"paghat" wrote in message
...

Seaweed is widely regarded as the vegan equivalent of fish fertilizer, but
without the same degree of stench as one gets spraying fish fertilizer all
over everthing. However, collecting ones own seaweed to personally make
the fertilizer could well result in a salty solution harmful to plants.


I grew up on an island in Puget Sound and we collected seaweed, actually it
was kelp, every fall to put on our big vegetable garden. There were huge
beds of 'bullwhip kelp' in front of the house that would wash up on the
beach during the first fall storms. My brother and I had the chore of
spending two weekends of each year in the fall hauling wheelbarrow loads of
this up to our vegetable garden and spreading it around. That was long ago
when kids still did as they were told. By the time we were done it was about
a foot thick all over. It would sit there to rot all winter and in the early
spring my dad would till it in. It was about the only fertilizer that garden
ever got. Maybe because of our rainy winters the salt wasn't a problem, I
really don't know but we always had a spectacular, productive garden. Now
that I think about it the compost pile was never used in the veggie garden,
that was always put in mother's flower beds. My folks were by no means
"organic gardeners". The kelp and compost was just a source of free
fertilizer for them. My dad was big on weed & feed for his prized half acre
of lawn and I can still remember the stench of insecticides used at the
first sign of a bug on anything. It's a wonder all of us kids, or our
children, didn't grow up with extra thumbs!

Val