Using Whole Eggs and Bananas as Organic Fertilizer for Tomato Plants: Using Compost Holes
Please Support The Rusted Garden by Shopping through my Amazon Affiliate Link
Burying eggs, fish bones, animal parts and other organic matter in compost holes, for garden fertilizer, has been done for centuries. A compost hole differs from a compost pile in that you let the organic matter decay beneath the ground in the planting area you will be growing vegetable plants. Compost piles sit above the surface and the organic matter decays over months and sometimes years. Compost is always king, if you have the space to make plenty of it. We always don't have the space and compost holes are a simpler alternative.
Using Whole Eggs and Banana as Organic Fertilizer |
Many of us spend a lot of money on organic fertilizers which are really no different than burying organic matter in a compost hole. Blood meal is freeze dried slaughter house blood. Bone meal is steamed crushed cattle bone. Fish emulsion is blended fish parts. Feather meal is pulverized feathers and the list of organic fertilizers follows this theme. They are typically, treated, blended and dried into a granule form. Once added to our gardens, soil life has to break the organic matter down into a plant useable form of Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium as well as other elements. Burying an egg and banana follows the same biological processes.
Using whole bananas and eggs as fertilizer, covers many of the major and micro-nutrients your vegetable plants will need. Dried banana peel is over 40% potassium. While they don't contain much in the way of nitrogen, they contain phosphorous, calcium, magnesium, sulfur, manganese and other elements and vitamins. Eggs certainly contain calcium. They also contain potassium, phosphorous, nitrogen, magnesium, zinc and copper. Calcium helps prevent blossom end rot in tomatoes. Worms will help digest this organic matter and leave worm casting behind that have their own benefits.
Here is the video I just made using the compost hole. I buried the eggs and bananas down about 15 inches, as of October 1st. This is my fall preparation for two tomato plants that will grow above the compost holes. The garden has 6 months to break down the organic matter and get it ready for the tomato plants come spring. If this interests you, follow my YT channel as I will continue this series and show the growth of the tomatoes using only bananas and eggs as fertilizers through 2018.
You can actually save a lot of money by using whole bananas and eggs in compost holes. You can also use flayed fish bones. You don't need to use ripe bananas or good eggs. Freeze your bananas the brown out and eggs that expire. You can go to grocery stores and ask about getting the old bananas and expired eggs. Many seafood places will have fish waste for you. Compost holes are an alternative to compost piles This practice has been around for centuries and is effective.
Try Something New
Gary (The Rusted Garden)
Comments
Post a Comment