randyh

i just pulled my bannannas out of the green house where they lost all of their leaves a couple of times but have returned for my entertainment once again they are around 12 to 18in. tall and in the ground now! can anyone tell me how much and what fertilizer to use? thanks randy

MediaHound

Tip: Cheapest Banana fertilizer.
Fertilizer question
In addition, one can't go wrong with composted manure along with other compost from around the home and yard.

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randyh

cool thanks MH

pitangadiego

Triple16 is cheap and effective. Make sure they are stable and growing new leaves before begining fertilization\ otherwise the results will be either wasted fertilizer or a damaged plant.

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D'Andra

Since we grow earthworms, we use only worm castings. We use horse manure for thier bedding and feed them layer crumbles. The results are a very good fertilizer. We use it on all our plants and have had nothing but great results! I have not had an analysis done on it yet so I'm not sure what nutrients are in it. Since castings replenish the soil and it's organic this is what we prefer to use. We even use it to germinate seeds.

Chemical fertilizers actually strip the soil of nutrients over time, then you are stuck using them to keep the plants healthy. If you're using chem ferts I'd go with miracle-gro for tomatoes. It also works wonders for tobacco. I have tried it against castings for one year and the results were about the same. The only differences I noticed were castings last months longer and you can put as much as you want to and never burn or hurt the plant.

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D'.

MediaHound

D' Andra, do you use one of those commercial worm bins?

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D'Andra

We made all our own beds/bins. As soon as my camera gets back in town I'll post some pics. Should be around the 22nd.

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D'.

D'Andra

I know it took me awhile to get these pix on. Funny story. My roomate had my camera in the diaper bag and it rolled out when she was getting in the car. She didn't see it and ran it over with the car. The new camera took me awhile to get the pix to load on our PC.

Well here are the worm beds. Easy to build and tend.

Outdoor bed. It's about 8'x4'. We put in 1# of European Nightcrawlers April 1st. At the end of June I'd estimate at least 3# on top and a total of 5-6#'s in the bed. That's also with a hungry gecko in it, but I can't bring myself to get rid of it. She's soo cute.

High occupancy breeding bins. We use these to encourage breeding by using close quarters, horse manure, layer crumbles, and rabbit manre. A great way to fill your beds that make castings (fertilizer).

Indoor bed. I built it by myself. About $100. & 14 hours. If you know what you're doing and have help probably a lot less time, but hey it's still standing with about 20#'s of red wigglers or composting worms.

There's more pics of these in my gallery, and yes we do sell worms now and then. We are expanding our inventory to meet demand, but right now our local markets keep us swamped.
If you're interested in building beds or caring for worms let me know.
This is the best organic fertilizer there is and you can make it at your house with kitchen scraps and credit card offers.

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D'.

NANAMAN

Thanks D', I've been waiting to see your follow up to this thread. I have tried raising worms, but gave up after using can o worms unit. No where near the amount of castings I was hoping for. I would like to try it again with an outdoor bin, not quite sure how to start it though!

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D'Andra

NANAMAN, let me know what you have to work with as far as a site to raise them and I'll help you put in a bed. In my gallery you can see an off building in our backyard. I hope to have the building full of worm beds by fall. Now, when I say full, I mean floor to ceiling. Right now we are building beds that are basically large drawers. Think of a huge chest (no not Pam Andersons) of sliding drawers about 5 deep. The wooden indoor bed is 3x8'. What we are building is a stack of 3x4' drawers as tall as we can work.
These things breed so fast, that by this time next year (even while selling our stock) we should have that building packed to capacity!
As far as your castings go, Mitchell, I think makes his own in a bed, can o worms will be slow producing. Go for something bigger!
A bed 8x3'x12" should yield about 600lbs of castings a year! You have to feed a lot of matter to be composted, but hey, look up worm castings and you'll find you can't beat it for fertilizer.
Where you live you may be able to put some right next to the plants you want to fertilize. Of course you'll need to make sure they have organic matter and constant moisture.
A friend of mine took his worms and put them in rows of horse manure and hay about 50' long, with no sides or tops, just a row of piled horse poop. To this day they are still doing great. It's been over a year now.
I don't know if his site is still up, and since we're competing for sales I shouldn't post his site here, but I want to give you more ideas on what you can do. You can look at his at www.fiddlersfarm.com . I took all the pics (BTW, and he really is a sharp guy). With my old ran-over, smashed-up, beat-to-death, no-longer camera.
Anyway, you have many options and the worms really won't care.
Let me know if you need plans for a bed or anything else that has to do with raising worms.
BTW. Just let me add. Worms are sooo ICKY!!! Although they are making us $$, they are still gross! When we open our beds and lift off the carpets, it sounds like a bottle of soda when they all start running for the dark. Creepy!

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D'.