Homemade plant food?

art_student

I want to feed my plants but I don't want to buy chemical stuff.
I have heard that old teabags are good for the garden but could I, for example, sprinkle old tea leaves in my pot plants?
I am not an expert with plants - you might be able to tell!

Kay_Peel

I visited a Community Garden Centre in Manchester and came away with some great ideas for home-made plant food. The great Bob Flowerdew (Gardeners' Question Time on Radio 4) also put some ideas into my head. I've tried the lot!

1. Nettle Tea. I grow a patch of nettles. I pick a bunch and pour boiling water over it, then let it steep for a month. Dilute the finished product with ten times as much water.

2. Comfrey fertiliser. :lipsrseal Stink Alert! Stink Alert! _pale_ I grow a patch of comfrey, as well. I pick the leaves and steep them in rainwater in a plastic tub with a well fitting lid. It will blow your head off after six weeks. It's absolutely disgusting. :rotfl: Dilute with 10 times as much water and you have a fertiliser to beat them all.

3. Worm juice. From my wormery, I pour off the liquid by-product. That stinks too. I make a very weak solution with it.

4. The By-product from my Bokashi Bin. This is the Compost Bin that I have in the kitchen to take all the cooked and other waste food. I pour off the liquid and it smells like wine. I've bottled it, but haven't used it yet.

5. Bob Flowerdew swears by two things:
* Seaweed. Collect it, wash off the salt, submerge in boiling water and allow to steep. Dilute it to make a weakish foliar feed. Spray plants once a week.

* Weeds. Pour boiling water over them and allow them to steep, so that they are well and truly dead and the seeds have turned up their toes. Take weeds out and add to compost heap. Bottle it. For every pint of Weed Juice add 10 pints of water.

Anyone else got any recipes for me to try?

Kay

Sharifa_2

I'd second the comfrey juice, and human urine. Sounds revolting, but it's recycling at its best. (Obviously not on food plants).

angie_loves_veg

I use a 'manure tea', I suspend a bag of manure in a container of water. I add it to a can of water, diuting to make a 'weak tea' colour.