DIY Organic Fertilizer

[DavidRobinson]

Hi ya'll,

I'm looking for feedback. I read Steve Solomon's book, "The Intelligent Gardener" some time back. I found the concepts fascinating, but when it comes to building your own fertilizer (especially based on your garden's soil analysis) there were a lot of details and calculations to track. So... I started twiddling with building a webapp to do all the hard stuff. My first incarnation doesn't include a "customized fertilizer for your garden" feature (yet!) -- but it does allow entering various fertilizer ingredients and offers a collection of fertilizer recipes. It also doesn't have its own web address (and I think I need a better name - let me know!).

Can some kind souls take a peek at it and offer any suggestions they can think of?

https://soilfertilator.solidrockdigi...gnservices.com

Give me the good, the bad, even the ugly. I'd like some feedback before I get so far down the rabbit trail that it's hard to backtrack!

Thanks for any suggestions you can provide!

Gratefully,
David Robinson

P.S. If you've got a favorite fertilizer recipe, add it in! Also note that ANYONE can currently edit/delete so please be kind.

[biscuitridge]

First quick glance I'd say way to much nitrogen and not near enough potash and could use more kelp and some basalt rock dust greensand too.

[PaulF]

Hello from an old guy who grew up in Forest Grove and even after sixty years of living in the mid-west still am homesick for the Pacific Northwest.

To your question: It seems like a whole lot more ingredients than necessary. Not being particularly enamored with purely organic gardening maybe your recipe is just what is needed for your place. I know my father had a very large garden in Forest Grove and always said how different it was from the Iowa soil he was used to. Weather was the biggest factor.

I am glad to see you included soil analysis into the mix because I feel that is very important to any additions you make to the soil. Couldn't the recipe use fewer and more basic ingredients to achieve the formula you require? Good luck and good gardening.

[DavidRobinson]

Actually, the purpose of the site is for individuals to create whatever homemade fertilizer recipes they like (perhaps for specific plant families or for times in the season) and I added a couple of place-holder recipes just to get started. I'm wondering if this sort of "recipe book" type application would be useful? And perhaps pointers on how to make the user interface better?

Long-term the most usefulness would come from getting a specific recommendation of what your homemade fertilizer recipe should look like to match a soil analysis of your garden soil.

[DavidRobinson]

I was just thinking some more about this -- perhaps a more useful incarnation would be for the user to say "build me a recipe that has NPK of 3-4-6 (for example) with X, Y, Z ingredients." And then the webapp does all the calculations to make it so?

[DavidRobinson]

Originally Posted by biscuitridge

First quick glance I'd say way to much nitrogen and not near enough potash and could use more kelp and some basalt rock dust greensand too.

I think you were referring to the example recipe that shows on the front page (which is more applicable to my western Oregon location which has high soil potassium levels). But it sounds like you have a specific recipe in mind. I've added greensand to the possible ingredients. If you were to build your own recipe, what would it look like? It would be easy to add a "biscuitridge" recipe for others to reference.

(Also, I originally intended this webapp to hold "fertilizer" recipes, but it occurs to me that the "seed starter soil recipe" that you posted would also be a good candidate of something to include in this app!)

[VirginiaClay]

Originally Posted by DavidRobinson

I was just thinking some more about this -- perhaps a more useful incarnation would be for the user to say "build me a recipe that has NPK of 3-4-6 (for example) with X, Y, Z ingredients." And then the webapp does all the calculations to make it so?

I like this idea. I'm not sure if I'd ever use it because I tend to just buy ready-made balanced fertilizers, but if I ever did want to make my own, that would be helpful.

Liming/pH adjustment calculations might be useful also, if you felt like branching out even further.

[DavidRobinson]

Originally Posted by VirginiaClay

Liming/pH adjustment calculations might be useful also, if you felt like branching out even further.

What a great idea! Thanks!!

-David

[DavidRobinson]

@biscuitridge and @PaulF
I've added a simplified minimalist 5-5-5 recipe as the one that is initially displayed. Thanks for your feedback about the default displayed recipe being too complex!

@PaulF : I *love* the Pacific Northwest and am only about 20 minutes away from Forest Grove