The Making of Fertilizers

Organic is when you let nature take its course and you don't force things to happen. We decided to go organic and be one with nature in the farm.

So over the past two weeks, we were collecting food waste from our own kitchen and those of the elementary school right across. 

Organic Fertilizer #1: Potash. We added equal amounts of chopped banana peel and molasses, and some EMAS (a solution we made previously from effective microorganism, think Yakult-like substance for the soil) and let them ferment for 7 days in a sealed container.

Organic Fertilizer #2: Kitchen Compost Tea. We put two pails on top of each other, drilling holes at the bottom of the top pail and the bottom cover, and sealing the two together. We collected all the vegetable peel for the day and put them on the top pail (with the holed bottom), put bokashi (just a mix of rice byproducts), and seal them for two weeks. Every three days, we open the bottom pail and get around 750ml of fermented kitchen juice. Not for drinking, but for drenching on the plants.

Organic Fertilizer #3: Fish Amino Acid. We found fish bones and heads in our freezer, apparently from a fish fillet dish eaten months ago. Then Lisa, our caretaker, had also gone to the market the day before and asked for fish innards. We chopped everything up, added molasses and microorganisms solution (EMAS) and we're going to let it sit for two weeks. Not a sweet fish soup for a rainy day, but one for the soil, yet again.

  

Organic Fertilizer #4: Organic Pest Repellant. We had an enormous harvest of chili so with the help of a hand-winding mincer, the chilis came together with other farm plants for this fertilizer. The recipe called for garlic and neem leaves but since we only had a few neem leaves on hand, we used ginger, a few sour leaves of an unknown name but is put in sinigang, marigold flowers that blossomed from free seeds (we just asked them from someone who already has marigold plants) planted four months ago, and other tangy leaves we can find in the farm: basil, chili leaves... I hope they work and won't contradict each other. 

We added a liter of molasses and a liter of EMAS. And a liter of natural vinegar and a liter of lambanog (distilled coconut wine), both bought along the road from Laguna to Manila en route Quezon. They're going to sit around for two weeks until everything ferments. Apparently, the stuff in the chili, ginger, marigold, and tangy leaves can ruin the metamorphosis of certain pests. That's the natural way of doing it: give pests their due counterpart with an even stronger pest!

Organic Fertilizer #5: Plant Extract Foliar Fertilizer. This is supposed to help leafy plants become leafier. That's why in the mixture, we put a lot of grasses and leaves. It's supposed to be 70% weeds but we put mostly whatever weed-like stuff we can find such as lemongrass stalks, kangkong stems, and other wilted leaves. And when the percentage didn't make it, that's when we plucked out random grass and put them in as well. We added molasses, EMAS, and rainwater. 

Organic Fertilizer #6: Calcium. So even plants need calcium. I found a lobster shell in our refrigerator, some eggshells collected from eating a lot of them, and these were sauteed on a hot pan (no oil) until they become dry. These were pounded until they were smaller pieces and we added natural vinegar onto it. For three weeks, the vinegar is going to extract the calcium from the shells and the liquid can then be used as a calcium booster for the plants.

Organic Fertilizer #7: The other wastes that cannot manage to be in the above fertilizers go to the worms. It's called vermi-composting where African night crawlers chew on decomposing kitchen stuff, poop out, and we use the poop as fertilizer. Nothing can be more organic than that!