Gardening Tip: Homemade Fertiliser Tea

We all love a nice cup of tea and your garden is no different, but before you reach for the PG Tips, please read on because your garden is quite particular on how it likes it's brew.

“Compost tea” and “manure tea” have been cornerstones of organic gardening for an extremely long time. It's a straightforward process that involves little more than tossing some compost or manure into a bucket of water and letting it steep for anything from a few days to a few weeks. (stirring daily.)

“Fertiliser teas” made from plants are just as easy and they have the added benefit of not requiring you to get covered in manure or use any precious compost.

Not many people know that you can make homemade 'fertiliser tea' that’s 100% organic and basically allows you to feed your plants with your own plants! By using your own garden weeds and grass you can put back the nutrients they have taken to provide a great boost for your garden in midsummer when your plants run low on soil fertility.

Here’s how to make fertiliser tea at home in 5 easy steps.

1. Next time you are weeding the garden, throw chopped weeds into a bucket, chopping them up as you go. Grass cuttings can go in too.
2. When the container is about half full, fill it with water. Use rainwater! It's the best (also free!).
3. Screen the top to keep unwanted bugs out. You can use a piece of net or fine mesh.
4. Stir daily for between 7 days to 2 weeks, per batch.
5. Strain the liquid and use as a fertiliser spray. After you strain off the liquid, return the solids to your compost pile. It can be diluted or used full strength on established plants. Since plant leaves tend to absorb more nutrients more quickly than roots, spraying is an efficient way to fertilise versus a soil drench.

There you go, it's that simple. Weeds are jam packed full of nutrients that they have stolen from your soil, so it is only fitting to extract the water soluble ones and return them to your garden plants.

Happy gardening,

Lou

Louise EvansI caught the gardening bug as a child, helping my grandparents on their allotments every weekend and school holiday. Later I studied for my RHS qualifications at evening class while working days at our local garden centre, and in 2014 Ken and I set up Plants2Gardens. Now I garden around my 2 girls, who love sowing seeds and potting up, and a lot of animals: chickens, dogs, rabbits and a guinea pig. None of them are green-fingered, but they keep me laughing.Published 28 April 2022