Since I’m a teacher, I get to enjoy a few weeks off in the summer.  In the past few years, my gardening has been limited to some hanging plants on the front porch and a couple of tomato plants in Earthboxes.  This year I had a lot of extra garden space due to the construction of our pool, so I decided to utilize it by planting more veggies.  I took to the Internet to do some research on organic gardening and came across a garden blogger who uses fish fertilizer.  I have NEVER heard of such a thing!   I was fascinated by the benefits of using organic fish fertilizer and couldn’t read enough about it.  Neptune’s Harvest sent me some of their organic fish fertilizer to try and I couldn’t wait to get started.    Basically, this natural fertilizer provides your soil, and therefore your plants, with nitrogen compounds from the breakdown of the fish matter.  Nature’s Harvest uses a cold process to manufacture their fish hydrolysate.  Using this cold process creates a better product and doesn’t destroy any of the helpful compounds in the fish fertilizer.

To get started, I filled a spray bottle with tap water and added the required amount of Neptune’s Harvest.  After shaking the bottle to mix the contents, I thoroughly sprayed the leaves of my veggies.  I was concerned that the fish smell would be awful, but it wasn’t bad……no worse than cooking fish in your kitchen.  I sprayed the leaves of my plants and waited for a week.  Hooray!!  My plants seemed to really respond to the fertilizer treatment.  I had one cucumber plant in particular that was having a hard time growing.   Here’s a picture of the before and after……in two weeks, my cucumber plant grew this much.  I couldn’t believe the difference.   It even has two cucumbers on it now!

On the same day that I sprayed the cucumber plant, I sprayed my sad little hydrangea and this verbena plant.  They were all dry and crunchy. In fact, my husband teased me about them and said they were already dead, why was I bothering to water them anymore?   I just couldn’t give up on them, so I sprayed them liberally with the fish fertilizer.  Just look at them now!!  All kinds of new growth and the verbena is even blooming!

I’m planning to plant several blackberry and raspberry bushes this fall and I’m definitely going to give them a head-start with Neptune’s Harvest.