Sea Minerals For Your Garden

Published by Maggie on June 7, 2017June 7, 2017

Minerals are everywhere: rocks, dirt, plants, water, but a large amount of minerals can be found in oceans, like salt. Mineral content is what can give sea salts their flavor and color. See, over the eons minerals have been washed away from rock, into rivers, and out to the ocean, where they sit. This phenomenon is also one of the reasons why periodic mild flooding of major rivers created very fertile mineral rich areas of arable land.

Minerals are important for plant health just as they are for human health, that is why many put an emphasis on composting and using compost, for the micro nutrients. You can buy fertilizer for the macro nutrients, but it is harder to get the micro nutrients.

Plants and animals from the sea, and seawater itself, contain more of these trace minerals. So, if you compost plants and animals from the sea, or otherwise use them as fertilizer, you should be introducing more of these minerals to our gardens. The vegetables will then have access to more of the minerals they need, and you’ll get more of those minerals when you subsequently eat them. This is something you can do for your own health, not just the health of your garden.

Plants without a mineral deficiency not only grow better, they are also better able to tolerate attacks by pests or diseases, so having the right minerals in your soil can make a big difference. If you do not know what minerals your soil needs, you can send a sample to a testing service who will let you know for a relatively low fee.

So, how do you introduce ocean minerals into your garden? Instead of buying bone meal, you can buy fish bone meal, and get the phosphorous, but also trace minerals. Instead of getting blood meal, you can get fish meal or fish emulsion, which will give you nitrogen, and trace minerals. You can also buy kelp meal, or compost kelp and other seaweeds if you live near the ocean. Small amounts of saltwater clinging to it will not hurt your compost pile. You can also compost shrimp tails, lobster shells, crab shells, and any other shell or bone from something ocean dwelling that might pass through your kitchen. You still shouldn’t compost meat of course.

People who live near the ocean can get seaweeds directly.. You can also buy sea minerals that are concentrated from sea water which contain salt. However, if you use it according to package instructions the salt won’t be concentrated enough to hurt your plants.

There is another product called azomite that isn’t from the sea, it is however a mineral rich water soluble powder created from rocks. This would be a way to get the sea minerals without any additional salt.

Here are some tips if you don’t live near the sea! If you have a water feature in the yard with fish, when you change the water, the discarded water is going to be nutrient rich, especially with nitrogen from all the fish waste. So don’t let the waste-water go to waste, use it on something that likes nitrogen. This is also true for the fish tank you empty inside. If either fish tank uses a charcoal based filter, which many many do, break open that charcoal when you change the filter and sprinkle it into your garden. The activated charcoal, is essentially fancy biochar, which is very beneficial to the garden, and it will have likely soaked up some more nitrogen which it can then release over time.