I’m ex-Amish and we had a bunch of natural tricks for fertilizing gardens – you can get a lot out of some kitchen scraps
AN ex-Amish woman has revealed some of the natural methods she learned while in the lifestyle.
Even though she ran away from the strict religious community at 17, she shared many fertilization tricks that work wonders with The U.S. Sun.
Naomi Swartzentruber, 43, ran away from the Swartzentruber Amish community in Michigan when she was 17 years old.
Her father owned a saw mill and the family regularly grew their fruits and vegetables in a garden outside their home.
Now a resident of Coolidge, Arizona, she still maintains some of her former way of life that was passed down through generations.
Swartzentruber shared a few Amish fertilization hacks using kitchen leftovers with The U.S. Sun.
“We loved having a clean garden,” she said.
The author prioritizes a natural and holistic lifestyle without chemicals and additives.
She even grows her cauliflower as shown by this TikTok video.
LIQUID SOLUTION
Swartzentruber explained how her mom would make use of hearty foods like eggs and potatoes.
“She would boil the water from the hard-boiled eggs and always pour that on the plants as well,” she said.
Water from boiling eggs is full of calcium that plants need to grow.
After peeling the eggs, instead of tossing the used eggshells, her mother would crack them and put them around plants for extra calcium.
Potatoes are a common food grown in Amish communities and easy to cook.
Sometimes, her mother would also pour the water from boiled potatoes.
COFFEE GROUND GOODNESS
Another natural method her mother used incorporated a breakfast staple.
She was perplexed by how often her mother would just toss them in the garden and “spread them around the plants.”
“I don’t know if it was for fertilizer, bugs, but she thought worked,” Swartzentruber said.
MANURE MAGIC
Animals often had many nutritional benefits in their community, and sometimes they had to go straight to the source.
Swartzentruber said they always put cow manure in the dirt as fertilizer every spring.
They also used feces from horses to nourish their crops.
The reason why it worked so well is because it was too acidic and thus wouldn’t burn in the sun.
“It had to be common or from the shed where the cows stayed,” she added.
“They would split that all over the garden and use it as a natural fertilizer.”
Easy gardening tips to save money, maximize space, and repel pests
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- Banana peels, vinegar, and coffee grounds are often recommended as natural fertilizers.
- Dollar Tree sells four packs of seeds for $1.25.
- Try a vertical planter like Amazon’s Mr. Stacky 5 Tier Stackable Planter, $35 to make more use of a small space.
- Use netting like the Garden Netting Pest Barrier, $8, from Amazon to keep away bugs that eat your vegetables.
- Try sacrificial planting to reduce the use of pesticides and keep pests away from your garden. Deliberately growing certain plants to attract agricultural pests can keep them away from the plants you want to protect. Examples include marigolds, lavender, catnip, and chives.
- For pesky weeds in your garden, the Grampa’s Weeder – The Original Stand-Up Weed Puller Tool with Long Handles, $45, from Amazon is a helpful tool you can use without having to bend over.
In the middle of the fertilized dirt, Swartzentruber said they also often planted marigolds to deal with pests, like ants or aphids.
A marigold a day kept the bugs away.
She previously spoke to The U.S. Sun about Amish cleaning hacks and what led her from stripping to becoming a successful book author.
