This DIY fertilizer formula comes from Steve Solomon, author
of Gardening When It Counts:  Growing Food in Hard Times and founder of
Territorial Seed Company.  His book is a
superb reference.  While he uses animal
manure in his gardens, it is primarily to add organic matter to the soil, not
nutrients.  The reasoning behind this is
that the nutrients in animal manures aren’t necessarily balanced, and you can
never be sure how beneficial they will actually be.  COF, on the other
hand, is perfectly balanced.  It also
takes much less space and doesn’t smell. 
You could actually store quite a bit of it in a garden shed or corner of
the garage for the future.

Here’s the simplest formula:

Complete Organic Fertilizer

16 parts seedmeal (I always use soybean meal)

4 parts bonemeal (or finely ground rock phosphate)

2 parts dolomite lime

1 part regular agricultural lime

1 part gypsum (if you don’t use or can’t get gypsum, double
the amount of agricultural lime)

These are all measured by volume, not by weight, and measurements
aren’t precise.  Use a scoop, jar, pot,
whatever you have on hand.  I usually mix
my fertilizer in a 4-5 gallon bucket. 

The best bet for getting the ingredients for this complete
organic fertilizer (COF) is to make a trip to the ranch and feed store.  If you live in a city, taking a drive out of
town may be worthwhile.  Buying these
ingredients in small bags at the nursery is an expensive proposition.

Seedmeal is a by-product of the production of cooking oil (soybean,
sunflower, canola, cottonseed, etc.) and is used as animal feed.  Seedmeals are quite stable and will store for
years if kept dry and protected from mice. 

Using the three types of lime recommended will yield the
best results.  Agricultural lime is
calcium carbonate.  Dolomite lime contains
about equal amounts of calcium and magnesium, while gypsum is calcium
sulfate.  All of these minerals
contribute to producing the healthiest plants and produce.  Do not substitute quicklime, burnt lime, or
hydrated lime.  Like seedmeal, these
limes are rather expensive if purchased in the pretty packages at nurseries and
the big box stores, but relatively inexpensive in large bags at the ranch and
feed stores. 

Steve Solomon advises sprinkling 4-6 quarts of COF per 100
square feet of soil and then working it in before planting.  That may be a little late for some of
you.  (I’ve gotten another inch of snow
in the past hour.  And it’s blowing hard
from the east.  That’s usually a bad sign
that a lot more is coming.  Well, bad in
April.  Good in December or January if
you want more sledding.  Please note that
it is not December or January.)  Sorry
for squirrel there.

Anyway, in an ideal world the COF gets spread on top of the
soil and worked in before planting. 
However, it also works well as a side dressing, particularly for medium-
and high-demand vegetables.  Add it at
about the same rate after the seedlings have been up for a few weeks.  Continue to side dress every 3-4 weeks.  Soil organisms break it down and release the
nutrients to the plants slowly, just the way they want them.

One of the great advantages of using COF is that it is a
slow-release fertilizer.  There’s no
danger of overdoing the application and burning—and killing—the plants.  COF provides all the nutrients vegetable
plants need to abundantly produce the most healthful vegetables for you.  Because it is concentrated, however, it is
also easy to store the blended COF or the individual ingredients, even when
space is limited.  And, unlike animal
manures, COF is relatively odorless.  It
just needs to be protected from moisture and mice. 

Links to related
posts:

Dirty Thoughts:  Manure and Compost Management in Doomsday

Black Gold (AKA Rabbit Manure)