Bunny poo killed my tomatoes!

[Gordon]

Normally, this time of year, I have a lush mini forest of tomato plants growing in my small backyard garden, but this summer, I decided to experiment with using bunny poops as a fertilizer. Big mistake on my part, apparently! --My tomato plants have yellowed and withered. They look like they do after the first frost in October!



My guess is the urine that soaked into the poops scalded my poor tomato plants. You live and you learn, LOL.



Has anybunny else tried using bunny poo in your garden, with any success, or have you had a similar problem?

 

[Bangbang]

Havn't used it on vegetables but have put it in the garden and its been fine HOWEVER only the pellets never the wee soaked section of the litter.

 

[naturestee]

I started using bunny poo and a tiny bit of wee-soaked litter this year in the garden. It works great! We're spreading it on the lawn now too. BUT tomatoes need a different fertilizer balance so they get their own special fertilizer spikes. That's probably why bunny poo didn't work for you.

 

[Starlight Rabbitry]

I put in our garden with no problems. Perhaps something else burned your plants? I feel for you....I love tomatoes!!!

Sharon

 

[Bunnicula]

I toss the dry poop onto our front flower bed all the time (poops that are sometimes left around the house when playing). The wet litter (Carefresh recycled paper pulp) & poop I toss into our compost bin. It gets mixed with other organic matter, so I think that it "neutralizes" the urine inthe resulting compost. That has worked well with no adverse effects in the garden.

I did what you did on a flower bed one year (back then we were using pine chips) and some of the shrubbery in that bed seemed to get burned/brown. But not all of them. So I was uncertain as to what the real cause was...the pine (acidic in nature), the urine, or another factor...but I tended to blame it more on the pine than the urine.

There are folks who've found ways to use cat excrement as a fertilizer, too (once it's been "eaten" by worms). But they do not recommend using it on food gardens.

 

[seniorcats]

naturestee wrote:

I started using bunny poo and a tiny bit of wee-soaked litter this year in the garden. It works great! We're spreading it on the lawn now too. BUT tomatoes need a different fertilizer balance so they get their own special fertilizer spikes. That's probably why bunny poo didn't work for you.

I agree! The urine shouldn't have scalded the plants. Urine contains high amounts of nitrogen which is good for green growth.It may encourage more green growth at the expense of flowering plants - fewer flowers and fewer fruit, veg, etc.

 

[pamnock]

I did post on a recent thread that rabbit fertilizer should be properly decomposed before using.

Pam

 

[polly]

Yeah Pams right ther was a big article in this months fur and feather magazine about it this month but they were saying to compost it first they also said it is the richest type of fertiliser you can get

 

[seniorcats]

polly wrote:

Yeah Pams right ther was a big article in this months fur and feather magazine about it this month but they were saying to compost it first they also said it is the richest type of fertiliser you can get

I didn't know it had to be composted. I used a big fresh bucket on my forsythia. Fortunately, it did just fine. :bouquet:

 

[undergunfire]

When I clean out Marlin's litter box every two days, I sprinkle all the litter (Woody Pet stuff) and his poopy out in our front garden where strawberries and tomatoes grow...and the plants look so much better then before. The tomatoes are growing great .