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What to do with old fertilizer?

 
Posts: 184
Location: Zone 4 MN USA
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I'm a newby to permaculture.
I also started gardening 5 years ago when I got my property.
I had someone offer up a bunch of typical nitrogen garden fertilizer, along with the common advice of tilling every spring and fall, compost piles, watering daily, etc etc. Oh and make sure your lawn looks nice and green too.
Now I find myself quite happy and getting happier at my low effort high yield garden, no need for watering here when you've got hugels, swales, mulch, and cover crops. No need to till when i mulch heavily and use chop and drop dynamic accumulator techniques. No need for a compost pile when I haul all my leaves and debris into the garden and compost areas directly.

Now I have about 50 lbs of useless fertilizer laying around I'd really like to get rid of in a responsible way.
I have no idea what to do with it but I figure there's got to be some use for it that won't wreck the environment, maybe add it to high carbon woody debris?
Use it one last time in a hedge area or something?
Anyone got a good suggestion?
 
pollinator
Posts: 4020
Location: Kansas Zone 6a
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Use straw or sawdust (or whatever carbon you can get free) to soak it up and make compost or a straw bale garden.

Don't mix it all in at once! That would be too hot, as in burn off all the good stuff and maybe start a fire hot. But careful application will kick start the compost process and the biology will do the rest.
 
pollinator
Posts: 4154
Location: Northern New York Zone4-5 the OUTER 'RONDACs percip 36''
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Russel Olson : Yes, you can use it without having to feel guilty, If you took a cup of it out to use once or twice a week and broadcast it widely over your
whole property every thing will get a mini boost that will not task your plants, taking 5 years -or even longer to get rid of it seems about right, many people
would advocate for much higher rates !

A lesson learned the hard way, fertilizer will draw moisture out of the air, and can cause some plastics to degrade, no one expected you to keep that fertilizer
that long . Do not transfer your Fertilizer into a Metal pail the pail even a galvanized pail will slowly rot away - Learned the hard way as a child.

For the Good of the Craft ! Big AL
 
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