Using Blood Meal To Improve Your Garden Soil
3. It may repel unwanted animals.
Blood Meal 101
Despite its less than palatable name, blood meal is a common product that can be used as a nutritious and environmentally friendly fertilizer. As the name implies, blood meal is a product that’s derived directly from blood. Usually, this blood is a by-product of livestock production, coming from what would be waste material. This blood is dried and made into a powder that’s rich in organic nitrogen, and can be processed and made into a high quality fertilizer product.
Blood meal is a versatile source of nitrogen, and can be used for a variety of plants, flowers, vegetables, and even trees. Below are several advantages of using blood meal, illustrating reasons why gardeners and farmers can use it as an alternative fertilizer:
1. It cuts down on waste.
Blood meal is a natural by-product of the meat processing industry, and would normally be discarded as a waste material. Using blood from meat processing plants to create blood meal takes a waste product and turns it into something that is usable and can be sold in the agricultural or personal gardening industry.
2. It’s a hearty source of nutrients for soil.
Plants need a number of nutrients for optimal health, and one of the main nutrients they need is nitrogen. Plants use nitrogen in order to grow, reproduce, and produce enzymes and nucleic acids. They also use it to make chlorophyll molecules, which are molecules that capture sunlight and help to convert it into food. Because nitrogen is used in all of these functions, plants need it in fairly large quantities in order to survive. Blood meal is one of the best sources of organic nitrogen, and allows plants to use nitrogen when they need it most.
3. It may repel unwanted animals.
Some studies have shown that blood meal keeps certain undesirable animals out of gardens. Most notably, Blood meal is known to keep away deer and rabbits, both of which can cause major destruction to gardens.
4. It can help activate compost.
For compost to rapidly heat up and begin breaking down, it needs to have the proper ratio of carbon to nitrogen, or C:N. Typically, a C:N ratio of 30:1 is ideal. This means that there will be about 30 times more carbon than nitrogen in the pile. When composting high carbon ingredients, like sawdust, adding a high nitrogen material like blood meal can help to adjust the C:N ratio into the proper range and get a compost pile off to a good start.
Blood meal can also be used in strawbale gardening to condition straw bales before planting. This style of gardening is growing in popularity and is ideal for poor soils. Essentially, straw bale gardening creates growing beds from strawbales by jumpstarting their breakdown. High nitrogen materials are added to the bales and they are kept moist to allow breakdown to begin.
Using Blood Meal To Improve Your Garden Soil
If you are looking to incorporate more organic gardening methods into your garden, you may have come across a fertilizer called blood meal. You may be wondering, “What is blood meal,?” “What is blood meal used for,?” or “Is blood meal a good fertilizer?” These are all good questions. Read on to learn more about blood meal as an organic fertilizer.
What is Blood Meal?
Blood meal is pretty much as the name says. It is dried animal blood, typically cow blood, but it can also be the blood of any animal that goes through meat packing plants. The blood is collected after the animals are killed and then dried to make a powder.
What is Blood Meal Used For?
Blood meal is a nitrogen amendment that you can add to your garden. Adding blood meal to garden soil will help raise the level of nitrogen and will help plants to grow more lush and green.
The nitrogen in blood meal can also help raise the acid level of your soil, which is beneficial to some kinds of plants that prefer soils with low pH (acidic soil).
Be careful to closely follow the instructions on how to apply the blood meal that you have purchased, as it is a very concentrated form of nitrogen. Too much nitrogen in the soil can, at best, keep the plants from flowering or fruiting, and at worst, burn the plants and possibly kill them.
Blood meal is also used as a deterrent for some animals, such as moles, squirrels and deer. It is thought the smell of blood meal is not appealing to these animals.
Is Blood Meal a Good Fertilizer?
Many organic gardeners like to use blood meal as a fertilizer. Blood meal can quickly add nitrogen to the soil, which can be a plus for soil that has been drained of nitrogen through repeated plantings. An example of this is vegetable beds.
There are some things you should be aware of when using blood meal. As mentioned, it can burn your plants if not used properly. Blood meal may also attract unwanted visitors, such as dogs, raccoons, possums and other meat eating or omnivorous animals.
If you cannot find blood meal or you do not want to use blood meal in your organic garden, you can instead use feather meal or the vegetarian alternative, alfalfa meal.
Where Can You Buy Blood Meal?
Blood meal is very common these days and a significant number of big box stores will carry blood meal fertilizer produced by name brands you know. However, you will most likely get a better price on blood meal from smaller, local nurseries and feed stores.