In my opinion, if you are going to make your own and are NOT a chemist and also into testing every gardening plot then simply go to compost plus vermicompost. You will improve your existing soil and get a general good quality/multipurpose soil for any of the various type plants you mentioned.

Your local farm supply store should have a considerable array of plant nutrients available.

We sort of do what you describe. We use compost (mostly rich in N) plus pecan wood ashes (rich in potassium - we neutralize with some citrus byproducts or pickle juice) layered on the compost heap, plus human urine (rich in N) added as our secret magic liquid gold compost activator*. As this mix is slightly deficient in phosphorus, I add bone meal to the hole when I transplant some of my seedlings (tomatoes come to mind). I also have a pile of composted rabbit $hit that we use to top dress alliums and brassicas.

The bone meal is the only thing we buy, but it can be made at home if desired (and if you have bones of course).

*darn, the secret is out now...

Basically, you will want fertilizer that goes from 3/1/6 (toms) to 3/1/2 (greens), exception are carrots, parsnips and beans, they will prefer 0/1/3.

If your soil is not too alkaline, you can get those ratios by mixing urea 46/0/0 (or urine, much cheaper, 0.5/0/0.2), wood ash (0/1.5/4), and compost (2/1/2 dry weight for kitchen scraps/leaves, 0.5/0.5/0.5 for dry leaves only, perhaps 0.2/0.5/0.5 for wood chips only).

This is exactly what I do. Note that wood ash contributes sufficient amounts of all micronutrients, excluding sulphur (not a problem with all the coal-fired power plants around here). Get in the habit of leaving buckets at the home of friends who heat with wood. Compost will contribute micronutrients too.

Details on what I do. Weights are for 4X12 bed:

- most greens and asparagus: wood ash once in early season (5 lbs) and biweekly application of urea (about 1 oz). Most brassica need no compost besides decent soil. They form no alliances with micro organisms and just want the straight stuff. Same for chard.

- toms: 200 lbs of rich compost, 10 lbs wood ash, two applications of urea in May and July

- onions: same as tomatoes

- beans, carrots, parsnips, favas: some leaf compost, 5lbs wood ash

- potatoes: compost, degraded wood chips (acid) and one early application of urea. No wood ash.

- peppers: halfway between toms and greens

- eggplants: half toms

- celery: like greens, but some compost, half wood ash

- fennel and cardoon: half celery, more compost

Squash and potatoes get much of the semi-composted leaves, simply because I have lots and someone has to get it. I dig some leaves in each bed on general principles (to keep the earthworm population happy), and use some as mulch. I adjust doses based on what a bed received last year.

A note,

Unless you have had your soil analyzed you don't really know what nutrients your plants need in what quantity or in what proportions.

Here's information on Steve Solomen's homemade fertilizer mix.

Here is a link that might be useful: Steve Soloment's fertilizer

I am with glib on this. Only I use ash from a corn stove witch has a lower PH than wood ash.

Curt

The doses I quoted are "replacement level" really. A good tomato bed will produce something close to 300 lbs of tomatoes. That is one lb of Potassium, or 25 lbs of wood ash. I add only ten, but add also the compost and consider it replaced.

The nitrogen, of course, you need to replace every year. But interestingly, there is no need to ever buy fertilizer. You can do it all with recycled materials.

Okay I'm very confused. So far the only thing that I get is that bonemeal is a good source of phosphorus for plants?

Supposedly blood meal provides a good source of nitrogen?
If these are both good sources, then all I need to know is what provides a good source of calcium and potassium. I had a calcium deficiency last year with my tomato plants, which caused black spots on the fruit. I'd like to try and avoid this again this season, so that's why I'm asking about calcium.

I know what goes into my soil, because I do container gardening. As a result, I make my own batches of soil for my containers every season. This is the 'recipe' I use:

5 parts pine bark fines (partially composted fines are best)
1 part sphagnum peat (not reed or sedge peat please)
1-2 parts perlite
garden lime (or gypsum in some cases)
controlled release fertilizer (if preferred)
micro-nutrient powder, other continued source of micro-nutrients, or fertilizer with all nutrients - including minors

Big batch:
2-3 cu ft pine bark fines
5 gallons peat
5 gallons perlite
2 cups dolomitic (garden) lime (or gypsum in some cases)
2 cups CRF (if preferred)
1/2 cup micro-nutrient powder (or other source of the minors - provided in some fertilizers)

Small batch:
3 gallons pine bark
1/2 gallon peat
1/2 gallon perlite
4 tbsp lime (or gypsum in some cases)
1/4 cup CRF (if preferred)
micro-nutrient powder (or other source of the mino

The main reason I ask about calcium is because although it's not a major nutrient, last year my tomatoes had black spots due to a calcium deficiency. I'd like to try and avoid this problem this year.

Go to Wikipedia, type "wood ash", click on Ref. 1. You will find that wood ash is 35-50% Calcium by weight, the fluctuations mainly due to the carbon residue in ash. That is why it supports so many plants.

The other numbers (Table on page 9) are generally too large to use to estimate what homemade wood ash does. We do not burn at 600C, and have a lot more unburned carbon in the final product.

So we we may get 35% Ca, another 30-35% C, and the rest are the micronutrients with K being the most prominent ones.
Also, in our homemade wood ash there will be more P and S, same reason, since N, P and S go up the chimney, the better at higher temperatures.

Note that wood ash will amply satisfy your fertilizing needs for Mg, Fe, Mn, B, and in most cases even P and S. The granules you buy will not do that.

I think I've been where your at before. When I started off I was doing almost exclusive container gardening due to a lack of land. I was really picky about mixing my own soil and the whole nine yards. That first year I had a horrible time with blossom end rot - not only on my tomatoes but also on my peppers.

After a lot of research, what I found was that while it is a lack of calcium that causes blossom end rot, there are a lot of different things that can cause that lack of calcium - and in several of them, the calcium is actually there, but can't be absorbed properly by the plant.

The next year, I did container gardening again, but this time I tossed all of my soil, made a fresh batch, almost completely avoided the fertilizer (I did use good materials to start with in the soil), and did avoid ALL fertilizer with any sort of a heavy concentration, and I had zero issues with blossom end rot that year - or any year since. Too much fertilizer can cause blossom end rot. Other aggravating factors can also be temperature, watering habits, and soil pH.

Most all manufactured fertilizers tend to have concentrations that are pretty unnatural, and their successful application hinges on getting them properly diluted. In my experience, the stronger the fertilizer, the more likely you are to make a mistake, or have a problem even if you didn't make an obvious mistake just because something somewhere didn't mix as well or dilute as well as what was needed.

As others have pointed out, success with fertilizer also depends heavily on knowing what's already in the soil so you can determine what to add.

In general, I think if you just stick to mixing a good soil up front, and go really light on the manufactured fertilizer (as in maybe none other than a little about mid year, or plenty whenever if you have some nice composted materials) and you avoid fertilizers with high concentrations (If you need anything stronger than 10-10-10 you might be compensating for other issues that need to be addressed), you'll probably do just fine.

I found these homemade fertilizer recipes via the internet.

NOTE: You may have to manually copy and paste the links into your browser, then click "send" and wait till it redirects you to the website, and loads the site on a separate page.

The first link is a recipe designed specifically for fertilizing tomatoes:

http://www.gardenguides.com/80218-make-own-tomato-fertilizer.html

This link has three specific fertilizer recipes:

One for high nitrogen (basically any leafy green thing, beans, peas, etc.)

One is high phosphorus and the last is high potassium (for root veggies, and for fruiting plants such as eggplant, bell pepper, tomatoes, melons, squash, etc.)

http://www.creativehomemaking.com/gardening/organic-fertilizer.shtml