In another post on the topic of "strippers," Rapo wrote, "By the way, trout make good garden fertilizer." I'm sure Rapo was trying to make another point, but it made me think of something I should share with my BFT buddies. This time of year, our garden at home produces the biggest tomatoes in the neighborhood. I mean both the plants and the fruit. The plants are so big that we have to put big cages of 4x4 concrete reinforcing wire around them hold them up, and some of them get taller than my wife (who is only 4' 11"). For her, picking our tomatoes sometimes gets to be like picking apples off a tree. She has to reach up to get them. When our neighbors ask about our secret to growing such big tomatoes, our truthful answer is "fish guts." They walk away laughing and wonder why we won't tell them the name of the secret fertilizer we must be buying, but it's the truth. In the winter, when we go ice fishing, we come back home to clean our fish, and instead of tossing the innards in the trash, we bury them in the garden right where we're going to plant tomatoes the next summer. There's something about this special fish fertilizer that really makes the tomatoes grow. Has anyone else had a similar experience?
If you don't believe me, just try it. My only caution is to bury the guts deep--at least a foot down. Otherwise, the hungry raccoons come by in the winter, smell the buried fish entrails, and dig them up. That can make a big mess, and it can make a big stink when the spring thaw comes! If they are buried deep enough, they decompose without any smell and enrich the soil in special way that produces giant tomatoes.
[font "Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"][black][size 1][font "Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"][black][size 1][/size][/black][/font][/size][/black][/font]
[signature]
[cool]That's good to know, Lynnie. I'll have to try that next year when we get into our house.
[signature]
Hi Lynn,
Yes, fish make a good garden fertilizer. I also bury the guts deep in the garden. I have also used fish emullion fertilizer, and it must have become very popular as the price of it has really gone up in the past several years. Here is a tip that gets your tomatoes growing fast, that is if you can get fresh horse manure. Dig a 18-inch hole, fill half the hole with horse manure, and the top half with dirt. Now plant your tomato plant. Fresh horse manure produces heat and the young plants like the heat. I normally have ripe tomatoes first in the neighborhood.
[signature]
You put the whole carcass out there right. I do. I was told that it is the bones that make them grow so big. Like the bone meal yuo can buy, but more natural and probably easier for the plants to use.
[signature]
Yes Roger, I put the whole carcass in the ground. I bury them fairly deep, don't want cats digging them up. I think they decompose pretty fast.
[signature]
A few thoughts:
I was at a gardening conference last year, and the keynote speaker was one of the nation's best daylily growers (his mother must be proud; I wonder how that looks on a resumé?).
Anywho, he told a story about when he first began gardening. He went to a fish processing plant and got a bunch of fish leftovers. He brought them home, dumped them in the garden, and proceeded to stink up the neighborhood for the entirety of the summer. Didn't do his garden a lick of good.
The moral of the story is this--bury deep, and use fish and other organic material in moderation. Organic material in soil needs nitrogen to decompose. If too much organic material gets in the soil, it binds up the nitrogen, and the plants can't use it. Nitrogen is a crucial element in plant growth and health, so plants don't grow well if the nitrogen is being used to decompose a load of fish scraps.
I think a few fish scraps every so often are just what the doctor ordered. Good organic additions (mulch, compost, leaves, manure, etc.) are the best thing for soil...just make sure you don't get carried away.
[url "http://www.gastons.com/recipes/rec53.htm"]Why not combine the two in a different way? (links to recipe)[/url]
lurechucker
[signature]
When you put the fish and guts deep in the garden during the winter do you usually turn your soil over in the spring before planting? And if so do you end up turing over fish and guts?
[signature]
I'm curious what technique you use to bury fish in the winter. Maybe it's because I live in Heber but I can not sink a spade into my frozen soil in the winter time.
Thanks.
[signature]
[#505000]Hmmmm...... there's something fishy about them there tomatos!!!! [
][/#505000]
[signature]
In the winter, I bury the guts about a foot to a foot and a half deep. I don't put them all in one concentrated mass. Instead, I dig a series of small holes a couple of feet apart, wherever I expect to put a tomato plant in the spring. Breaking through the frozen crust of the soil is sometimes a problem, but our garden is in a sunny spot so it thaws out pretty fast. (If I can't get through the soil, I just put the guts in a bag in the freezer until warmer weather arrives and thaws the crust.) The soil lower down does not freeze even in the coldest part of winter, and sometimes I even find worms wiggling in January. After the guts have been underground for a month or two, they decompose. In the spring, I get out the roto tiller and mix everything up. By then, there is no smell, and virtually no evidence that a fish was ever buried there--except for the big tomatoes.
[signature]
Oops! I forgot one more "secret" ingredient. In the spring, I dig a hole where I want to put the tomato plant and fill it halfway with peat moss (which I bought the previous fall at a garden center end-of-season close-out sale). I guess the peat moss is a bit like the horsemanure Rapo mentions. Then I add soil and mix it up with the peatmoss. Then I place the tomato plant right in the middle of this mixture. The combination of soil, peatmoss, and decomposed fish entrails seems to do the trick. The peat moss alone does not produce such good results.
[signature]
That's why I bury the fish guts in the winter (one more advantage of ice fishing). By spring, they have decomposed, and the nitrogen is free for the plants to use.
I like Lurechucker's idea of combining trout and tomatoes in a different way--by cooking fish in a tomato-based sauce. I think I'll try that with some of the tomatoes I grow and some of the fish I catch this summer. That will kind of complete the cycle started in the winter.
[signature]
[size 1]" use fish and other organic material in moderation. Organic material in soil needs nitrogen to decompose. If too much organic material gets in the soil, it binds up the nitrogen, and the plants can't use it. Nitrogen is a crucial element in plant growth and health, so plants don't grow well if the nitrogen is being used to decompose a load of fish scraps. "[/size]
[size 1][/size]
[size 1]High carbon material like brown leaves and sawdust require lots of nitrogen to decompose and will deplete avaliable nitrogen in the soil. Fish, fish meal and blood meal are all very high in nitrogen and will aid decomposition of high carbon material in soil. [/size]
[size 1] To much fish (i.e. a ton in a small 10' plot) will rot and putrify. A good balance of carbon to nitrogen is needed for proper soil conditioning, 20:1 is about right for composting.[/size]
A fish or two under the tomatoes is just about right as long as you use a reasonable size fish, not two 700lb black marlins.[
]
Bigpapafish
[signature]
don't garden myself ( brown thumb ) but tears ago when i worked on sportboat we had a gentleman that used to come out and take home all the mackeral he could used them as fertilizer for his prize winning roses sooo.....i guess it works
[signature]
[size 1]
[#505000][size 2]Ok Bigpapafish if you know a place here in the state where I can catch a700lb Black Marlin don't hold out on me!!!! [][/size][/#505000] [/size]
[signature]
Sorry carp punisher if I knew that I'd be there, not reading forums[
]. And I'm not sure I'd be able to say anything in an open forum. Imagine the crowds...[mad] Besides if I told you where to catch a 700 lb. Black Marlin in utah you guys wouldn't believe me and you'd have me committed[crazy] so I ain't telling.....
Bigpapafish
Releasing another black Marlin[angelic]
[signature]