Locate at your area animal feed stores. They buy it bulk. Take your container. Get a gallon for an average of nine dollars and less if you get five gallons. You may need to swear on a stack of bibles that you will not use it for human comsumption. It will make the best soil and compost booster that money can buy. Four ounces in a gallon of warm water is a pretty good average use. Drench it to your soil and just dump it on your compost pile. Drenching is a little neater word than dumpping. That's all.
MOLASSES COMPOSITION
UNITED STATES SUGAR CORPORATION
Molasses & Liquid Feeds Division
P.O. Drawer 1207
Clewiston, Florida 33440
09/29/03
Typical Composition of
U. S. Sugar's Heavy Mill Run Cane Molasses
Brix, spindle 86.0 degrees
Weight/gallon 11.8-12.0 lbs
Nitrogen 1.01 % C: N approx. ~ 27
Crude Protein 6.30 %
Total Sugars 48.3 % 2001 NRC Dairy Cattle
Density (as fed) 11.8 lbs/gal TDN @ 1x maint. = 62.4%
Dry Matter 76.5 % NEm @ 3x maint. = 66.8mcal/lb
Moisture 23.5 % NEg @ 3x maint. = 44.8mcal/lb
Ash 16.0 % NEl @ 3x maint. = 58.1mcal/lb
Organic Matter 62.5 %
Reducing Substances, as Dextrose 11.5 %
Sucrose 35.9 %
Fructose 5.6 %
Glucose 2.6 %
pH 4.9 - 5.4
Calcium 0.8 %
Phosphorus negligible
Potassium 4.2 %
Chloride 2.1%
Magnesium 0.27 %
Sulfur 0.78 %
Sodium 0.09 %
Copper 14 ppm
Iron 130 ppm
Manganese 5 ppm
Zinc 8 ppm
Cobalt negligible
Iodine negligible
Selenium negligible
Biotin 3 ppm
Folic Acid 0.04 ppm
Inositol 6000 ppm
Calcium Pantothenate 60 ppm
Pyridoxine 4 ppm
Riboflavin 2.5 ppm
Thiamine 1.8 ppm
Niacin 500 ppm
Choline 700 ppm
Back to Blackstrap Molasses
LOOK AT THE GOODIES IN BLACK STRAP MOLASSES
Oops...........fair warning. Black Strap Molasses is chuck full of living biology. Keep your cap on the bottle cracked and the bottle sitting in a tray to catch a run over if it works up and expands in the bottle. If you do not do this and the occasional event happens you will never forget to do it in the future. LOL
Doc, After reading another of your posts last year I purchased a bottle of the Molasses to use this spring. When organizing my gardening supplies this winter, I knocked it over and broke it. Guess I won't get to see it expand!!! Does it come in plastic bottles? LOL
doc, do you think you would get the same effect if you used left over black strap for cooking? I often have a few ounces left in my kitchen bottle when I replace it. Ric
What a great idea! I would never in a thousand years have thought of adding this to soil or compost.
All human food processed molasses has a lot processed out of it and then a preservative is added. Your human food molasses is not near as good as raw low processed cattle grade black strap molasses for your gardening.
You need to take your own bottle or container to the cattle food grain mills. The whole idea is to get it raw and plum full of what you see above in the contents.
Human food grade would not hurt your gardens in any way but it is not nearly as good as the raw low processed cattle grade for gardening.
Cattle grade is not suggested or processed for human food use in any way at any place.
doc, I thought that molasses for human consumption may be over processed, or pasteurized at the least. What's good for a ruminating gut probably isn't good for us.I'll see if my son can get me feed grade at Tractor Supply. Thanks a bunch. Ric
doc, I have another question related to compost? If I brought sea weed home and washed it, then composted it, could I use this to enhance soil less mixes. I know it would probably provide a good dose of trace elements as well as the organics involved. I think one of the things missing from many of my light mixes is the trace, be it boron, zinc, or magnesium. I believe that the sea weed, composted would retain it's negative properties and carry the trace to the mix. You thoughts please. Thanks, Ric
Doc glad you clarified the difference between grocery store molasses and feed store - I used to use it in another "witches brew" I'd been told was good for feeding plants.
Just checked with our local Booth Feed (for those of you in VA) - they carry gal size for just about $10.95 - I've not contacted Southern States yet. I know any time Booth Feed doesn't have something in stock they will order it for you and it comes in within days.
Doc, That is so funny. I read all of those Bokashi threads and other composting threads and none of them mentioned not to use food grade Molasses!! So now I will start searching for the real deal down here in farmless suburbia.
stormyla- I doubt you can be much more farmLESS suburban than me, but we have farm stores for the horse people--so give it a try.
I guess I am lucky, there is a feed mill right up the block from me. I have been know to take my husbands old rebuilt wagon from his childhood and go up there to get bag of peat. It beats them putting it in the trunk of the car and me trying to get it out. With the wagon I can pull in right into the yard where I need it. The biggest problem is not hitting any bumps where it bounces off the wagon on the way home.
ladyg, what a quaint mental image you gave me! Love that "yankee ingenuity"!
Even though I was born in TX and returned to it as a teenager, I lived some of my childhood years in OH and NJ. Lot's of great folks called yankees and wonderful gardeners!
nb You should see the look on the guy's face when he carries it out to my "car". LOL
I bet that is funny. I was even wondering if driver's stopped and asked you if you needed any help?!
Not many drivers see me, it's a quick trip. I get the occasional Amish buggy go by the house to the mill, and farm trucks loaded with corn in the fall and feed year round. It's off the main road, mostly locals and farmers.
Being the gardener that I am, when a buggy goes by and I'm lucky to have a road apple drop I get the old shovel out and add it to the compost pile. I'm just keeping the street clean ; )
lol- I was watching some kind of historical show recently about horses in English villages, anyway the narrator said the English ladies would have a shovel and pan tucked behind the door and go run and fight over who got the apples for the garden.
That's hilarious! My little bit of suburbia doesn't have many horsey visitors, but I did invest in a whole trailer full (a whopping $20) of rabbit manure last summer. The catch was we had to shovel it onto the trailer, but it was soooo worth it! Even after putting a bunch in beds, pots, etc. we still have some to give our compost a boost!
BLACK STRAP MOLASSES - check!!! DD was gonna be right across the street, from the Booth Feed, for an interview - so I put in my request. Her response: "Do I even want to know what THIS is for?" LOL...silly girl! I said "PUH-LEZ, wadda ya think?" She got "the look" - and said: "Plants, mom...of course it's for the plants" ROTFLOL...so sad.
I think she's got your number Chantell! You could have told her you were going to make her some heavy duty ginger snaps!
LOL - nah, she'd know better...although I was on a how to make the healthiest muffin kick last year which DID include molasses and ground flax meal among other good stuff
Sounds yummy!
I cannot find it anywhere in the county. I have friends looking for it in Utah. So frustrating. I bought people molasses because I felt it would be better than nothing. Amazon has it for $7.25 for 2 gallons with $13.00 shipping. Forget it. Docpipe will tell me different. .. That is OK because i love docpipe and his lovely wife. Sharon from Las Vegas.
Nothing at all wrong with people grade...............it is just simply not quite as good as the cattle grade. I have a book here where in the arthur goes around dumping Coke on his garden. He's doing the same thing a at a horrible expense. Beer works too but what a waste for a poor grade booster. LOL
Sharon, I had a feed store order it in for me. Maybe one in your area could do that for you.
Unfortunately, I suppose Nevada does NOT have the deer hunting that we have on the Est Coat, and so we can buy deer molasses in the hunting stores here. Under ten bucks (har har) a gallon. Note though, someone saw a lot of sodium on the label of one of the deer molasses mixes.
I finally had to order it from Amazon. It is against the law for hunters to use Black Strap Molasses to bait deer in Nevada and Utah. So they will not order it in. I bit the bullet and paid the shipping. Tried by getting their credit card but it coming from someone beside Amazon so still shipping. I will cancel that card as soon as I get the bill.