How about using your homemade fertilizer for sunflowers and blooming a ton of flowers. So in this post, I’m listing down the best homemade fertilizers for sunflowers that will cost you almost nothing
Here are the best homemade fertilizers for sunflowers.
- Blood meal
- Chicken manure compost
- Fish emulsion fertilizer
- Horse manure compost
- Seaweed fertilizer
- Compost tea
- Horse manure fertilizer
- Bone meal
- Bat guano
- Mushroom compost fertilizer
- Cow manure
I have tested all of those fertilizers with my sunflowers and I’ve got different outputs. Hang on with me to know, exactly what homemade fertilizers are going with your sunflower garden.
Table of Contents
Fertilizing requirements for growing sunflowers
Sunflowers have been recognized as hungry plants during their growing season in summer. Therefore, it’s important to find about their nutritional and fertilizing requirements.
So I contacted Amy Jo Detweiler, who has expertise in flowering plants, Shrubs, and trees, and asked what are the nutritional requirements when growing sunflowers.
Here’s how she has answered the sunflower nutritional requirement question.
Sunflowers are easy to grow and can be grown in most soil types, no special nutrients than Nitrogen, Phosphorous, and Potassium.
Amy Jo Detweiler
According to Gardeningknowhow, having a wide range of micronutrients on the soil helps sunflowers to perform their best growth over the season.
In a summary, all the fertilizing nutritional requirements you’ve to consider when using a homemade fertilizer for sunflowers are Nitrogen (N), Phosphorous (P), Potassium (K), and enough micronutrients on the soil.
Sunflower fertilizer N-P-K
When we are considering the N-P-K requirements of the sunflower, the big part is always with Nitrogen and also something with Prosperous.
According to this plant research, the highest performing sunflowers N-P-K value is 6-3-2.
Many experts’ researches have proved that fertilizing good enough Nitrogen will directly affect the well-growth of the plant.
Flower diameter, leaf size, plant stem diameter, and plant height have significantly increased after they’re increasing the Nitrogen fertilizing.
And Nitrogen has always tended the sunflowers to have a healthy root system and a green leafy growth.
Important:
Don’t grow your sunflowers where you’ve grown sugar beets within a year or so. They are depositing Nitrogen in the deep soil, and it may tend your sunflowers to be over-fertilized with Nitrogen.
On the sunflower’s NPK, Prosperous is so important in the season of blooming. So you also have to care about adding some kind of prosperous sources when you’re preparing homemade fertilizers for sunflowers.
Like every flowering plant, sunflowers also perform a good blooming of flowers when they are feeding a good amount of phosphorous in the blooming season.
When to fertilize sunflowers?
Sunflowers have to be fertilized in early summer, where the new plant growth begins, or in mid to late summer when the plant starts to bloom.
When you’re fertilizing sunflowers in the early summer, you’re mostly focusing on the leaf and green growth of the plant.
When it comes to the tail end of the summer, you have to work on fertilizing your sunflower plant with something that encourages them to bloom more sunflowers.
Homemade Fertilizers for sunflowers
Now we are going to find out some homemade fertilizers for your sunflowers plants, which are suitable for sunflower fertilizing requirements.
When we consider sunflower fertilizers that are used over their growing season, we can divide them into two main categories.
- Nitrogen-rich fertilizers
- Phosphorous rich fertilizers
Usually, Nitrogen-rich fertilizers are used at the beginning of the growing season of the sunflower plant. And you’ve to use phosphorus-rich homemade fertilizers to increase flowering on the sunflowers in their blooming season.
Blood meal
Undoubtedly, blood meal can be known as the best natural high nitrogen source that can use as a fertilizer. Generally, blood meal fertilizer is 12-0.5-0.5 in NPK.
Because of their amazing NPK ratio with a high amount of Nitrogen, blood meal has become a good homemade fertilizer for sunflowers to use in their early growing season.
When you use blood meal on young growing sunflowers, you’ll be able to see a quick green leafy growth and a quick increase in the height of the plant.
So here’s how to make this npk fertilizer at home.
- Gather some pure blood of Cow, Deer, Goat, or Elk into a bucket. (You can easily collect enough blood from the nearest slaughterhouse)
- Then boil it down as the water evaporate until the water content of the blood drops down to 10%.
- Now dry out the blood until it turns out to be a powder, by keeping the bucket under the sun or drying it out from the oven.
- Then you can use blood meal as a liquid fertilizer by diluting one table spoon of blood meal with a gallon of water.
Read the full guide to making blood meal fertilizer by yourself from here.
Feels like making your own blood meal fertilizer is too boring?
Check out my best-recommended blood meal on Amazon. You can trust it for sure!!
Chicken manure compost
Chicken manure is a great homemade high Nitrogen fertilizer that you can use as a sunflower fertilizer.
They are 6-4-3 in NPK on average.
Apart from the nutritional value of chicken manure, also using chicken manure as a fertilizer for sunflowers will help to retain more water on the soil.
There are a few things you need to care about, before composting chicken manure and making fertilizer.
Because chicken manure is high in Nitrogen, using them directly onto the plants or composting absolute chicken manure will make them so hot.
And your sunflower plants may burn if you use them that way.
Therefore you’ve to use some Carbon sources onto the compost pile to reduce the bad impact of Nitrogen.
So here’s how to make chicken manure compost.
- Collect chicken manure into a bin. (better to collect it with the bedding)
- Then put some straw or wood chips into the bin to reduce high Nitrogen impact.
- Now add some water into the mixture and cover it up.
- Keep the compost bin in a well-heated or sunny spot for 4-5 weeks.
Here’s a complete guide to compost chicken manure with ease!
Fish emulsion fertilizer
As fish emulsion fertilizer has been recognized 4-1-1 in NPK, they are doing really well as a homemade fertilizer for sunflowers.
Fish emulsion fertilizer can quick up the plant’s green growing.
Here’s how to make fish emulsion fertilizer for your sunflowers.
- Collect some fish waste into a 5-gallon bucket. Then break it down into smaller pieces to encourage the decomposing process.
- Then add enough amount of water.
- Adding water will prevent fish from drying and also helps the Nutrients and microorganisms to move around.
- Now add a cup of sugar into the mixture. Sugar promotes bacterias to break down the fish. You’ve to feed sugar every week.
- Thwn add some rock Phosphate onto the mixture. It will help Phospharic acid to stabilise in the emulsion.
- Now cover the 5-gallon bucket.
- Stir the mixture every week. So it will able to more interact with Oxygen.
- Fish emulsion fertilizer will be ready to use after 2 months by deluting 2-3 tablespoons with 1 gallon of water.
Horse manure compost
When we talk about homemade fertilizers for flowering plants, we can’t neglect horse manure. Cause they are way more in nutritional value than cow manure or steer manure.
Horse manure is 0.5-0.3-0.4 in NPK on average.
Well-aged horse manure is safe to direct use onto the plant by mixing it with some organic matter.
But you have to keep away from fertilizing fresh horse manure directly onto your sunflower plants. Cause it can burn the plant.
So instead of direct fertilizing horse manure, you can use them as compost and add more nutrients to your sunflower plants.
Here’s how to make a homemade horse manure compost fertilizer for sunflowers.
- Collect some horse manure into a compost bin.
- Water it well. Horse manure is drying up so quickly than any others. So don’t be afraid to water enough.
- Add some grass clippings or straw to increase the nutritional level.
- Make the compost pile well-expose to the sunlight.
- Water the compost pile every week. Remember to mix and turn up the compost pile every 15 days. It will make the nutrients move around.
That’s all. You’ll be able to have your self-prepared horse manure compost fertilizer within 2-3 months.
Composting horse manure is also having the advantage of getting rid of the weed seeds in manure.
But here’s an important thing.
You shouldn’t use the horse manure directly onto the compost pile if the horse has been dewormed recently.
You’ve to dry their manure under the sunlight for 3-4 days if you want to compost them.
Seaweed fertilizer
Seaweed liquid is another successful plant food that you can use as an organic homemade fertilizer for succulents.
As seaweeds are rich in both Nitrogen and Potassium, their NPK is 1-0.5-2.5.
And that magical combination leads the plant for a quick green and height growth, while Potassium works on moving water and nutrients more efficiently.
According to agfuse.com seaweed fertilizer will increase the beneficial microorganisms in the soil, which is very helpful for sunflower plants.
Actually, you have to use seaweed fertilizer as a homemade liquid fertilizer. Because burying seaweed directly under the sunflower plants may do more harm than good.
Here’s how to make homemade seaweed liquid fertilizer for sunflowers.
- Collect some seaweeds from the sea, and wash them thoroughly as all the salt content is washing.
- Then fill them into a 5-gallon bucket and top it off with water.
- Cover the 5-gallon bucket and keep it for 3-4 weeks. Now you are ready with the seaweed liquid fertilizer.
- Collect the seaweed liquid into a bucket and dilute it with some water. Now you’re good to go with seaweed liquid as a homemade fertilizer for sunflowers.
Also read: Is seaweed fertilizer good for succulents
Compost tea
Compost tea is known as a free and easy-to-make homemade fertilizer that can provide good nutrient value to the plant in a soluble way.
Apart from the main N, P, K nutrients, compost tea also includes the beneficial micronutrients that help the plant growth and healthiness of your sunflower plant.
You can make your own compost tea as quickly as the time it takes you to pronounce “compost tea”.
Here’s how to make compost tea for sunflowers.
- Collect some general compost. (don’t matter own made compost or commercial ones)
- Fill water into a 5-gallon bucket.
- Then mix the compost with water.
- Cover the bucket and keep it for 24-48 hours. Stir in 3-4 times between this period.
- Now you’ve all done with making compost tea homemade fertilizer for sunflowers.
Another benefit you’ll have from using compost tea fertilizer is, you can do both watering and fertilizing at once. And it will make the nutrient absorbing easy to the sunflower plant.
Bone meal
When we talk about the uses of Phosphorous nutrients for growing flowers, you can’t stay away from bone meal fertilizer. It’s a massive source of Phosphorous!
And the average N-P-K of bone meal fertilizer is 3-15-1.
So according to the nutrient content of the bone meal, they are very suitable to use as a homemade fertilizer for sunflowers in their blooming season.
Trust me. Bone meal will impact on increasing the sunflowers significantly over the summer.
Apart from Phosphorous, bone meal is having plenty of Calcium that helps to develop a healthy and strong root system over time.
As the “bone meal” word sounds, mostly it is made of cow bone. But still, any kind of animal born will be okay to make the bone meal fertilizer for your sunflower plant.
So here’s how you can make bone meal fertilizer on your own.
- First, collect some animal-born parts and remove all the meat and cartilages on them.
- Then boil them in water for at least 6 hours (or you can boil them on a pressure cooker in 2 hours). You can easily break down the hard bones if you boil them well.
- Now dehydrate them in a dehydrator for 10-12 hours, so they will get disintegrated on their own.
- In the end, you can turn the dehydrated bones into a smooth powder using mortar and pestle with less effort.
When you are applying this bone meal fertilizer for your sunflower plant, allowing 1 bone meal tablespoon into 1 gallon of the soil would be enough.
The mid-summer season would be the best time to use homemade bone meal fertilizer for sunflowers, as the plant starts to bloom flower buds.
If you find it’s too hard to make bone meal fertilizer on your own, check this perfect bone meal fertilizer on Amazon. (That’s the one I use when I’m too busy to make my own bone meal 🙂 )
Bat guano
This one is something special for you that is provided by bats. It’s bat guano.
Even it’s not too common among gardeners, it fits you because bat guano is a perfect source of Prosperous and also some kind of Nitrogen.
Bat guano NPK value has been recorded as 1-12/2.5-16/0. Therefore they look perfect as a homemade fertilizer for flowering plants, especially during the blooming season.
And according to gardeningknowhow, using bat guano in tea form allows deep root feeding.
All you have to do to make bat guano tea is micing 2 tablespoons of bat dung with 1 gallon of water.
Give it 12 hours for a good seasoning process. Then you can use bat guano tea as a fertilizer for sunflower plants.
Mushroom compost fertilizer
This is a kind of fertilizer that is easy to make. It’s really worth being used on sunflowers because of their good nutritional content.
They are well balanced in their NPK, as they are 1:1:1.
But mushroom fertilizer isn’t made out of mushrooms.
Mushroom fertilizer is kind of a slow-release fertilizer prepared from mushroom-grown soil layers.
Most of the times mushroom fertilizer includes straw, manure, corn cobs, and hay, etc.
As mushroom compost is a good homemade fertilizer for sunflowers, let’s see how to make mushroom compost on your own.
- Collect some mushroom growing soil including manure, straw, hay, etc.
- Mix them well within the soil, and make a compost pile. Keep the compost pile for 1-2 months for a good heating process.
- Locate it in a well-heated area under the sun.
- Stir it 3 times a week to spread up the nutrients and bacterias around. Mushroom bacterias will produce good nutrients, after interacting with animal manure in the mixer.
- After 2 months you are ready to have your own mushroom compost to use as a homemade fertilizer for sunflowers.
And the special thing about this homemade organic fertilizer is, it can be used on any growing stage of the sunflower plant, because of its balanced nutrition spreading.
Cow manure
I know that you’re not surprised when you see cow manure as a homemade fertilizer for sunflowers.
That’s because cow dung is used widely throughout the world as a good organic fertilizer, and can be used on any kind of plant.
And the fairest reason to use cow dung with sunflowers is, their Nitrogen content is leading from the front on their NPK, which is 3:2:1.
Also, cow dung contains many secondary nutrients and micronutrients that directly impact the wellness of the sunflower plant.
You can make both solid fertilizer and liquid fertilizer with cow dung.
Cow manure as tea
Making cow manure fertilizer in tea form allows deep feeding for the sunflower root system. Here’s how to make them.
- Collect some dried cow dung particles.
- Fill them into a bucket and completely immerse them in water.
- Cover the bucket and wait for 48 hours.
You’ll be able to have a brown-colored liquid that is so powerful as a fertilizer.
Cow manure solid fertilizer
Here’s how to make cow manure fertilizer in a solid form, and use it as a homemade fertilizer for sunflowers.
- Fill in cow dung particles into a bucket and top it off with water. Wait for 24 hours to soak water on cow manure.
- After 24 hours, you can easily crush them into small pieces by hand.
- Then mix them well with some old garden soil.
Now you can use this homemade organic fertilizer with sunflowers or any other plant you wish.
Those are the homemade organic fertilizers that you can use with your sunflower plants.
Most of them worked pretty well for me. So why not for you! Happy growing 🙂