Welcome back earthlings, I’m Rev, and this is a little all-natural (supernatural) True Living Organics style growing article today. Blood meal is a super powerful ally when it comes all-natural nutrients. It’s crazy high in ammonium nitrogen. It also has tons of secondary- and micro-nutrients. Not to mention, supreme organic matter. Blood meal is a major player when we’re talking about powerful probiotics.
Blood meal is one of those insanely powerful nutrient sources that has gotten a little bit of a bad rap, perhaps from nutrient corporations. I have heard peeps saying stuff like, “you can get mad cow from using bloodmeal!” Okay, I’m not a scientist, and I don’t play one on the internet. With that being said, in my whole life I have never seen, or ever even heard of, anyone getting sick from using blood meal. I never even heard of anyone that knew anyone that got sick from it.
Rev’s Tip
It’s always a good idea to use a respirator when dealing with dry organic additions. Especially bird and bat guano, but even perlite dust can irritate your lungs. Grab yourself a decent respirator like in the photo above, and ALWAYS wear it when you are mixing stuff, indoors especially.
Blood meal is a very dangerous nutrient to use, make no mistake, not because of any threats to you, but because of the danger to your plants. Overdosing with blood meal is wicked easy to do. I’m going to show you all some great uses for blood meal, without risking your plants happiness and health. Let’s roll baybee…
The Fundamentals
Personally, I never use blood meal anytime living roots are involved. That’s not to say you can’t, because I have in the past. As all-natural additions go, blood meal is what I would consider to be: Highly Volatile! It has several uses in my garden dynamic, just never as any kind of addition once my plants are living in the soil.
If you felt the need to ever use blood meal as a top dressing, I would cut it with 30% DE (diatomaceous earth), food or agricultural grades only, first. And, as a top dressing, I would always apply it immediately after I watered. This will allow it to hyper-process up on top, where there’s tons of air, reducing the burning risk to your plants.
When I say blood meal is a probiotic, I’m not kidding around. Not only will it “summon” and feed massive populations of microbial life, it can also bring about a severe fungus gnat invasion. Using too much blood meal in a top dressing can also easily cause a nitrogen overdose. When I say too much, it will likely not seem like too much to you. In a 3-gallon growing container I would never use more than about 1 teaspoon of blood meal to top dress with. A nitrogen overdose will make your plants sad and ugly, likely locking out nitrogen, potassium, and calcium.
Blood Meal When Recycling Your Soil
This amendment really shines here my green friends. Recycling your soil (with root balls) is awesome and just makes good sense. If I were recycling about 3 cubic feet of root balls and soil, about the volume in the photo above, I would add about 1 to 1.5 cups of blood meal. This addition hyper-accelerates the decomposition process. Also, for a really simple recipe when recycling your soil, check out the formula below…
Per 1.5 Cubic Feet (9-gallons) of Used Soil with Root Balls
- 1/4 cup blood meal
- 1/2 cup bone meal
- 1/2 cup dolomite lime (powdered)
- 2 cups alfalfa meal
- 1 cup greensand—OR—2 cups of kelp meal
Of course, using a compost tumbler for this job is the best, but it’s not a dealbreaker if you don’t have one. Just make sure your recycling soil is fully exposed to air, on a tarp or something, moisten it well. Mix daily for 2 weeks by just lifting the edges of the tarp from side to side. How’s that for easy? Don’t worry that you will have too much nitrogen (N) in your soil when you’re done. Most of it will have been immobilized temporarily by the microlife itself.
Blood Meal When Composting
If you love to compost, and you really want to kick it up a big notch, just add a little of this amendment. About ½ cup per cubic foot, mix it in, or just sprinkle it on top, then give it a little watering, and boom! Your compost will be finishing much faster than you are used to. It will likely also get pretty warm during the process. Other “like” additions that work well too, are things like bird/bat guano (not the high P kind), and steer, or barnyard manure. Also, rabbit poop, deer, horse, etc. Basically, any herbivore manure.
The one HUGE advantage you have when using blood meal, is the iron it brings in. Iron is one of the harder elements to have available—but not too available—slowly over time, for your plants. Blood meal makes your compost iron rich for sure.
This additive is just so insanely powerful (volatile), that if you make a mistake with dosage to a living plant, it’s basically irreversible. Due to the utter rapid availability of it. Plus, remember what I said about it “spawning life” because it will, and you’ll see it. Micro life, and mini life, will all be booming. When using it to recycle soil, or using it on composting materials in general, you should prepare for the likely possibility of some type(s) of insect invasion(s) to occur. Not a problem for the soil or your plants down the line, but may be a problem for you, seeing a gnat-storm; heh heh.
Afterword with Rev
You can use this stuff, in nano-ratios, in living teas if you like. I do mean nano here my friends. If I were making 2 gallons of living tea (compost type tea), I wouldn’t have any fear using a pinch (about a coke-spoon’s worth) of blood meal. It will do for the tea what it does for everything else. Adding killer N, along with iron, etc., some primo organic matter, and your tea will suddenly be able to support tons more microbial life. Assuming they also have enough air.
Well amigos, I hope you got something useful from this article, and it helps you along your path to growing all-naturally (supernaturally). Here’s another article you might want to check out here at SKUNK, by yours truly: Organics vs. Synthetics, by The Rev. Also, never add any blood meal to your plants after halfway into flowering, or your results will be subpar.
Until next week, when “I’ll be bock,” for another article, I hope everyone stays happy and healthy as possible, during these super weird times. Revski out ????
