An Experiment in Making Liquid Fertilizer

We haven't done the chemical fertilizer thing in quite some time.  Generally, we use a multifaceted approach to soil fertility.  We amend lots of compost into the soil, leaves, biochar, organic matter.  Then we use fish emulsion for foliar feeding as well as around the base of the plant.  Prior to planting, we incorporate composted wood chips with composted cow poop and chicken poop into the soil.

I've been looking at other ideas and wanted to do an experiment on a small scale prior to going full-throttle with it.  It has to do with making liquid fertilizer concentrate with things you have not far from the garden.  Weeds!  In my hand below is an assortment of winter grasses.  I got a sling blade and chopped a 5 gallon bucket full of weeds.  Weeds have everything you need to get started.

The next thing you need is leaf mold.  Leaf mold can be found in the moist forest floor.  I didn't even need to go to the woods.  I dug into the wood chip pile that is decomposing and found plenty of it.  Leaf mold contains mycelium.  Mycelium are the white thread-like fungi that are working behind the scenes to turn wood and leaves into topsoil.  In addition to your 5 gallon bucket of weeds, add a handful of leaf mold.

Put both the weeds and leaf mold into a bucket.

Fill the bucket with rain water.

Snap the lid on the bucket securely and set the bucket in your garden in full sun.

Leave for several weeks and let it "cook."  Then use the liquid to fertilize your plants.  I'm told that you must dilute it, starting off weak so as not to burn your plants.  We'll update you in a few weeks when we pop the top off.  I'm told this stuff stinks to high heaven, so we were warned not to get it on your clothes.  Maybe this will be done by the time we need to fertilize the cucumbers you see behind the bucket.

Double for Your Trouble

Eggs.  Everyone is talking about eggs.  The price of eggs in the stores have people wringing their hands.  I heard today that Waffle House has increased their menu prices by $1 per egg.  What is this all about?  Well, last year due to 'bird flu' the government killed millions of egg layers.  Entire flocks were wiped out - regardless if they were infected or not.  How curious!  It seems natural that you would only destroy birds showing symptoms.  Why would you kill the survivors?  They have the antibodies to fight off the bird flu and thus could provide the answers to protection from further bird flu losses.  

We do have losses of our chickens, but not from bird flu.  Many from the #$%*! minks.  One the other day from a possum.  And one last week that had hopped up on a water trough to drink, fell in, and subsequently died of hypothermia.  The rest of the remaining flock is doing well and we're picking up between 12 and 20 eggs a day.

As I picked up eggs, something caught my eye in the nesting box.  It was a big egg.  A gargantuan egg.  Take a look:

I put it in the egg carton and it looked odd and out of place, like a peacock egg.  But we have no more peacocks, since Penelope, the pea hen was struck by a truck and succumbed to her injuries.

Look at how big that thing is!  Those other eggs in the carton are normal sized eggs.

I brought it in and showed Tricia.  I said, "Watch when you break this one.  I bet it is a double-yolk egg."  Sure enough!:

Double yolk eggs are said to bring good luck, but I don't believe in luck.  They occur when a hen releases two yolks in the same shell and is said to happen with a hen that has just started laying or an older hen at the end of her days.  As I watched the double yolk egg sizzle in the skillet, I wondered if you can incubate a double yolk egg.  I discovered that you can, but you shouldn't.  You're better off eating the egg like we did.  If you were able to hatch them, if any survived, they'd be small, undersized, and unhealthy.  We made the right call in eating the double yolk egg.  It was delicious!