Homestead Skills: Unexpected Fertilizers For Survival Gardens

Ask a savvy survival gardener about the most important thing they grow, and you may get a surprising answer. It’s not tomatoes or potatoes. It’s better dirt! So how do we grow that? Plant-based compost is a great addition to most garden soils and it’s an obvious soil amendment that everyone knows. However, you can also build soil fertility with some unexpected animal scraps - namely fur, feathers and bones.

Find A New Use For Fur

There are many elements necessary for plant growth. Nitrogen is necessary for healthy greenery, like leaves and stems. Phosphorus is required for flower and fruit growth. Potassium is one of the keys to a plant’s vigorous root growth. When we buy fertilizer at the garden center, the label will provide an NPK number. This shows the amount of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, in that order. A common commercial product might be something like a 10-10-10 fertilizer. This provides equal and generous amounts of the three main plant nutrients, though we can also get a large dose of slow releasing phosphorus from hair and fur. These animal materials can still be on the hide, or they can be loose. You might have loose animal hair as a result of scraping hides for “hair off” tanning, or you may soak hides in a bucket of water for a few days until the hair falls out naturally. When blended and buried into garden soil, animal hair will break down slowly over a period of years. This offers your vegetables a prime nutrient for flower growth, which leads to subsequent fruit growth. I know, you’re trying to grow food in a survival garden, not pretty flowers – but the fruit can’t form if the flower isn’t there to be pollenated. To be a successful food grower, you need to become both a dirt grower and a flower grower.

Pluck A Bird

Whether you’re a chicken farmer or bird hunter, you’ll sometimes have access to feathers. These can be very beneficial for your garden, as feathers are similar in composition to hair. These can be plucked from the bird (a quick dip in scalding water will help significantly) or you can skin the bird. Bury whole skins in a strategic garden spots, like under new fruit trees. Loose feathers can be dampened and tilled into the garden soil (don’t try to run the tiller over dry feathers, as they’ll all blow away). However you get them into the ground, feathers will slowly decompose and enrich the dirt. Like hair, feathers will provide phosphorus and other trace minerals (like magnesium).

Bury The Bones

I know, it sounds creepy. Bear with me. Contributing both calcium and phosphorus to your garden, animal bones are another long lasting soil addition. Over the course of many years, whole bones and bone pieces will slowly release these nutrients (and small amounts of magnesium). These elements can be made available more quickly, by crushing the bones into little bits. Try crushing them with a big hammer, using a large rock as an anvil. This can be done right in your garden beds and rows, so that every bit of bone dust and all the little bone pieces end up in the garden soil, right where you want them. Just wear gloves and goggles to protect your eyes and skin from sharp bone shards. You’ll also want to wear a dust mask, as bone dust is not a healthy substance to breathe.

Bonus Item - Sink Some Shells

In coastal areas, shellfish are an important food resource. In both survival situations and everyday life, clams, oysters, mussels and other related creatures provide vital protein. These shells can be useful as spoons, oil lamps, scrapers, scoops and other utilitarian items. They can also be crushed and incorporated deeply into your garden soil. Over the decades to come, these shell pieces will break down into the soil, releasing very important minerals and enriching the dirt. One of the key substances that shells release is calcium. This is an element that can limit blossom end rot in tomatoes, and it’s also a major player in the sweetness of fruit. Consider digging an extra deep hole for fruit trees and berry bushes, and adding a generous amount of crushed shells into the loose dirt before planting perennials. Shells provide both calcium and phosphorus to your hungry vegetables and fruiting woody plants.

Ready to learn more? Join one of our Sustainable Gardening classes which runs spring and fall of each year.

Written by Tim MacWelch First draft published on outdoorlife.com