I think I normally have spread it around at 10 lbs. per 1000 s.f. in general but in the beginning when our poor red clay was very low in organic matter and in just pitiful shape, I'm pretty sure that I spread it at twice that amount just to try to stimulate more microbial activity. I also tend to throw handfuls of it on the compost pile now and then---using it as a form of compost starter. I'm pretty casual and don't measure precisely, but I do try to set the fertilizer spreader at the right rate so that no area gets too much. I don't know that too much would hurt, but I don't want to waste it by spreading more than the soil needs either. Back in the beginning here, before we even bought a fertilizer spreader, I just walked around with a bucket of dry molasses and scattered handfuls of it, trying to distribute it evenly. I weighed how much molasses the bucket would hold, then estimated how much ground that many pounds would cover and tried to make that bucket cover that amount of area. I can tell you that it is a whole lot easier to do this (and more precise) with a fertilizer spreader. Oh, and here's my favorite tip for killing unwanted grasshoppers and June bugs---put a few handfuls of dry molasses in a 5-gallon bucket of water. Set it on the ground near an outdoor light that remains on overnight. In the mornings you'll find it full of June bugs and, in season, grasshoppers. I guess they are attracted to the sweetness of the molasses and drown in the bucket. Skim off the dead bugs onto the ground, and you'll be able to use the bucket indefinitely. I've done the same thing in the past with alfalfa tea and compost tea. The buckets of tea won't kill all the June bugs or grasshoppers, but you'll be amazed at home many find their way into that molasses tea daily. I tried to replicate this in the garden itself by putting quart canning jars filled with molasses tea in the garden and it didn't attract grasshoppers in the same way.

Well I sure learned something from this post Dawn. I've never heard of this!

All the yrs. on here I've never seen anyone mention it.

Thanks for the info!

Hi Sorie, You're welcome. Dried molasses is a great biostimulant that encourages microbial life in soil (or compost piles---you can add it to a compost pile to encourage more rapid decomposition).

Dawn

Bump