Home Made Fertiliser (Experiment)

Intro: Home Made Fertiliser (Experiment)

I'm going to be honest. I have never made fertiliser before and have no idea what I'm doing. BUT! I'm going to try to make my own fertiliser because I realized I waste a lot of vegetation during food preparation (example: the leafy part of the radish). Also, I'm in college and I'm poor.

My experiment will be based on 2 theories:

1.) If you let something rot in a closed container the container will then have nutrients and microbial flora.

2.) If you let something rot in water, the liquid will still be nutritious and can then be poured into potted plant soil to make it richer (it might need to be diluted).

This is supposed to be a small-scale version of the instructable "Nettle Fertiliser" by tim_n.

I don't have a large yard so I don't need to produce it on a large scale.

STEP 1: Step 1 - Find the Container

My roommate gave me a big apple juice container. I guess anything could work. You might want to keep the lid though.

STEP 2: Step 2 - Adding Vegetation

I chopped up the celery hearts I wasn't using for Nana's Chicken or Turkey Soup (another instructable) and put them in first. Then I found some radishes in the fridge and cut the leafy part off the top of them. I chopped up the radish greens and a rotting tomato and put it all in the container. Then, I filled the container with about an inch or two of water.

Leave the lid on but don't screw it on tight. If you can jiggle it up and down then that's okay. A lot of bacteria produce gas when they metabolize so you'll want to let that gas escape.

I put the bottle on the roof where my boyfriend and pug won't find it. It should get lots of sun.

If anyone has any reason why this won't work please let me know. Also, leave a comment if you know how to make it better!

The End.

Comments

[explosivemaker]

I'm no doctor scientist, but this seems to be screaming "mold"

[Caulerpa]

Yeah, but isn't there mold growing in compost heaps? I thought that some mold was actually healthy. Maybe I should add some dirt to it too.

[explosivemaker]

there should be tons of bacterial goodness in there...but it just seems like this would turn more into a bottle of slime...compost would have more material like grass/other yard waste that wouldn't give off much water

(like what happens to tomatoes when you leave them in the back of the fridge in a bag and they start to "emit" some liquid and grow mold)

...but hey, go for it anyway...you won't know till you try it

[Holligan_dan]

Add some vitamin B tablets to your mix, helps with enriching.

[Caulerpa]

thank you :] do you think this could work?