2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Many summer residents periodically encounter a very impressive number of fallen apples - this happens especially often in fruitful years. At the same time, there is absolutely nowhere to put such volumes of the harvest, and it is a pity to throw apples away, so often some fruits begin to rot right on the site, and there are also a lot of damaged apples there. How to be and what to do with the carrion? The answer is simple - use it as fertilizer! This business is not at all costly, and there is a lot of benefit from it
The benefits of organic fertilizers from fallen apples
Such fertilizers will be of great benefit not only to plants, but also to the soil. Fiber that gets into the soil becomes an excellent breeding ground for the reproduction of microorganisms enriching the soil with humus. In the course of the application of fertilizers from the volunteer soil, the soil begins to retain water much better, becomes much looser, and its fertile layer increases significantly. At the same time, all nutrients contained in fallen apples are very quickly and fully absorbed by plants!
Most often, such organic matter is introduced into the soil in the fall - as a rule, by this time a very impressive amount of a wide variety of waste has accumulated on the farm. In addition, in this case, there is always time for the proper decomposition of organic matter in the soil - until spring, the hard workers-bacteria have time to process quite safely not only plant residues, but also cellulose!
Some summer residents successfully use the so-called "prefabricated" organic fertilizers, adding fallen and rotten apples directly into the compost. True, for this it will be necessary not only to build a compost heap, but also to lay it correctly - ideally, the volumes of carbon-containing substances should be about four times higher than the volumes of nitrogen substances.
How do I use the carrion?
As a fertilizer, fallen apples are usually used either in liquid form or crushed. Each summer resident chooses the most suitable method for himself, focusing on the availability of time and effort, as well as on the volume of raw materials.
But simply leaving rotten apples right on the ground is by no means possible - next year the site may be overtaken by a real epidemic of the most dangerous fungal diseases, and in order to save at least part of the crop, you will have to resort to the help of various chemicals!
Dry method
This is the easiest way to use fallen apples as fertilizer - in this case, they are simply applied to the soil in a "dry" form. Having collected the apples, they are first sorted in order to avoid the possible ingress of mold into the soil, and then they are crushed and the resulting mass is applied under berry or vegetable bushes, as well as in the grooves made in the soil around the trees. And at the very end, this fertilizer is well sprinkled with soil. It is not forbidden to combine fallen apples with dry foliage or with a small amount of manure. And in order to prevent the possible development of pathogenic fungi and bacteria, it is recommended to sprinkle the fertilized areas on top with urea.
Composting the volunteers
In order for the spores of pathogenic fungi to be guaranteed to die, it is allowed to put rotten apples in the compost only if it is well ventilated. That is, the shoulder in this case, ideally, should be half-open, with slots or even with a door. And in this case it will be much more convenient to loosen the contents of the constructed compost heap!
And in order to speed up the composting process, all layers of the future compost are watered with a special biological fertilizer when it is laid - this fertilizer allows you to increase the number of bacteria necessary for this process from the very beginning. If oxygen access is really good, then these bacteria will begin to multiply very quickly, and after two to three months, the embedded organic matter will gradually transform into humus. As for especially large fruits, they must either be passed through a special chopper or chopped with a shovel. And to neutralize high acidity, ash is usually put.
And it is also very important that the temperature in the compost pit can rise to seventy degrees - only in this situation will all the pathogenic flora be completely killed, and the compost will become absolutely safe. The volumes of nitrogen components must correspond to the norm, and since rotten apples also contain them, it is better to use peat, soil, dry foliage or straw with them. It is quite acceptable to add a thin layer of manure to speed up the process.
Liquid fertilizer
To prepare a liquid fertilizer, which can then also be added to the compost, first, all the collected volunteers are thoroughly crushed and placed in a large enough plastic container, after which they are poured with water - after a while, the flooded fruits should begin to ferment. The resulting liquid has a rather pungent and very unpleasant odor, but its nutritional value is so high that it will need to be diluted before use (just like slurry)!
The container is usually filled with rotting apple waste by one third or half, and then filled with water in such a way that there is still twenty centimeters left for fermentation on top. And to speed up the process, the container can be placed in the sun. And after a couple of weeks, the finished fertilizer can be safely diluted and sent to water the garden vegetation!
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