Homemade Fertilizer?
 

Before I ask this question, let me say that I know this won’t be as effective as something made by a company. But I was curious, can you make your own orchid fertilizer out of common household products and groceries in a pinch? And to be clear, I’m referring to fertilizer, not necessarily home remedies for pests and sickness. Let me know what you think!

Pond in our backyard serves important source of orchid water for much of the year

Worm castings from layered composter serve as an addition year round.

No, you may not pee on your orchids.

Fertiliser is cheap and buying it means I know what's in it - I wouldn't bother with trying these homebrew concoctions

In terms of supplying adequate and complete (or near complete) nutrition to plants, no. Unless you’re going to use urine - but that’s best used for outdoor in-ground plants. Worm castings are about as close as you could get (they’re also best used for in-ground plants) but they are still not going to be able to supply everything your plants need in the quantity or ratio required over the long term.

Compost supplies minimal nutrients, it’s a beneficial soil amendment that can help any nutrients you apply hang around in the soil for longer, but most of the nutrients in the feed stocks are used up by the microbes during the composting process. Good for soil texture, water holding, adding air, and some other things, but compost itself isn’t a fertilizer.

All the videos and “hacks” you see online about soaking or boiling food waste in water are not based on facts. You can’t break complex molecules into their building blocks that easily. If it was possible, the world wouldn’t have a food waste problem and farms wouldn’t need to import fertilizer materials. I wish it was true, but it’s not.

:rofl:

I agree

my grandma used to grow houseplants, which is how i got into the hobby. she didn’t fertilize, per se, but she would put sugar water on her plants every now and then. that’s what i did for a long time then as well, but found that i would get white fuzzy mold on the soil surface. so, i don’t do that anymore, even tho the mold seemed harmless to the plants. not sure how effective sugar water is....

to be frank, i am in the middle of a severe fertilizer doubt period for phals....not sure how effective any of them are!

I figured most home hacks were fake. That’s why I asked. I’m still looking for proper orchid fertilizer here but I suppose you could use any plant fertilizer so long as it’s properly diluted, no?

I’ve had excellent results with Dyna Gro FP and giving my phals light levels and temperatures at the top of their desired ranges. I’ve got spikes on all but one phal (20-ish), with a few double spikes, and a ridiculous amount of branching on almost all of them. I’d say it’s extremely effective if the plants have suitable growing conditions. Have you tried it?

I reccomend having a look at Rays website, there is a lot of informatiom there and he sells a good orchid specific fertilizer called K-lite. Heres a link

K-Lite Orchid / Epiphyte Fertilizer › First Rays LLC

I used to use K-Lite. But does he ship internationally?

If you put together Maslow's Hierarchy of Orchid Needs, you would find fertilizer to be pretty low. All plants need a regular supply of nutrients, especially nitrogen, but not a lot.

Another way to look at it is analogous to an ignition key. In the entire scheme of things, it is a small part, but without it, your Ferrari ain't goin' nowhere.

Plants use fertilizer to grow. Plants grow when conditions are correct: Temperature, light, water, humidity. If those are not correct plants hardly grow and don't use fertilizer. Improving growing conditions is far more important than fertilizer for growing plants.

ahh, didn’t notice you were on this side of the pond. perhaps you could try schwerter orchideen here in germany. we use whatever ferts we have on hand, but most of the time we use their premixed formula for fertilizing. it’s not overly expensive and i th8nk you could get it shipped there.

otherwise, i wouldn’t put anything on them. what’s your water supply like? if it’s decent water, just give it to them and forget about fertilizing for a year and assess the results

I use my fish tank waterchange water on my orchids when I am motivated or its convenient, but this is in addition to my regular fert routine (25ppm N every watering except Dec-Jan).