings are an excellent addition to your soil. Tilling the ingredients into the soil each spring will aerate the soil to stimulate root growth. By using organic fertilizer and composting methods each year, you can produce a healthy, high yield and nutrient rich garden.