Home Made/DIY Fish Emulsion Fertiliser

by Kev
(UK)

Last year, once a month, I used a raw salmon fish head in a 2 gallon bucket of water for three days to use over my garden veg. It worked well. Having learned from here how very important trace elements are, but also how little in quantity minerals etc we need for plants and veg, I wonder by how much I should dilute the fish head fertilizer?

Thanks, Kev.

Answer: Kev- I've got to admit, you are a braver man than I. If you look at a bottle of fish emulsion, you will notice the N-P-K numbers are very low. The lower the numbers are on a fertilizer, the less you have to worry about it burning your plants. In fact, professional pumpkin growers (the ones that go for size), dump whole bottles of fish emulsion straight onto the ground around their pumpkins. Also, American Indians used to bury a fish in the hole where they were planting their corn.

These two anecdotes would lead me to believe that you should be able to use the fish water straight up, and add whatever other nutrients to it that you would normally add. I've never tried anything like it myself, but I am pretty certain you will have no problems with doing this (at least no problems with over-fertilization, lol). Let me know how it works out for you, and Happy Growing!