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Hey Guys! It’s Phil from SmilingGardener.com and I’m back at my place in Ottawa, so I don’t actually have a garden to show you anything today but I do have something to show you about molasses as fertilizer.
And for the thing, I have always to say you at the beginning in the video is for those who haven’t picked up the 15 Vital Organic Gardening Lessons for becoming a Better Organic gardener, you can do that at SmilingGardener.com
The reason I always have to say that at the beginning of the video is because a lot of people watch this on YouTube or other places and they haven’t picked up those free lessons yet, I know a lot of you have picked them up because I’m getting a lot of emails about them.
Before I start talking about molasses as fertilizer which I want to talk about today, I also show you where Ottawa is for people who don’t know. So there’s the US and Canada, it’s the capital of Canada and its right there a few hours east of Toronto, and I think we’re – I’ve never driven to New York City from here, but I have from west of Toronto so I think it’s probably 10 hour drive to New York City. So that’s where Ottawa is.
So what I’m gonna do is sit down here, and talk about what I want to talk about today which is using molasses as a fertilizer and I have a bottle of blackstrap molasses right here, and you know it’s not, it’s not some kind of silly home remedy to use molasses as a fertilizer, it’s actually one of the most important things in my fertilizer tool kit that I bring into my garden quite a lot from here. It’s not really; maybe I shouldn’t call it a fertilizer. What really it is, its sugar mainly there’s nutrients is in there, too.
But it’s mainly a carbohydrate source for the microorganisms on the plant leaves and on the mulch of a new soil. You know really, sometimes it’s just the simplest thing that your garden needs. So if your garden is just not as healthy as it should be; if you have some pest problems or even if you just wanna, you know, make it as healthy as it can be try using molasses as fertilizer.
Sometimes it’s molasses, its sugar is what’s needed in your garden because the microbes need a sugar source. You know, the main time, I really wanna make sure I used it if I am also applying a microbial inoculants like effect of microorganism compost tea.
Here I’m gonna rest this down here.
Then I can make sure that when they hit those leaves, they have something to consumed to start eating right away so that can get-get to work. The other time, I’m really want to make sure I used it is that I’m using a nitrogen fertilizers, so like a liquid fish or if you’re using some kind of other nitrogen products.
You wanna balance it with the carbon, kind of like what we have a composed pile we wanna balance the carbon to nitrogen ratio same thing with the molasses here. And over all, you know, if you have just a garden that isn’t quite up to its health potential. I think if you don’t have the nutrient cycling going on, if you don’t have humus being formed, you know, you don’t have enough carbon in there and you can bring it in very quickly with molasses.
So what you can do is just mix it with 100 parts water so 10 milliliters of molasses in a liter of water and what I’m usually gonna do is mix it with things like liquid kelp, I talked about with microbial inoculants and the fish liquid nitrogen. So I usually am gonna mix them all together in a back pack sprayer or a hose and sprayer or even a watering can, that’s all you have that will work too.
So that’s how to use it, basically I’ll do that once a month or even once a week you know just, it’s just a little bit of molasses you end up putting out there, but a– and with all the other things, but just do it regularly is the way we wanna do it.
What else do I wanna talk about with regards to molasses, when to use it? Yeah, I think that’s mostly what I want to talk about. Oh! I guess I should tackle what kind to use. You know, I wanted to use unsulphured that’s the main thing that matters to me, because the form of sulfur that they used in molasses is use as a preservative to kill microorganism and obviously we’re trying to the opposite, we’re trying to feed microorganisms.
So we want something it says unsulphured like this one does. I don’t know if it’s gonna focus on that. Yeah! Unsulphured. I like to use organic molasses, you know, in this case you don’t really have to use an organic product I just like to support the organic movement and all that.
Generally, I like a blackstrap molasses it should say somewhere on here. Is it say it on here? Yeah! Blackstrap. Alright, you can see on the bottle. So blackstrap molasses, that’s what I used when I’m activating my EM, my effective microorganisms that’s what I have around.
And that’s what I want to used the blackstrap for that. If you don’t have blackstrap, you can just spray this into your garden you know any kind of Barbados, any- it doesn’t matter which pressing of the- which boiling of the sugarcane, any kind of molasses works just fine.
This – a bottle, a liter bottle of this stuff would cost about $10, this little bottle is more like $6-7 or $7 for half a liter or half a quart, so it’s better to get the liter. Or if you buy it in bulk it would be even cheaper.
And so that’s all there is, if you wanna go use this right away in your house too, a really good experiment to do is to if you have, if you get some new house plans, or if you start some new little starters with some seed or something just like that.
Half of them just water with water and the other half water with just a mixture of this with 1 to 100 parts molasses to water. So 10 milliliters of molasses to 1 liter of water and water half of plants with that and do that whenever you water. And you’ll see over time, you’ll probably see a pretty big difference just by getting that carbon in there and feed the microorganisms and your soil.
So hopefully that’s helpful there. I think everyone should be using molasses as fertilizer, it’s like I said it’s not a- it’s not kinda like corky little home remedy, it’s one of the most important thing that I use so hopefully that’s helpful to you.
Again, if you wanna pick up the 15 Vital Lessons for Becoming a Better Organic Gardener you can do that at SmilingGardener.com and that’s just a bunch of lesson that when I was first learning about organic gardening I got really excited about, so I put them together in to these series, that’s pretty cool. So that’s SmilingGardener.com and I hope you’ll enjoy this, and I’ll see you next week.
i think it was Adele Davies, the pioneer nutritionist of natural food cookbooks who recommended blackstrap molasses for we humans… a tablesppon in the am
I am very glad to see your video. Its very interesting. I would like to write my PhD thesis on the performance of crops by using molasus as fertilizer. Can I please apply molasus as it is or is there any pretreatment?Thank u in advance
Interesting. I would mix it with 100 parts water. You’ll want to test a variety of environments, because molasses is sometimes very helpful and sometimes not as important. There’s no magic bullet for all crops.
Is beet molasses OK to use?
You bet. Any unsulphured molasses is great.
I would be wary of beets because so many are genetically modified
True – that’s why it’s a good idea to stick with organic molasses, whether from beets or otherwise.
I am a small organic farmer. Please realize that Organic and GMO should not be confused- they are different subjects. A person can grow GMO plants organically or not. A person can grow a non-GMO plant organically or not.
One would ideally use molasses from sources ( sugar cane, beets) that are both non-GMO, and grown organically.
Helen. We are certified organic farmers. GMOs are absolutely NOT allowed. Check out the Organic Standard, it’s clearly outlined and we would lose our certification if we did use GMOs.
Molasses is essentially raw sugars from plant matter, I don’t think the source really matters much, the microbes just need the raw unprocessed sugars to ferment the fertilizers in the soil and increase the bio-availability for the plants.Other nice things to add are soluble silica like Potassium Silicate, it gets absorbed by the plants and helps the plant absorb fertilizers and minerals. Some people also swear by a good B-vitamin supplement like Superthrive or similar. Superthrive acts to make root development more pronounced allowing the plant to absorb water, nutrients etc… It also has one other rooting compound in it, while that portion is not fully organic it is still most beneficial in the starting stages of plant growth. You can reduce use of Superthrive as it gets closer to the flowering or fruit stages of plant growth. You can also use Superthrive/molasses/Silica combo to start clones of plant clippings, use a razor blade and cut off a clipping at a 45deg angle or so usually around a plant nodule or split, then take that clipping and spray it with the compound mixture and wrap the cut end with a paper towel, spray the clipping/paper towel every few hours to keep it moist, place clipping and paper towel under a grow light, allow the roots to form then place clipping into a soil or other growing medium, sometimes depending on the size of the clipping you may need to support the clipping until the plant fully roots and starts growing again. Some people say that if you clip the ends of the leaves it forces the plant to work on root and new growth, whether or not this is true is speculation. Don’t forget to use a suitable fertilizer for the type of plant you are growing, don’t over fertilize a clipping as you may cause burnout and kill your plant. different stages of growth require different amounts of fertilizer. Good luck.
Sorry accidently flagged my own post LOL please ignore flag 😀 Thank you.
Does molasses and water kill weeds or bugs
No, but it can help improve plant health so that plant-feeding insects decrease.
I just read an article stating that 1tsp of molasses per gallon of water will work as an insecticide as the sugar in molasses is toxic to all insects except bees and sugar ants…will see results soon…
Bowie We have been spraying our pasture with molasses @ half cup molasses to one gallon water, mostly to improve soil, I have not seen any evidence that it effects insects.
We have a lot of grass hoppers, and still have a lot of them. We have not sprayed the garden plants with mixture. Keep us informed how it works for you.
Robert
Interesting. I going to try that out rhis summer. You stated the ratio was 100 water to 10 milliliters, but later on you stated the ratio is 1 liter (1000ml)water to 10 milliliters molasses?
Hi Gus, the dilution is 1:100, which is 10ml of molasses per liter of water. I’ve done as low of a dilution as 1:50 and as high as 1:250.
Molasses does get rid of insects such as red ants but it doesn’t kill them. Use orange oil with the molasses 2 ounces per gallon and that will kill them and it won’t hurt your lawn or garden.
Thanks Lyndon! Presumably, you want to be careful not to spray it on beneficial insects.
I just found out about this with cannabis plants my question is can i use this mixture in my soilonce a week as well as foilar my plants(spray on the leaves and buds)once every two weeks, or is this to much qnd would it be more beneficial to just use the water and molasses mixture qnd soil my plants once a week and just regularly water them daily in between, qlso is this best to do at night or during the day?
I would do the soil more like max once a month. I might do the leaves/buds more often – not generally on its own, but rather mixed with other fertilizers and inoculants.
Is this molasses and water sufficient to be used in a large housing developmentyards and lots of trees, bushes and plants
It can definitely help. I tend to recommend a concentrated ocean water product as being even more beneficial, but monthly applications of the molasses could help, too.
Is this molasses mixture more beneficial for organic gardening or regular lawns?
Well, molasses isn’t a magic bullet. It’s just a way to get some sugar to the microbes along with some minerals. So it could be beneficial to both lawns and gardens. It really depends on what’s going on with the soil and soil food web already.
Cars are parked in areas to be sprayed with the molasses mixture. Will it harmpaint on cars??
I use molasses at the rate of a cup of molasses to a litre of water, then use that mixture at 1ml to a litre of water to water thousands of orchids and have dopne so for over ten years. Plants love it. Helps to keep ants away to. I do mix it with other fertilizers, organic and inorganic, depens on the time of year and which genera I’m going to use it on.John Hughes
It’s amazing how just little doses of these kinds of things can still help. You seem to be using it at 1:4000 parts water and it’s still beneficial. Very cool.
Does honey work also?
For some reason I’ve never heard anyone mention honey in any research or books. Maybe cause it’s antimicrobial – I don’t know.
You mentioned a recipe using molasses for fire ants but I can not locate it. Thanks
It’s worth a try. Use 1/4 cup molasses per gallon of water (1:60 ratio) and spray away.
What about in orchid soil?
These days, I tend to use sugar instead of molasses when I’m watering the soil, and I save the molasses for when I’m watering plants. Sugar is a little more appropriate for the soil.
Hi phil you mention using sugar, which sugar do you use and how much to dilute with water when feeding yr lawn.
Miryana
Any sugar is fine. Dilution doesn’t much matter – just enough to get it spread evenly. A 1:50 ratio is common (1/3 cup of sugar per gallon of water). I’d do approximately 1/3 cup per 500 square feet every month or so.
So would that be normal molasses you get from the animal feed shop??or are there different types
Yes, normal molasses, hopefully unsulphured.
how to check that molasses is unsulphured ?
It should say on the label.
How often should molasses be applied ?
There’s no set frequency, but I like one a month.
I am very impressed. I grow 2 acres of garden. I plan to use molasses soon. Can it be used on sweet corn?
Thank you for all of this information. There is always more to learn.
Tracy
Yes, it can be used on corn 🙂
If I put the molasses & water on when tne sun is out (I live in SE Queensland so pretty hot) will it burn the plants, or should I wait till evening, or should I just water it on the base of plants.
Thanks
It won’t burn, but it’s better to do in early morning or evening because the plant should theoretically take more of it in.
Hi I have just bought molasses which is sulphured if it is exposed to the air and watered down will it still be ok to use on the garden?
Yep!
Can I use Molasses collected from Sugar Mil in wheat crop? at what concentration? (2 table soon per liter water? we grow wheat at zero tillage after harvesting rice crop, can I use molasses on rice residue before wheat planting through drill machine as first dose??
Yes, but do it as an experiment for the first year to see what happens.
I want to spray my pasture with molasses, how much molasses to a gallon of water and how many gallons of mixture to an acre?.
Thanks you for the help
Approximately 1/4 cup per gallon of water, which will do about 500 square feet. So that’s about 1.4 gallons of molasses in 90 gallons of water per acre. Ideally, you’d mixed this with an equal amount (1.4 gallons per acre) of BioAg while you’re at it ( https://www.smilinggardener.com/sale/effective-microorganisms-and-scd-probiotics/ ).
How do you think it improves but health in humans?As a child I remember we were given a spoonful daily.
Also could you feed diluted to chickens in their water?
Good questions. I’m not a health practitioner of any kind, so I’m not sure.
Molasses is rich in beneficial minerals. Especially blackstrap molasses.
I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt the chickens to dilute in their water!
I use mollases as rust remover, just put this on mu lawn & almost instantly it attracted heaps of Bee”s. Says to me it must be good☺
So many of you are worried about bugs and rather molasses kills them. Try using nematodes as they will destroy the bad guys in your soil. They are microscopic parasites that do not harm people or animals. You can buy them at some garden centers or do what I do apply them through tea compost. Nematodes are attracted to natural compost piles.
Here in the Seattle area we have a huge slug problem and since applying the tea compost they are almost non existant.
As far as the molasses goes I want to try it on my lawn. I love to add it to my raw milk.
Molasses is expensive here in Qatar
I want alternative source of sugar as a fertilizer
Other types of sugar can be helpful, too, even just regular sugar. It’s worth doing a test.
I’m a 4th generation farmer from Humboldt County My family has been using molasses forever On every time of crop 1200 acre fields down to a small backyard garden And my cousin is the founder of humble county nutrients and insists on using molasses From my family’s records it show’s significant increase in overall weight of product no matter what it is !