Agriculture Vitamin Supplements for Plants ???

Recently in clearing out life expired medications and vitamin supplements I turned up a plastic jar of 180 x life expired (by a couple of months) Calcium + tablets. I looked through the active ingredients listing of the tablet composition and found that each tablet contains:

368 mg of Calcium,
125 mg of Magnesium,
1 mg Boron,
1.5mg of Manganese,
and 300mcg of Zinc

These are all micronutrients which plants use for various processes in plant development, growth and fruiting. Rather than simply throwing them out into the rubbish disposal...I thought that I would let the garden have the benefit of them instead.





I was concerned about potential harm using the tablets in this way, but after researching the internet, the consensus is that there would most likely be no harm to humans, though it was suggested that animals and children may be attracted to them....so my strategy for dealing with those concerns is to either crush them up into a powder and mix them in with potting soil or bury them deep in the potting soil out of sight of young children and critters.

Antibiotics and other medications should not be used in this way...they have no beneficial effect for plants and undermine the effectiveness of antibiotics to humans by producing super antibiotic resistant microbes.

In a SHTF PAW environment, myself rather than the plants would be using any life expired vitamin supplements I chanced upon...again the consensus is that the active constituents would not be harmful, but would simply lose their potency over time, with individual ingredients losing their potency at different rates. YMMV

 

This sounds a lot like Mittleider method. I understand there is a lack of consensus over the complete method, but I have had success using the addition of minerals/vitamins he recommends.

 

Thank you for the reference to the Mittleider method...it has its advocates and detractors. I think it probably has a place in the homesteader's gardening repertoire particularly if local conditions don't favour other options.

 

Could also desolve in water & use to water the plants (then no likelyhood of critters licking up the powder)

 

This is a great repurposing idea.