MC, I'm 99% certain your Fish Fertilizer is Fish Emulsion. NPK, 5-1-1 is the same. What its size? Ounces? half or full gallon? It looks large. One of my FE is Alaskan, but much smaller than your container, without a handle. Yes, FE has an odor... :) FE killed a scale-infested Olive tree received from an online nursery, and citrus branches on either side of Olive. I spray FE in autumn, as a preventative before plants come indoors. While spraying leaves for insects, FE also acts as a foliar feeding. It's also used like any other fertilizer.. Add water, then fertilize soil. Toni PS. Odor lasts 2-3 days indoors.

If you beans are yellowing, and this is a new garden, chances are it's a nitrogen deficiencey. Fish emulsion contains enough nitroget for supplemental feedings, but no where enough to fix a deficiency. I would get some blood meal and sid dress your plants, working it into the top inch or so of soil, and water well. You should see a big difference is a week or 10 days. Any fish emunsion mixed as directed should spray with no problem Ron The Garden Guy http://www.TheGardenGuy.org New Article & Journal Garden Entries.

Don't be a slave to numbers, unless it's fun for you. I get the impression from some of your postings here that you tend to stress out about all the little factoids of organic gardening and composting. (you've said you were going crazy over it in fact) People have been growing fantastic food without tracking the percentages of micronutrients since the dawn of time. The stuff that plants really need to grow can be found in...plants. They incorporate it into foliage, etc. Compost that stuff, and you should have what you need. You're right if you're thinking that some of those micronutrients are at levels that just probably won't help anything at the dilution rate for fertilizing as listed on the bottle (even "micro" nutrients have a level at which they're not really contributing). I love how everyone talks about the numbers of micronutrients in their products. Anyone know how many micronutrients are in a compost pile of shredded leaves and coffee grounds? How about just shredded leaves? I'm guessing lots. I'll guess "lots". I can't blame the companies that list numbers of micronutrients- from the number of people here that say "ooh- this one has 70!", or whatever- it seems to sell the product. Neptune's Harvest has a good reputation, so if they sell a little more, then good for them! I drove to Hampton Beach and picked up 2 kitchen bags of seaweed. Made a thick tea with some of it and composted the rest. Why did I get it at all? We were there (my little dogs love the beach). Free compostables. You could do the same and not worry about numbers- percentages matter little when you have lots of material (low percentage times larger amount still means more total nutrient added). Reports that I've read make all sorts of claims about disease resistance and other stuff for seaweed/kelp micronutrients. I don't have any plant disease problems, but hey- it was free and probably won't hurt.

This thread is hilarious and informative at the same time! Thank you all for the laughs and the knowledge! My experience with fish emulsion goes like this. I’ve been growing bonsai for many years and have more than I want to talk about. Some are pretty old and my treasures. When we moved from the big city to the country, we of course brought every single plant and bonsai! We had four box trucks jammed full of plants and one for the house stuff. I carefully arranged each bonsai on their little stands so they’d all look just right even if we were the only ones that could see them. I started the repotting process soon thereafter and of course...used fish emulsion to give them all a boost. The next day, I go back to check on my “babies” and stood there in shock! Thinking the worst about some human vandalism or theft, I notice that each plant had been uprooted and holes had been dug in every pot. Little hand like prints and tracks are all over the place, I follow the trail of destruction to a boggy area near a creek. There lie the remains of several larger bonsai, the fish emulsion bottle and even the bucket! A few choice words later and some tears too, I gathered the survivors and repotted them. Most survived with some very interesting new shapes but I certainly learned my lesson. Fish emulsion is great stuff but never use it if you even suspect that you have raccoons.