Basics of Organic Fertilizers

(This is the 2nd part of two posts on fertilizers. Read the first post here.) 

I love the idea of using organic fertilizers! Using them makes me feel good about "reusing" something and not damaging something downstream at the same time. Its like guilt free fertilizing! Organic fertilizers are naturally-occurring fertilizers such as compost, bone meal or manure. Organic fertilizers help amend the quality of your existing soil and as compared to inorganic fertlilizers they are adsorbed more slowly over time (resulting in fewer applications) and help improve the moisture retention of your soil. They also lead to less runoff of excess chemicals and are typically cheaper (especially when they are "home grown" with a chicken coop or worm or bin composting). Here are some types of organic fertilizers you may want to consider:

• Mushroom Compost - This is the organic material left over from the intentional growth of mushrooms that has been steam treated to remove critters, weed seeds and other pathogens. According to http://www.mushroomcompost.org/, the average mushroom compost has a mix of 1.12: .67:, 1.24. (If you aren't sure what these number mean, read about N:P:K values here.)
• Bone Meal - Bone meal is literally milled bones. It has a N:P:K ration of 4:15:0. This makes it great for stimulating root growth - which is why its often used for planting bulbs.
• Black Cow - Black cow is just what you are thinking: good ole "manure". I just checked my bag and it boasts a N:P:K ratio of 1.5:1.5:1.5. This sort of leaves me wondering what the rest of it is since only 4.5% of the composition is accounted for. Anyone know?
• Garden Compost - I have had a composting bin for a few years now and I often use it as part of a soil cocktail when planting new plants. I use it for general purposes in the garden, but I'm not sure its N:P:K makeup. I'd love to know if anyone else has knows if there are best applications for compost from kitchen scraps.
• Worm Compost - In the Fall of 2009, I started worm composting. I wasn't able to stick with it long enough to generate must compost or compost tea. For me, I didn't feel like the worms could accommodate the volume of kitchen scraps that we regularly generate and I found that I needed to keep both a worm bin and a normal compost bin going at the same time. I also found the worm composting bin to be a bit high maintenance. Nonetheless, many a gardener uses worm castings and tea in their garden and there are certainly plenty of "worm poop" enthusiasts out there!
• Chick coop poop - I have several friends with chickens and I am the grateful benefactor of their surplus eggs from time to time. After touring gardens on the Henside the Beltine: Tour De Coup, one friend, Jody, was an instant convert. She was struck by the gorgeous gardens, not chickens, on the tour. Chicken droppings are high in Nitrogen and are great at boosting new plant growth!  

Right now, I'm still working on getting my compost bin running and generating soil again. I've been at it since the end of January, so hopefully, we'll have some "black gold" again soon! In the meantime, I try to keep both mushroom compost and black cow on hand when putting in new shrubs and plants.