No simple answer to your question. There are many different brands and they use different names for their product. Some call it emulsion, some call it fertilizer, some call it fish oil emulsion, etc. etc. And they are all different except for the basic ingredient - fish. How different all depends on the brand and you have to go by its label.

Container plants will normally require supplemental feedings on a regular basis throughout the season and many find that easier to do and more effective with liquid supplements.

Dave

Thank you!

I buried several 5 gallon buckets of fish guts in my garden this spring. It all works!

Be careful where you put your container plants if you use fish emulsion/fertilizer. The coons will find them right away and dig up your plants looking for the fish - even when the label might say 'odorless'.

I did that 'once'! Now, I use another fertilizer for outside containers.

I like to use the fish fertilizer for my seedling transplants (promotes good root development) -- they are in the greenhouse with the door closed at
night!

Hope you don't have a coon problem.

-Gloria

The biggest problem with fish emulsion is the smell. If you get it on anything, you'll have to wash it before you can stand to be around it. That includes yourself. I hate it when I spill it on my shoes. Make sure you keep from spilling it in your car. Ask me how I know!

I don't think you really need to use both but you could alternate.

I prefer the fish and seaweed emulsion. The smell takes me to my annual surf fishing trip to Ocracoke Island. I love that smell.

Not sure... I kept a 5 gallon bucket of fish guts in the sun, they guts were in a sealed plastic bag. After a few days, I opened it and POURED the guts into a nice long trench... Talk about making your eyes water. A layer of soil over the top and everything was good again. All the organisms in the soil got a treat that day.

I mainly bury sunfish, perch, crappies and walleyes :)

Surely a single 5 gallon bucket, two at most, of fish guts will suffice for a large garden for one year. Are you really burying several? for how many sqft?

The main bed I've put them in is roughly 20x24.

I've been doing it for a few years. What happens is that my brothers ice fish, so they save all their guts for me, and i just build up a good pile. In spring they thaw out, my garden thaws out and I bury them about a foot down. My nutrient levels are probably through the roof.

Its amazing that most of the fish is just tossed in the garbage.

You guys are right about animals. I swear my neighbor dog was digging in my fish guts a few years back after i had buried them. An option would be to put down a big board or some heavy fencing (cattle panel) over the top of the guts for a few weeks.

It is only your nitrogen levels that are through the roof, though you may get decent amounts of P from all the bones eventually. Still, if I had those brothers I would go 100% organic. I fish irregularly, and I have also buried voles caught with mousetraps, so I have experimented. The head of a large carp certainly is adequate for a large tomato plant for the whole year.

I like to start the garden off by digging in fish fertilizer if I can find it (which I can't here anymore), then use the fish emulsion a few times a year, and on seedlings.