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organic organic fertilizers

If you top dress with compost, that's ok, but it's not a suitable replacement for some other feeding regimen. (unless you are in raised beds, constantly replenishing)  Kitchen scrap and/or leaf compost is fantastic for your container plants - but as a plant food, runs out of steam really quick.  (compost is best utilized as a nutrient retainer and microbe inoculant in your mix)  Same goes for worm castings.  Should you use them?  Absolutely.  Just don't rely on them solely to provide the heavy feeding needs of a plant that's steaming towards pod production. 
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Compost tea is always a fun subject around here.  "Compost" needs clarification.  We always hear about people feeding "compost tea" as a main source of nutrients, with supposed great results.  But when put on the spot, they almost always end up revealing that they're using composted manure, which really ends up in the camp of "manure tea".  It's a much more nutritionally complete profile than other sources of "compost".
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Undoubtedly, someone will chime in with a contrarian response, with some obscure or academic method of feeding with compost.  However, we need to be clear about what your "compost" is.  Because not all "compost" is created equally.
 
Great. This is the sort of Information I need. Last year definitely wasn't a stellar year, terrible in fact. Problem is, there were so many unknowns, including voles that I can't say exactly what I did wrong. My food scrap compost is 100% plants. It still needs a couple weeks to finish. I bought some leaf compost from a mulch supply house and used that to mix into my soil blend. 
 
I was thinking that manure works so well because of all the microbes in it.
 
cneal said:
I was thinking that manure works so well because of all the microbes in it.
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No.  All compost and manure has microbes.  The idea is not to try to quantify microbes, but to multiply them.  Once you build a healthy medium for your plants, you have to make sure that the microbes always have food. (organic matter)  Otherwise, you may as well just use something more inert, with inorganic food sources.
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One must be careful also with manure and its byproducts.  Overuse of manure can lead to high levels of urea, which isn't great for plant health. (can do something similar to root dessication caused by overfertilizing)  Additionally, high levels of urea nitrogen can actually attract pests.
 
Looks like you have a Menards in Columbus. They sell Chick N Poo. :D...only $10 for a 25lb bag.
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So I'm not sure if I follow this right, so excuse the inquiry.  I use fish emulsion (Tractor Supply), but if they also have some alfalfa pellets, would that serve as a supplemental food?  I have been using Miracle Grow, but switched to the fish emulsion on an alternating basis monthly.  Just wondering if going the alfalfa pellet route would be a better alternative?
 
Chorizo857_62J said:
So I'm not sure if I follow this right, so excuse the inquiry.  I use fish emulsion (Tractor Supply), but if they also have some alfalfa pellets, would that serve as a supplemental food?  I have been using Miracle Grow, but switched to the fish emulsion on an alternating basis monthly.  Just wondering if going the alfalfa pellet route would be a better alternative?
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Alfalfa pellets could, in some strange setup, be supplemental food.  But personally, I'm after plant growth hormones when I use either kelp or alfalfa.  For the most part, I don't really care what their NPK's are.
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Fish emulsion, alone, would be all a grower would ever need in a single season.  But the alfalfa pellets are for a little bit of root health, and extra growth, when the conditions are just so. (biggest bang for the buck, is by far, in the early part of the season)
 
There's a colony of insect eating Free Tailed bats just down the road and under the bridge from my place.  They poop prodigiously and within a few week after their arrival in the late spring, good sized drifts of the stuff have accumulated on the ground.  A few times per year I'll go collect a bucket of this Black Gold.  Every other week I sprinkle a tablespoon or three, depending on plant/pot size, on the surface and water it in.  The bug eaters produce a high N poop that works great! 
 
I found a recipe for super soil blend from roll it up, courtesy of gangamystic, not sure if it applies here to peppers. 
 
vegan super soil
super soil:
- 100 gal base mix
- 30-40 lbs compost **
- 12 lbs fossilized bat guano 0-7-0 ***
- 6 lbs soybean meal 7-2-1 
- 6 lbs alfalfa meal 2.5-1-1
- 3 lbs kelp meal 1-.1-2
- 3 lbs neem seed meal 5-1-2
- 1 cup dolomite 
- 1/2 cup azomite
- 2 tbsp humic acid powder
 
Down to Earth has a Vegan blend that approximates several of these ingredients. However, the cost to get all this stuff either in this blend or separately can get expensive. I have to admit a $20 bottle of Fish fertilizer can't be beat considering the application rate of the DTE blend is 2-4 tbs per gallon container. For a 10 gallon container that is 40 tbs or 2.5 cups or 20 tbs 1.25 cups. they state 2.5 cups is equal to 1 pound. Thus, I need 20 plus pounds upwards of $50. 
 
That's a ridiculously expensive mix, and you don't even need it for what it's built for, let alone peppers.  Somebody has a brother-in-law who owns a grow store...
 
More like if you're using that mix, you HAVE to sell a bag of <crop> for $120.
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The best growers do the most with the least. ;)
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I always try to encourage new growers to roll their own 'simple mix' before going off the rails.  When you see how easy it is to grow just about anything - with the right basic elements - you can easily discern how much better or not, some "super" recipe is, later on.  But for that to happen, one must learn to walk, before they run...
 
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