How To Store Organic Fertilizer

One of the nice things about using organic lawn fertilizers is that their safe and natural. Many of the ingredients are used in animal feed. If you're storing your organic fertilizer in your garage or shed you might be concerned about your pets or the local wildlife (mice, rats, squirels, racoons, skunks, deer, bears) sniffing it out and breaking through the bag. It is also important to keep the organic fertilizer dry so that it doesn't spoil.

The best and most affordable items I've found for storing dry organic fertilizers are the Iris Pet Food Containers. It makes sense since these fertilizers are essentially pet food. The Iris pet food storage containers are durable and airtight. They'll keep the fertilizer fresh and prevent any animals from smelling the "food" and getting in to it. Use the link above to order from Amazon which has the best prices I've seen and free shipping on most of the sizes you would need. It also looks like Iris products are made in the USA.

They also makes storing the products easier and neater. You can stack them and unstack them quickly. You should label the containers so next application you know what's inside or you can just throw the whole bag inside the container which will make it obvious what the contents are.

If you're like me and you buy fertilizer for the entire season all at once, or sometimes have products that will last more than one season and need to be stored you will appreciate having the Iris pet food containers. The only difficult decision is which size you'll need. Organic fertilizer and ammendments are sold in lbs and these containers are sized in quarts.

What I have discovered that 1 lb of organic fertilizer is roughly 3 cups. It's not exact but it's close enough for most organic soil ammendments that with a little room for error should help us make the right size decision. The container doesn't need to be filled to the top to keep the fertilizer from spoiling.

For your convenience, below is a table listing Iris pet food containers and the amoung of organic fertilzer or soil ammendments they should be able to hold.

Container	Size (qts)	Holds (lbs)	Comments
	8 qts	9 lbs	Good for storing one or two bags of the Espoma Organic Tones small bags
	12 qts	14 lbs	Good for storing left over fertilizer or amendments from larger bags or 3-4 of the Espoma Organic Tones small bags
	15 qts	17 lbs	Good for left over fertilizer for large bags or mixing multiple small 4-5 lb bags.
	21 qts	25 lbs	Good size for holding common 25 lb bags of organic fertilizer or ammendments. Not quite easy to just throw an entire unoppened bag in it but you can empty out the bag in this container.
	28 qts	32 lbs	Has wheels to make it easy to move around. You can throw an entire 25 lb bag in this, bag and all or half of a 50 or 60lb bag.
	30 qts	35 lbs	Also good for storing whole 25lb bags or 30 lb bags as well as left over fertilizer from larger bags.
	46 qts	51 lbs	Good for storing 2 25 lb bags or one 50lb bag emptied.
	55 qts	62 lbs	Good for storing large 50-60lb bags of organic fertilizer or amendments or 2 25lb bags.
	60 qts	68 lbs	Good for storing large 50-60lb bags of organic fertilizer or amendments or 2 25lb bags.
	67 qts	76 lbs	This is the largest size they have, good for storing large bags of fertilizer or a couple of smaller bags.

They have different lid colors and you can choose to get them all to match or use the different colors to help identifiy different organic ammendments. There is a price difference between colors so I just went with the cheapest ones.

Iris also makes a 2 cup scoop to help empty the containers into your spreader. It also has free shipping from amazon so if you order a container add the scoop for 2 bucks more, it will be well worth it.

If you want to be super neat and organized, Brother makes and affordable label maker that will help you identify what you have in each container.

Hope you found this information useful and that it makes it easier for you to use organic products on your lawn. One of the difficulties in using organic fertilizers and ammendments is you can't always find what you want locally. So you either order it online or have to drive quite a ways. To save money on gas and shipping I tend to buy more than I need. I also don't have a huge lawn so in some cases one 50lb bag might be good for 3 or more applications and I need to be able to safely store what was left over.