Bone meal is a nutrient-rich formulation that is typically made by steaming and grinding animal bones. It can fortify the soil with high levels of phosphorus, potassium, nitrogen, and calcium. If you want to know How To Make Bone Meal Fertilizer At Home, then keep on reading!
What is Bone Meal?
If you see yourself asking this question – What is Bone Meal, it is produced by fat-free, dried animal bones that are grounded to make a fine powder. This supplement is rich in phosphorus and calcium. According to research, it contains about 8% N, 5% P, 1% K, and 10% Ca.
How is Bone Meal Made?
If you want to know How is Bone Meal Made, then the answer to that question is from steamed animal bones, which are grounded into fine powder or granules. Then, it is mixed with the growing medium and applied in selected quantities to the plant to boost its growth.
What is Bone Meal Good For?
Want to know What is Bone Meal Good For? Keep on reading!
- It increases phosphorus in the soil, which plays a big role in photosynthesis, and flower, root, and seed production. ‘P’ in the NPK is phosphorus; it helps increase fruiting, improves flowering, and encourages seed yield.
- Bone meal breaks down slowly, making it ideal for long-term fertilizers that must be applied once per year.
- If you are looking for organic gardening methods, then it is a perfect option for you. Bone meal fertilizer is entirely chemical-free.
- Bone meal is rich in micronutrients such as; zinc, magnesium, and iron that promote plant health.
- If you apply too much by mistake, it won’t burn the plant.
Bone Meal as a Fertilizer
If you want to know whether you can use Bone Meal as a Fertilizer, then the answer to that question is yes, you can.
It acts as a slow fertilizer that releases over a period of several months by increasing soil microbes across the growing season and amplifies its structure for the root system of plants. All these aid in better growth, flower and fruit production.
How to Make Dry Bone Meal Fertilizer?
Keep on reading to learn How to Make Dry Bone Meal Fertilizer.
Step 1. Clean the Bones
The first step is to remove any remnants of fat and meat from the bones. Consider scraping the surface thoroughly till they are spanking clean; if that isn’t effective, pressure cook the bones for 5 minutes.
Step 2. Bake
After cleaning the bones, bake them at 400-450°F or until they get all dry and fragile. Ideally, small and medium bones will take an hour to reach that stage. Keep them aside and let them cool down.
Step 3. Fragment
Transfer the bones to a tough bag or sack and use a bat or a rolling pin to smash them into tiny fragments about an inch long.
Step 4. Grind
Toss the bone pieces in a blender and grind them thoroughly till they form a fine mixture. Mix the bone dust with wood ash or sprinkle it directly on your garden bed.
Still confused? Learn how to make a dry bone meal in a video here
Preparing Liquid Bone Meal Fertilizer
1. Choose the Right Bone Type
The type of bone you choose will determine how nutritious the solution is. You can choose turkey bones, beef bones, chicken bones, and pork bones.
Beef bones work best. Turkey bones are equally effective. Chicken bones are easier to handle.
2. Clean Up
Use a knife or scraper to eliminate traces of meat, grime, and other residues from the surface of bones. This is important because the fatty deposition can retard the decay of the bones when they turn into dust later.
Consequently, your plants won’t be able to acquire the full components of nutrients they could. For a more thorough clean-up, boil the bones for an hour. This will remove fat and dismantle the bone marrow for the effective release of nutrients.
3. Bake
Keep the bones in an oven preheated to a temperature of 284 degrees or higher. This will dry them out completely to make the grinding process easier and also ensure that any pathogens are effectively killed.
If you don’t have an oven, consider steaming the bones in a pressure cooker for 30 minutes instead. Allow them to dry out before proceeding further.
4. Pound
Bones are among the toughest things in the world. That is why you have to smash them with a mallet to fragment them into pieces before the actual grinding process. Fragmentation will simplify and shorten the grinding process.
5. Grind
Toss the bone pieces into a grinder or grind them using a mortar and pestle until they’re not transformed into fine bone dust.
6. Test Your Soil
Make sure you know the nutrient composition of your soil. That way, you’ll understand how much water and bone meal to mix to prepare the liquid bone meal fertilizer.
If the calcium and phosphorus levels are high in your soil, add just a teaspoon or two of bone meal to regular fertilizer. Otherwise, increase the quantity if the soil is deficient in these minerals.
7. Mix ‘n’ Match
Mix the bone meal into the water in a pot over medium heat. The heat allows the water to absorb more bone meal than it would otherwise.
Continue mixing until no bone meal settles as sediment, then set the pot aside so your liquid bone meal fertilizer can cool down.
8. Follow-Up
Monitor the soil after every application to track changes over time. Determine the calcium and phosphorus levels in your soil to understand and adjust the quantity of bone meal in every fertilizer dose accordingly.
Preparing Bone Meal Tea
Bone meal tea is just a fancy name for organic compost-containing bone meal. It’s an excellent health drink for plants deprived of nitrogen and phosphorous.
Bone meal tea is typically made by mixing one to two tablespoons of bone meal in every gallon of steeped manure or compost tea. The mixture is allowed to homogenize and achieve equilibrium overnight.
You can apply it directly to the soil or sprinkle it over the foliage. Watch this video to understand the process of preparing bone meal tea!
- Jorge zunga
- February 16, 2019 At 3:46 pm
- Nice article i love as im a farmer in Mozambique many thanks.
- Reply
- Uma
- May 13, 2020 At 3:11 am
- Can we use the discarded bones from our meal to do this?
- Reply
- Irene Bollerman
- May 29, 2021 At 6:11 am
- Yes. I save mine in the freezer until I have enough to cook up in the crockpot to make bone broth for me, and bone meal for my ‘green friends’!
- Reply
- Jocelyn Simard
- June 4, 2020 At 1:10 am
- So you are tellimg me that whan I throw my chicken and beef bone to the trash and go to the store to buy a 40$ bone meal pot is not the way to go!!! lol!
- Reply
- JannyBee
- March 4, 2021 At 9:44 am
- So I just boiled a whole bunch of beef bones to make bone broth–and now I can make bone meal for the garden from them. It’s a great idea! Adding vinegar helps break down the bone as well–might make it easier to grind. Also, after making bone broth most of the bones are pretty clean and probably good enough to break down, but I might still pressure cook them with some vinegar so I don’t break my blender.
- Reply
- Ferdin Klyde Colomer
- December 1, 2021 At 2:38 pm
- Who is the author?
- Reply
- truestory
- December 12, 2021 At 4:07 am
- cool story
- Reply
- Brooke
- March 13, 2022 At 10:20 pm
- What happens if the bones aren’t Sparkling clean??
- Reply
- bobby
- April 24, 2022 At 1:01 am
- Your garden will smell like rotting meat until the scavengers come.
- Reply
- Jo Free
- September 7, 2022 At 9:13 am
- What I tend to do when making my own bone meal, for example, after we have had one of chickens we processed for a meal.
- I remove as much meat as possible and place it in a pressure cooker for stock for 1.5-2 hours.
- The remaining meat/tendons etc. should just fall off the bones at that point. The bones are also pretty brittle at this point. A lot of the smaller ones will just snap.
- Anyways, I then pop them in the oven at about 250 and bake them for 20-30 minutes to dry out. Sometimes you can hear them crackle after pulling them out.
- You can pound them a little bit to make them smaller, but you should be able to just throw those in a blender/food processor and they will gladly turn to powderized form in about 15-30 seconds.
- Reply
- Larry
- October 23, 2022 At 7:51 pm
- I make bone broth for consumption first.
- Bake bones in oven.
- Pressure cook the bones.
- Pour broth off and run them through the pressure cooker a second time.
- Put bones in dehydrator over night.
- Beat the living crap out of the dry bones.
- Reply
- Sarah Hawkins
- December 31, 2022 At 10:05 am
- And I have been sending bones to the dogs..
- Reply
Nice article i love as im a farmer in Mozambique many thanks.
- Irene Bollerman
- May 29, 2021 At 6:11 am
- Yes. I save mine in the freezer until I have enough to cook up in the crockpot to make bone broth for me, and bone meal for my ‘green friends’!
- Reply
Can we use the discarded bones from our meal to do this?
Yes. I save mine in the freezer until I have enough to cook up in the crockpot to make bone broth for me, and bone meal for my ‘green friends’!
So you are tellimg me that whan I throw my chicken and beef bone to the trash and go to the store to buy a 40$ bone meal pot is not the way to go!!! lol!
So I just boiled a whole bunch of beef bones to make bone broth–and now I can make bone meal for the garden from them. It’s a great idea! Adding vinegar helps break down the bone as well–might make it easier to grind. Also, after making bone broth most of the bones are pretty clean and probably good enough to break down, but I might still pressure cook them with some vinegar so I don’t break my blender.
Who is the author?
cool story
- bobby
- April 24, 2022 At 1:01 am
- Your garden will smell like rotting meat until the scavengers come.
- Reply
- Jo Free
- September 7, 2022 At 9:13 am
- What I tend to do when making my own bone meal, for example, after we have had one of chickens we processed for a meal.
- I remove as much meat as possible and place it in a pressure cooker for stock for 1.5-2 hours.
- The remaining meat/tendons etc. should just fall off the bones at that point. The bones are also pretty brittle at this point. A lot of the smaller ones will just snap.
- Anyways, I then pop them in the oven at about 250 and bake them for 20-30 minutes to dry out. Sometimes you can hear them crackle after pulling them out.
- You can pound them a little bit to make them smaller, but you should be able to just throw those in a blender/food processor and they will gladly turn to powderized form in about 15-30 seconds.
- Reply
What happens if the bones aren’t Sparkling clean??
Your garden will smell like rotting meat until the scavengers come.
What I tend to do when making my own bone meal, for example, after we have had one of chickens we processed for a meal.
I remove as much meat as possible and place it in a pressure cooker for stock for 1.5-2 hours.
The remaining meat/tendons etc. should just fall off the bones at that point. The bones are also pretty brittle at this point. A lot of the smaller ones will just snap.
Anyways, I then pop them in the oven at about 250 and bake them for 20-30 minutes to dry out. Sometimes you can hear them crackle after pulling them out.
You can pound them a little bit to make them smaller, but you should be able to just throw those in a blender/food processor and they will gladly turn to powderized form in about 15-30 seconds.
I make bone broth for consumption first.
- Bake bones in oven.
- Pressure cook the bones.
- Pour broth off and run them through the pressure cooker a second time.
- Put bones in dehydrator over night.
- Beat the living crap out of the dry bones.
And I have been sending bones to the dogs..
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