Spring is a great time to begin fertilising your garden trees. This nutritional boost will give your trees all they need for the upcoming growing season. However, don’t go purchasing any new fertilisers just yet – instead, use these homemade fertiliser recipes to save money, reduce your carbon footprint, and improve the overall health of your garden.
All About Fertiliser Nutrients
Every good fertiliser will contain the three major nutrients; nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. This is the NPK rating you’ll usually see on bottles of store-bought fertilisers. However, a quality fertiliser will also offer a range of micronutrients, such as calcium, zinc, copper, and magnesium.
You probably already have several ingredients around your home and garden that contain these different nutrients. For example, grass clippings and coffee grounds are loaded with nitrogen, banana and orange peels are a great source of potassium, while leaves and bonemeal provide phosphorus. Vegetable scraps, from apple cores to broccoli stems to sweet potato peelings, are packed with micronutrients.
The secret to creating a homemade fertiliser that actually works is understanding which ingredients to use for each of your trees…
Coffee Grounds for Acid-Loving Plants
Not only are coffee grounds a great source of nitrogen, but their acidic nature makes them useful for altering soil pH. You can either sprinkle used coffee grounds directly over the surface of the soil around each of your acid-loving trees, whether this may be a Queensland Bottle Tree, a Dragon Tree, or an Avocado Tree, or soak them in a bucket of water before using this to drench the soil around your trees.
Grass Clippings, Eggshells, and Banana/Orange Peels for Citrus Trees
In order for a citrus tree to be productive, it needs to be receiving the right nutrients, and this blend ensures that they do. Simply mix together a 75:25 ratio of grass clippings with eggshells and banana/orange peels. You can either leave the mixture whole and chunky, whizz it up in a blender, or steep it to make a tea. Either way, it’ll provide your citrus trees with all of the major nutrients, along with a hefty selection of micronutrients too.
Brown Sugar and Water for Grass Trees
Grass trees are notoriously difficult to transplant, but this fertiliser trick can really help them to establish in their new home. Use a mixture of brown sugar and water to feed the soil around your newly-planted grass tree. This will help to encourage mycorrhiza growth – the underground fungi network that’ll help your grass tree to produce strong and healthy roots.
A Tea Made from Weeds and Garden Trimmings for All Trees
If you’re looking for a simple DIY fertiliser that can be used on all of the trees in your garden, use fresh weeds and garden clippings to make a liquid fertiliser. Simply fill a bucket with your chosen weeds and then steep them in water for a few days. Keep the bucket in a distant corner of your garden, as it’ll start to smell once the weeds ferment. You can then use this nutrient-dense liquid to water the soil around your trees.
Summary
Homemade fertilisers can be extremely useful, but don’t worry if you can’t seem to find the time to make one. Instead, work on composting all of your kitchen and garden scraps, so that you can then heap a load of homemade compost around each of your garden trees in the spring. This will feed them in the same way that a fertiliser would, while also helping you to build soil quality.