by Eve Redstone

Created on: March 10, 2008

Many people want an organic garden, but are put off because they think that this means they can use no fertilizers on their garden.

Organic gardening does not mean gardening without fertilizers, it means using organic fertilizers. Some organic fertilizers can be bought but you will never be sure that they are truly organic. Luckily fertilizers are easy to make yourself.

The best and first fertilizer you use is compost. By composting all your organic waste you produce the richest soil you could wish for, and by digging this into the garden you enrich the soil and return used nutrients to the soil. As a by product you also introduce micro organisms that are vital for soil health and so plant health.

If you want to enrich your soil further try green composting. You sew a fast growing crop such as lucerne or alfalfa onto the soil. When it reaches knee height, or before, cut it all down and dig it in.

This can be supplemented by digging in rotted manure, such as cow, sheep, hen or horse droppings. By looking around you will usually find a free source of this. Compost heaps can also benefit from having this materiel added.

For spot fertilization, for instance on particular trees or the vegetable garden there are many organic alternatives.

Manure tea is made by taking some of the manure you have collected and putting it in a drum or bucket and filling with water. Cover the drum and leave for at least a week . The liquid produced is a rich fertilizer, so rich in fact that you will probably have to dilute it to use it without burning the plants. The same approach can be taken with sea weed if you live near the sea shore. Be careful about collecting sea weed however as some species are rare and collecting is forbidden on some beaches.

A worm farm is a good use of household scraps. Worm teas are easy to buy and set up, and instructions for building them can be found on the Internet. The liquid produced is a rich fertilizer suitable for most plants. Dilution may again be needed.

Organic gardening does not mean fertilizer free, it just means you have to take more care about what you use to fertilize with.

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