Does it work immediatly?

Or does it take weeks to break down into a useable form?

Or should it be applied months in advance of the active growing season?

Thinking of vegetables. My mom bought me a bag today.

Not sure when to apply, and even though I searched here and googled, all answers were very bland and no exact answers as to how long it takes to break down and become available to plants.

I will now get off here and do some reading in books, but if someone knows, let me know.

Thanks!

There's a handful of bonemeal in Mumsey's magic mix, which she throws in when she plants her tomatoes. So it must do something fairly quickly.

I apply bone meal in spring; it goes into the soil before I plant carrots,beets,onion transplants,tomatoes,peppers.
Think 'heavy feeding' vegetable or vegetable type needing more phosphorus - like a root crop.
OK, if you have a lot of compost and your soil test shows adequate phosphorus...no need for bone meal.
But, bone meal takes awhile to break down and add nutrients...I look at it this way...for HEAVY feeders of phosphorous, it provides the phosphorous over a long and extended/slow release period.
Check out the formula on the label...my bone meal from FEDCO is only 1% Nitrogen/11% P
Other Bone meals are 4% N and 11 or more% P.
Nitrogen is not a bad thing...all growing things need Nitrogen and at 4% it is not a high number.
Now, Lawn fertilizer from Scott's, I believe is 15 to 35%(?...can't remember off hand)BUT, an N this high gives you a reference point.
Nitrogen is so easily washed into the environment and into our water ways...we have to be 'prudent': organic gardening usually gives a Nitrogen(N) of 4-5% N...necessary to plants during the growing season.

Actually, bone meal does take a while to break down, up to 4 months for it to be totally used up I think. I don't know why it works the way it does for me, but it does. So I just keep doing it and adding other ingredients to my "magic mix" so as to improve on it.
I'll be adding more stuff this year, merely experimental. I don't like to give out the secret til I know how it works!

Been reading old OG mag. June 1985 and a few others.

Seems viable in soil for about 6 months to a year. But couldn't really pinpoint how fast after application, it becomes available for plants to use.

So decided to dig it into the soil April 1st, and hope it is working by May 1st, when tomatoes and peppers and stuff will be heading out there.

Weather depending of course.

Will read more tomorrow and probably come across info that is completly opposite what I've already read. Gees!

It takes time for the soil bacteria to digest that material, several months. Bone meal is something to add in the fall, if you add any at all (there are organic gardeners that will not longer use bone meal at all and do not consider it organic), so the soil bacteria have time to process it and make whatever is in bone meal available to the plants. Applying bone meal now will do little for anything you plant this spring, next year most likely.

Hi Kimm1,

I was waiting on you. haha

I agree. I should have applied it in the fall, for better benifit. And I've been reading more this morning. Might wait till fall to apply. MIght apply half recomended amount soon and the other half again in the fall.

So this year or next, It will work. Soil is 6.8 in the one bed. Not sure till tomorrow, what it is in my new bed. But I figure the bonemeal won't be locked up with that ph.

If you apply dry molasses or other forms of aerobic biostimulants to the topsoil (like aerated compost tea recipes), where you have placed bone meal in the soil, the soil microbes and other beneficial soil organisms, will work at least twice as fast in digesting the bone meal materials into nutrients for your crops.

Happy Gardening!

Hi Captain Compost,

Hope all is well with you.

Yep, I was reading a few old threads about that.

And twice as fast sounds good.

Has your book come out yet? Looking forward to getting it!

Captain: That's a very helpful hint about adding the molasses to speed up the breakdown and uptake of bonemeal. Question: I'm fairly certain I have no access to dry molasses. Would it come as an ingredient in something else that would be easier to obtain and still be useful for the soil? If that's not an option, then could regular "liquid" molasses be substituted? Full strength or diluted?

Lisaann: You might be interested in liquid bonemeal. In a liquid state, its nutritional value is more readily availabile to plants. One manufacturer I know of is: http://www.aggrene.com/liquid_bonemeal.html

Hey Captain,

I found you somewhere else.

Gardenz,

Check out www.dirtdoctor.com

Are you there too? I'm practicing your search talents that you have been so kind to help me learn! Must admit, I am so slow at it, but...

Wondering if I can dissolve Bonemeal in water and have the liquid Bonemeal fertilizer your post displays.

Don't tell me. I'm going to try and research it. If I can't find the answer, Please permit me to beg your assistance.

Hi Lisaann,
A lot of good suggestions up front.
I guess they all are trying to turn you into
a farmer
There's a professor in Kona, Hawaii
that uses "nonsprayed', "non-poisonous"
compost material only and gets good results
He does not even fertilize his plants/veggies.
Here is a book that is a good reference,
even though it gets too complicated.
This book will help you ask good questions
about raising plants/veggies

3. The Soul of Soil: A Guide to Ecological Soil Management by Grace Gershuny and Joseph Smillie (Paperback - Jul 1996)
4 Used & new from $17.94
Books: See all 63 items
good luck,good health,
bill in socal

Food for thought.....years ago there was discussion from the USDA that bone meal could pass along Mad Cow Disease...........

http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/fertilizer1804.cfm

Yep, I read about the Mad cow in my readings. They were talking about it as far back as the mid 80's in the Og Mag's I was reading. I have alot of mags snatched up from yard sales. Supposed to be better controlled now as to where this stuff is made from. But you know how that goes.

Good Grief! I'm still reading. Probably forgetting as much as remembering.

Do you ever get like that? Get obsessed with something,read it too death, and by the time you are done, Don't know what to believe!

I'll experiment and keep notes. Wear body armour and gloves. If you don't hear from me, well you will know what happened. I either went crazy from reading, Or the other worse thing. Won't say it out loud. Might jinx myself!

I questioned a USDA spokesperson about bone meal safety and she said bone meal from the US is probably quite safe. But bone meal is traded around the world like a normal commodity and you don't know from where it came and how it was treated.

FWIW I haven't used bone meal since those "warnings" and my garden hasn't suffered either.