Fertilizer is boring. It’s like garbage, but smellier and you keep it around longer. But it still serves an important prepper purpose. Proper fertilizer can be the difference between a plentiful and pitiful harvest.
The nice thing about fertilizer is how easy it actually is to make. All you need is compostable materials high in nitrogen (and preferably other nutrients). Throw it in with some water, and wait. Whether you blend the items or not is optional, and wait times will vary, but those are minor details to an overall easy process.
Sometimes you have a bad harvest and need to toss out some veggies. Maybe you just have scraps left over from your last cooking session. Regardless, here’s how you can convert it into a nice fertilizer water to use on your plants.
Toss your veggie scraps into the freezer, let them accumulate. For an extra level of nutrient saving, you can also save up water from boiling foods. Once you have a few quarts worth of veggie scraps, and five gallons of water, blend up the scraps into a puree using a blender, adding water for consistency. Once blended, pour the mix into a large bucket. Add 1/2 teaspoon of Epsom salt (and an optional capful of ammonia) to the bucket. Repeat this process until all scraps have been blended and added to your bucket. Close the bucket and let sit for 24 hours.
Voilà, you’re done. When you want to use the fertilizer liquid, dilute it with more water, and add to your plants. If you don’t have veggie scraps, weeds, trimmings, and other stray plant life works just as well. You can also add eggshells for extra potency.
Just make sure you seal the bucket properly, or it’ll stink up your storage space.