Fish misfortune, gardener delight

The cold has killed a great many fish; their loss can be your garden's gain.

By MAUREEN BYRNE

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 2, 2001

Imagine dozens of dead fish floating in a pond or canal behind your home.

It's not a pleasant sight, but it has become a common one. Unusually frigid temperatures this winter have led to a large number of fish kills.

Bad for fish, to be sure. But it's good news for gardeners.

If you can stand the smell and have a net, you may want to scoop a few fish to use as fertilizer, suggests the Pinellas County Department of Environmental Management.

"They're not hard to find," said Don Hicks, a county environmental specialist.

The county and state reported 76 fish kills in January, with the majority being in freshwater. About 1,000 fish died in one retention pond in Seminole, Hicks said.

Gardeners have been using dead fish as fertilizer for centuries, says Opal Schallmo, an urban horticulturist for the Pinellas County Cooperative Extension Service. "They always buried their fish under their plants," she said.

The practice isn't done much anymore in the United States, especially in urban areas, but it is making a comeback with organic gardeners, Schallmo said.

"There are a lot of die-hard organic gardeners who will be out there looking (for dead fish), for sure," she said.

Rather than use pesticides laced with chemicals or buy a processed fish fertilizer, some gardeners prefer fish. After the fish is buried, it slowly disintegrates and releases nutrients, including nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, into the soil.

So how should one go about using a fish as fertilizer?

Schallmo recommends the following:

Wear rubber gloves.

Put fish in sturdy plastic bags. The odor is too strong for a cooler.

Bury them at least 2 feet under the ground as soon as possible. Other animals, such as cats, dogs, raccoons and opossums, will smell the fish and dig them up if they are buried any shallower.

"That's the only drawback," Hicks said. "If you don't bury them deep enough, you're going to draw raccoons like flies."

Leo Van Meer of Clearwater, who has a Web site on organic gardening, said he used to make a compost out of dead fish. "It's very nutritious for the plants," he said.

Van Meer said he dug a 4-foot hole about the size of a barrel and layered pieces of fish and soil in the ground. He said a heavy piece of metal over the hole kept out his cats.

Hicks said the unusually cold weather during the second week of January is believed to have caused numerous fish kills in the Tampa Bay area. The dead fish sank to the bottom.

Cold water temperatures then slowed decomposition. But then warming conditions allowed decomposition, resulting in dead fish floating to the surface. When dead fish began appearing in ponds, lakes and canals, the calls started coming in to the county's Department of Environmental Management.

Two weeks ago, county staff members began receiving reports of dead fish in and around Lake Seminole. Other callers began reporting fish kills in other parts of the county, including Clam Bayou, McKay Creek, Lake Maggiore and Lake Tarpon.

Hicks said most of the fish killed are blue telapia, one of the most common species of fish in Pinellas County. "Since we haven't had a winter for three years, these populations have built up," he said.

Hicks said to expect more fish kills if cold temperatures continue.

Walt Zaleski, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Ruskin, said February shouldn't be as cold as January.

"We're coming out of what is considered the worst," he said, "but that doesn't rule out periods of cold weather."

- Staff writer Maureen Byrne can be reached at 445-4163 or at byrne@sptimes.com

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