Seaweed?

A friend told me that seaweed is the best natural fertilizer. True? Anybody else use it?

Does it matter what kind of seaweed? Anything to watch out for?

Your input would be appreciated.

I was just today talking with a client who gardens here on Kodiak Island AK and she swears by it. The reason we were talking was I was so impressed with her flowers last summer when I was up here.
She told me her secret was seaweed.

Skaz, About 3/4 of the way down this thread, discussion turned to the benefits of seaweed. Basically, it seems that its a good thing.
Dave
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/556909/

Thanks for the input; it's good information.

I knew that I could buy seaweed products. I read that one of the benefits of buying a processed product is that salt is removed from the seaweed during the processing, as some plants are more salt-tolerant than others.

Has anybody done that? Does anyone know what problems I might run into by taking seaweed from the beach, and mixing it into my garden soil?

Steve

the only problem i run into is picking cigarette butts & other non-compostable detritus out of the seaweed i scavenge from the little beach at the kiddie park down the street.

but whatever.

i generally hot-compost it or dress the beds with it in the fall & let 'em sit over the winter, and so don't worry too much about residual salt.

the neighbors think i'm so nice for tidying up the neighborhood beach.

he. he. he.

Marie,

Does it need to be composted? I was looking for something organic to add to my soil this Spring.

I'm from Mass. by the way. Grew up in Worcester, lived in Mass most of my life. We moved down here in November '04 to get away from those wonderful winters.

Steve

Yes it should be composted but in FL you should get that done pretty quickly. After letting it dry use you weed wacker in a garbage can and soon you will have black gold. You will speed it up by using grass or blood meal in it. Nitrogen + Carbon (seaweed) = compost.

skaz421, i honestly don't know if seaweed *needs* to be composted or not; i'm finding it listed as both a green and a brown on conflicting web sites. it's fairly high in carbon, but it's so bright green that it seems like it would be wrong to just plop it on plants as a mulch. like soferdig said, it should break down pretty quickly in florida, no matter what you decide.

I always composted it to draw the NaCl out of it. But it broke down quickly so maybe that is why it is so great it has N + C+ trace minerals. I'm going to fill my suitcases here in Kodiak with seaweed to bring my garden to the top! Who needs clothes.

We used seaweed to bank the house for the winter one time. That was about 15 years ago. It's very clean, (no bugs) and easy to move around when it's dry. But it lasted for yeeeeaaaaars after we removed it. I can still find the hump where I left it.

I did put some of it in the compost and it did break down there. I must see if I can get another truck load to work into the soil. People around here still use it to bank their houses.

What does bank mean? Chipper shredders best. It was probably Kelp huh?

I was wondering that myself - protect against flooding, maybe?

Bank. Pile it all up around the base of the house to keep the heat in and the cold out.

I'm not sure what kind of seaweed it is. There's tons of it on the beaches at different times of the year. It's made up of very fine leaves that are sort of like very thinly shredded paper. Mostly black and grey/brown in colour when it's dry. It might be a type of kelp but it doesn't have those little mermaid purses on it.

Oh I see. We live in a farming area and everyone uses Straw bales etc. I am learning all kinds of difference between east coast and west coast. We called them kelp bobbers. You call them mermaid purses. Neat..

I used straw bales once but the next spring they were so heavy with water that I had a heck of a time moving them.

Does anyone know if dried Spartina grass could be used? I was just walking along the marsh and the tide was low; I noticed piles of dried Spartina that had washed up along the edge with the last tide. If I brought it home and ran over it with the mower I suspect I would still have to compost it so the salt would rinse out.