Fish the Flats—and crops!
Applying Fish-&-Kelp:
a liquid fertilizer for optimal soil/plant nutrition
A recipe & instructions
Revised 7-16-2024
***This is for your seedlings AND your vegetables in the summer garden
***Also wonderful for flowers, herbs, fruits.
What? Fish-&-kelp is a power meal for plants. It’s a nourishing fertilizer that is rich in calcium, nitrogen, and other essential minerals. You pour on this liquid as a root drench and a foliar application.
--This regimen is for your seedlings/starts…and
--This regimen is for your crops in your garden.
Why?
Seedlings in flats: To insure their “early childhood nutrition” at this crucial stage of growth. This regimen will help you achieve nutrient-dense vegetables and long-lasting flowers with immunity from stress & disease—by starting early.
Crops in garden: to insure a steady and balanced flow of nutrients for optimizing growth, taste, vigor, high BRIX, and disease resistance.
Start this regimen immediately on your seedlings in flats, pots, cell packs, & soil blocks. You can also apply onto plain potting media even before you sow seeds (up to 8 weeks before sowing seeds). This gets those beneficial microbes fed & multiplying!
How Often? Apply to your seedlings every 10-14 days, or even weekly. Then, when it’s time to tuck plants into outdoor soil, I recommend you continue applying this liquid as a drench & on foliage throughout the growing season by-weekly. End the routine in early September.
This “Fish-&-Kelp-mix” is not a substitute for your foundation of compost and granular organic fertilizers (according to soil test recommendations) that you feed your soil before you plant your garden. But it is a readily available, easily assimilated superfood for vegetables, flowers, herbs. Its liquid form feeds hungry maturing food crops with 90% efficiency. This is the boost they need. You see, the long hours of daylight are stimulating fast leaf growth, so your plants are trying to grow rapidly. And yet the soil is cold, so soil microbes cannot work fast enough to supply all the needed nutrition through the roots. With Fish-&-Kelp liquid, your plants absorb the nutrients immediately and directly and put them to work. Woo hoo!
The Recipe:
Measure one gallon of water into bucket. Add the following and mix very well. Then pour mixture into watering can &/or sprayer.
VERSION 1 with Alaska Fish Emulsion 5-1-1
2 Tbs Fish Emulsion 5-1-1 Follow directions on container
1 tsp Maxicrop soluble kelp First pre-mix powder + a little water in separate container till dissolved
1 TBS calcium extract concentrate see separate recipe: Home-made Liquid Calcium*
1-3 cups Actively Aerated Compost Tea if you have it
1-3 cups worm tea if you have it
or compost tea leachate tea that you make by soaking some high-quality compost in water for an hour.
Stir all this very well or ingredients will settle at bottom.
VERSION 2 with Pacific Gro Oceanic Hydrolysate 2-1-0.3
¼ cup Pacific Gro** 2-2-0.3
1 tsp Maxicrop soluble kelp. First pre-mix powder + a little water in separate container till dissolved
1 TBS calcium extract concentrate see separate recipe: Home-made Liquid Calcium*
1-3 cups Actively Aerated Compost Tea if you have it
1-3 cups worm tea if you have it or compost tea leachate tea that you make by soaking some high-quality compost in water for an hour.
Stir very well or ingredients will settle at bottom.
How much? How? One gallon is usually plenty for a garden or small orchard. Use a watering can with a rose on the spout —and aim for foliage and around root zone for duel foliar & drench application. Then use it all; don’t leave it sitting for hours!
Note the “rose” for a spout
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Maxicrop Soluble Kelp powder is available from https://www.goodearthgardenschool.com/ in the Store. $8/packet with directions enclosed. Options for pick-up or shipping.
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* Or substitute Liquid Calcium purchased from a garden store, Down to Earth brand
**Other ways to apply Pacific Gro Oceanic Hydrolysate:
for spraying only: dilute 100:1; for potted plants dilute 50:1