February Guest Speaker Report

Our speaker this month was Derek Cashmore with a talk entitled “Making fertilizers for free”. Derek started off by explaining how things we do in our gardens contribute to taking carbon dioxide out of the soil which goes into the atmosphere. Two-thirds of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is put
there by agriculture. Artificial fertilizers, and prescription medicines, contribute a huge amount. When we dig we release carbon dioxide out of the soil and the no-dig approach is currently a hot topic.

A lot of the plants that grow in our gardens are highly nutritious and are natural fertilizers eg. dandelions, also brilliant for pollinators; comfrey and nettles, contain them as they spread easily in a border; even mare`s tails which is regarded as a perennial weed.

An excellent natural fertilizer is urine – ladies in particular beware of popping down the compost heap for this purpose, though a bucket in the house is always an option!!!! But an even better one is seawater, which contains all 92 elements. Seaweed is an easily sourced local natural fertilizer but don`t wash the salt off.

Derek`s talk was quite in depth, far too much information to include here, but he has kindly agreed to give us the content of his talk so if you would like more details please contact us via email.