Examples of Complete Fertilizers

Commercial Fertilizers

• Commercial fertilizers come with listed ratios of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. For example, a fertilizer with a 5-percent content of each nutrient will have a 5-5-5 ratio listed on its packaging. Any commercial fertilizer that does not contain a zero in its nutrient ratio has all three major nutrients and is a complete fertilizer. Different fertilizers contain different nutrients to accommodate various plant and soil types.

Homemade Fertilizer

• The University of Alaska Fairbanks recommends making a homemade complete fertilizer from wood ash, fish waste and bone ashes. Burned animal bones contribute phosphorous, fish waste contains nitrogen and wood ash contains potassium. However, keep in mind that the fish waste can attract bears, dogs and other animals.

Compost

• The National Gardening Association recommends compost to improve soil texture and fertility. Composts made of food scraps, plant waste and other combinations of organic materials contain nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium, making them complete fertilizers. Composts release these nutrients slowly over a period of time, so they contribute less to nutrient buildup, pollution-causing fertilizer runoff and unhealthy plant growth spurts than commercial fertilizers do.

Manure

• Manure contains nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium, making it a complete fertilizer. Different types of manure contain different concentrations of nutrients. For example, turkey manure contains more nutrients than horse manure. Horse manure also contains less phosphorous in relation to the other nutrients than turkey or poultry manure. Many university or gardening laboratories will test the nutrient content of manure samples for gardeners so that gardeners know how much manure to use in the yard.