Seaweed, an excellent fertilizer: five tips for using it in your garden
Seaweed, kelp, kelp, sea lettuce... Rich in trace elements and mineral salts, seaweed is an excellent fertilizer. "Terre de Jardins" explains how to use them to enrich your garden soil.

Do you live by the sea? Did you know that seaweed is an excellent fertilizer for your garden and vegetable patch? The process isn't very complicated, but there are a few rules to follow. Terre de Jardins , Ouest-France's gardening magazine, gives you five tips for using seaweed effectively.

1. Collect seaweed in summer
Start by collecting seaweed washed up on beaches during the summer, especially during high tides. All seaweed can be used, with green and red seaweed decomposing faster than thicker brown seaweed. But don't pull it up - it's forbidden.

2. Let the rain desalinate them
Place seaweed in a heap in a corner of your garden, either on the ground or on a tarpaulin. Let the rain desalinate it for several weeks. Too much salt will harm the micro-organisms in the soil and could burn plant roots.

3. Use seaweed as mulch
In autumn, spread a layer of dry seaweed up to 10 cm thick on the surface of the soil. In the vegetable garden, but also in flower beds or at the foot of fruit and ornamental trees and shrubs.This layer acts as a mulch.As they decompose, algae enrich the soil.They are ideal as a complement to other organic soil improvers, such as manure or compost, as they are low in nitrogen.

4.Digging seaweed into the soil

In March, before sowing or planting, bury partially decomposed seaweed superficially by lightly scratching it or using a grelinette.

5.What if you live far from the sea?
If you live far from the coast, seaweed is also available in powder form, for incorporation in autumn.But watch out for lithothamnion, also known as maerl. This powder comes from a red calcareous seaweed whose shoals are threatened with extinction, particularly on the Brittany coast.