What nutrient do you need from bone meal? I assume it is P. The best cheap source of P is wood ash, but that will work only if you have soil that is neutral or acid. I assume seed meal is for N. You produce grams of N in urea form every day, 100% organic.

You might want to do some reading over on the Organic Gardening forum here for lots of good suggestions.

but garden center said I need bone meal which was expensive

Their goal is to sell you things. It is very rare to find soil that is actually low in phosphorous.

Sounds like you may want to get a $10 soil test done at your local county AG extension office. That way you'll know what you really need.

Making your own compost is the least expensive form of organic nutrients. Easy to do and with it you don't run the risk of screwing up your soil pH like you can with wood ash. Check out the Soil & Compost forum here for several good discussions on how and what to compost for soil improvement.

Various 'meals' like cottonseed meal, alfalfa meal, even rabbit pellets, etc. purchased in 50 lbs. bags from farm and feed stores can be a very inexpensive way to amend soil nutrients too.

Dave

Alfalfa pellets are good. I use an 80 lb bag which I also feed the horses. Second ingredient is molasses, which is good for soil bugs. Also has some B vitamins, which I'm sure can't hurt. No salt. I just side dress and water to cause them to break down, use every few weeks. I pay $7.00-$8.00 for 80 lbs!
I recently bought a pound of dried seaweed from the oriental market for about $7.00. I'm planning on making a tea with a bit of seaweed and a tsp of molasses in a five gallon bucket with an air stone and aquarium pump, I figure this has to be cheaper than purchasing the already liquified kelp emulsion that I have been using with great results.
I do love using a kelp/ fish product, which also has some other stuff in it, called Extreme Juice, but it's also Extreme Expensive, so I'm working on trying to get results without it.
I also add tons of my own composted horse manure several times a year. Next week I get baby chicks so you know where their guano will go.

Human urine's pretty cheap...

I used blood meal this year, which I had always thought was pretty expensive, but you don't need nearly as much: only 1/4 cup for a large shrub. I put it out with a measuring cup and was very pleasantly surprised at far a 25 pound bag (the best price per pound) went, not to mention how great my plants look. OTOH, my best garden buddy used synthetic fertilizer this year in the name of saving money, and burned a dozen expensive plants to death.

Dave is right. Every garden I have ever had had plenty of phosphorous and potassium in it. I only need to add nitrogen. Get a soil test. No sense wasting money guessing.

I do not believe the neighbors would appreciate me squatting over my veggie garden to go pee, do you collect it in a cup and then pour?

Yes, collect inside, dilute 1:10 or more...a watering can is helpful...and water outside with no one offended.

Feijoas
Never knew anyone to buy it. Do you go to Walmart or what

tracydr where can I get an 80 lb bag of Alfalfa pellets for $ 7.00-$ 8.00? The last time I purchased at Mesa Feed Barn an 80 lb bag was $ 12.50. At that price I would add 1-2 bags to my new compost pile to speed things up a bit.

There's all sorts of pee-collecting methods for women.
Ideally, you have sympathetic men available and a private back yard. I have neither, and my post is a bit hypocritical as I don't do it at the moment. I have a flatmate and the 'hardware' in the toilet might be a bit much as well!

The feed store is the place to go.

Prices are going up daily for everything, due to fuel and inflation. What was $8 the last visit could well be $12 the next visit.

I believe that alfalfa pellets are made from LEAF meal, and alfalfa seed meal is different. Ask the feed store if they sell just alfalfa (leaf) meal, it might be cheaper than when processed into pellets.

Sue

Sue I asked. They don't sell any kind of Alfalfa other than pellets and bales.

I grow everything fantastic in pure horse manure nothing added. They are lieing to you. Well they do not know the truth. just do not add anything and see what happens. All the nutrients show up as it decays.

I have had a truck dump down a load 4 feet deep and grow right out of the dump after it is given a little time to cool down. The horse manure I get is mixed with wood chips for bedding.

What can you not seem to grow in it ?????????

Everything grows great for me. I never have to fertilize and never have to water. I get huge yields of organic veggies. I have been growing this way for 40 years. Did I miss something. My organic farmer friend's family has been doing the same thing since 1906. He sells his organic veggies. That is the only fertilizer he ever uses. well he does turn in his own organic material like corn stalks back into the soil. etc.

I'd mix the horse manure with shredded leaves, alfalfa straw, pine needles and ground-up bark and twigs, then dump a few watering cans full of the kelp/molasses dilution that Tracydr described on top of it. Very cheap & effective blend of nutrients and food for the soil flora. Use 3/4 of this as mulch, use 1/4 to make compost tea (see link).

The soil isn't like a sterile container that needs raw, soluble nutrients poured into it for the roots to suck up and make the plant grow. Instead, you feed the soil's chewers, worms, bacteria, fungi and archaea the food they need, then they feed your plants with their excreta, as they have for millions of years. If you're like most of us, you haven't created a perfect soil, so use the compost tea as the primary booster when plants need help during growth flushes.

Here is a link that might be useful: GW compost tea

Well, it's always interesting to see where threads will go some times.

Just a word of caution for those inclined to use human urine as a fertilizer source (personally, that is one concept that just grosses me out, so I'm not doing it) -- in some states (Michigan being one of them), public urination is now a sex crime -- here it's 4th degree criminal sexual conduct, and if you're convicted, you have to register as a sex offender. So, definitely don't go out and use the "facilities" in the garden unless you really live in the boonies or you have a great privacy fence.

Has anyone here ever planted a patch of alfalfa for the purpose of harvesting as a N source for either animal feed or composting? I have wanted to do this for several years, bought the seed, and just never got it done. Ideally, I'd like to sow a patch of roughly 20 x 80 feet that I could cut perhaps monthly during the growing season. Never having done it, I don't know if that is a realistic idea, or if the yield in the end would be enough to justify the space and labor.

Well, since undiluted human urine kills plants, you shouldn't be peeing on them directly anyway. My DH pees in a bucket with a screwtop lid. The collected urine sits outside for three weeks and chelates before I dilute it 10:1. Also, if you eat bananas, save the peels and liquefy them in your blender. When you feed this liquid mix to your plants, you get great root growth and fruit setting. Saving eggshells also is good, because it adds calcium to the soil.

The best low cost organic fertilizer is making your own compost.

I think I have a pretty nice composting/fertilizer plant going with my birds. I haul in bagged oak leaves for their bedding.

I ran out midsummer and had to use purchased straw for a while -- did NOT like that, straw did not suppress odor the same way the oak leaves do.

I throw all kinds of stuff in there to them -- kitchen scraps, garden scraps, weeds, and they are thrilled.

In return, lots of poo and bedding that is by that point finely shredded. Since it stays pretty dry (except for the ducks, who make everything wet fast), it isn't yet broken down, but as soon as I rake it out and add water, it cooks right away.

Meal Worm castings are one of the cheapest organic fertilizers and soil amendments around, with an analysis of Nitrogen-4.17% Phosphorus-2.70% Potash-1.64% Sodium-62.9mg/100gms Iron-26.5mg/100gms-PH 7.25. Mealworms are the larva of the Darkling Beetle, Tenebrio Molitor, and are often available from companies that supply them as fish bait or pet food for pets that require live insect food like lizards, some birds, and some fish. Even though the castings consist of the poop and exoskeletons that were molted off growing mealworms, they don't smell bad like animal manure based products, probably because they are often fed a diet of only bran, carrots, potatoes, or even cactus. I am using several types of organic fertilizer/soil amendments this year including rabbit, steer, chicken, and horse manure, as well as meal worm castings, and am keeping records as to which seems to do the best, and which is the most cost effective. BTW, I noticed Lowes is now selling bagged chicken manure, for several years all the big box stores stopped selling it due to the bird flu scare.

"Well, since undiluted human urine kills plants, you shouldn't be peeing on them directly anyway. "

I didn't read the thread very well and I had my DH use the pee "straight from the vine." It sure didn't kill my plant--in fact it finally started growing after being completely stagnant and yellowish green for weeks. But from now on, I'll use the dilution method.