Feed Your Garden With This Organic Liquid Fertilizer Tea—for Free!
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Feed your plants—with other plants! It may sound strange, but you can use your own weeds and grass to make homemade fertilizer tea that’s 100% organic. It’s a great boost for your plants in midsummer when soil fertility is running low. Here’s how to make fertilizer tea at home.
Yes, garden plants appreciate a spot of tea now and then, too—just like I do—as a pick-me-up. No expensive Earl Grey or Darjeeling for them, though. Instead, I make a free fertilizer tea from plants, weeds, and grasses that I find on my property.
What Is Fertilizer Tea?
”Compost tea” and “manure tea” have long been mainstays of the organic garden. It is not hard to toss some compost into a bucket of water and let it steep for a few days to a few weeks, stirring daily.
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“Fertilizer teas” made from plants are just as easy. Plus, they don’t require you to pick up a load of manure or use any of your precious compost.
Making Fertilizer Tea
- Next time you are weeding the garden, throw chopped weeds into a bucket or trash can, chopping them up as you go.
- When the container is about half full, fill it with water. Don’t use chlorinated water; rainwater is the best (also free!).
- Screen the top to keep mosquitoes out. You can use a piece of screening or a row cover.
- Stir daily for 3 days to 2 weeks. Or, pour it from one bucket into another to mix things up and keep it aerated.
- Strain off the liquid to use as a fertilizer or foliar spray. After you strain off the liquid, return the solids to your compost pile. It can be diluted or used at full strength on established plants. Since plant leaves tend to absorb more nutrients more quickly than roots, foliar feeding is an efficient way to fertilize versus a soil drench.
Weeds are full of nutrients that they have absorbed from the soil, so it is only fitting to extract the water-soluble ones and return them to your garden plants.
Weeds and Plants to Chop Up for an Axtra Nourishing Fertilizer Tea
- Stinging nettle is high in nitrogen, calcium, iron, vitamins A, B, & C, phosphorus, potassium, boron, iron, zinc, selenium, and magnesium. A natural insect repellant, when sprayed on leaves it can help plants resist insect and fungal attacks. Learn more about stinging nettle’s many benefits.
- Alfalfa is high in nitrogen, vitamin A, folic acid, potassium, calcium, and trace minerals. If you don’t have access to it, you can use alfalfa hay, meal, or pellets. This is a “weed” whose growth I encourage in my garden, along with clover. Both are legumes and make a great soil-enhancing mulch or nitrogen-rich tea.
- Horsetail is a deeply rooted weed that draws minerals, including potassium, silica, and iron, from far below the soil.
- Willow is rich in growth hormones, making it especially good for getting young transplants off to a good start.
- Comfrey is rich in calcium, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, vitamins A, B, & C, and trace minerals.
- Chicory is high in potassium, calcium, and vitamin A.
- Dandelions can be put to good use making a tea that is full of vitamins A & C, as well as with calcium and potassium.
Don’t have any of those plants? Plain old grass works well too. Fresh grass clippings are high in nitrogen and potassium. Gather up your clippings next time you mow the lawn, fill a bucket 2/3 full of them, add water and steep 3 days, stirring daily.
Fertilizer teas are fast-acting and free. Apply them every two weeks or when your plants need a boost. They are especially effective on newly transplanted ones and those in blossom or setting fruit. Brew up a batch of weeds and throw a garden tea party for your plants!
See another post on making organic plant fertilizers at home!
Have you ever tried making fertilizer tea? Tell us about your experience!
Robin Sweetser
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Hi Robin, once you have brewed a batch and strained it, does it need to be used immediately or can it be kept for a while?
.... our grass is fertilized and given weed killer by the lawn care company. I am taking a wild guess I don't want to use that on my veggie garden then?
Probably not a good outcome if you use grass clippings contaminated with weed killer.
Hi, I like this idea of a natural fertilizer, can I use this on my lawn to help the grass?
Thanks
A very interesting and informative. A good read!
RE to:
"Moldy Tea
Submitted by Robert W Bucey on June 28, 2018 - 6:06pm
Throw it out! If the tea isn't aerated properly nasty bacteria will start growing in it and create methane. It's best to stir it a couple times a day."
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Please define "nasty bacteria".
Then, know that many bacteria, such as Lactobacillus, often used in pickling & cheese making (for one example) are anaerobic (those that often create methane).
And that many earthworms feed on many of those "nasty bacteria", destroying them, and leaving behind more beneficial bacteria (hence the reason the USDA-NOP exempts vermicast/"cold-composting" from the requirements of heat processing).
See my other reply.
Consider the beneficial role of other "nasty bacteria", like E coli, which are used commercially, but also in Nature to create natural antibiotics, natural flavonoids, even natural enzymes (such as Asparaginase, which has continually been recognized and demonstrated as one of the most effective killers of certain cancer cells).
Bokashi works on the principle of anaerobic digestion/decomposition.
The resultant product of that anaerobic decomposition makes a great feed for other aerobic bacteria, fungi (molds), and earthworms.
People need to be weary of absolute designations, such as "beneficial" "good", and "nasty", "harmful", "bad" and such.
Nature is way more complex.
That being said, aeration is a good idea (as it promotes the growth & development of aerobic bacteria, and aids in the nutrient leaching process).
But it's not an overly-simplistic "either/or" scenario.
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
-Charles Darwin-
RE to: Moldy tea
Submitted by Joe on June 18, 2018 - 1:49pm
I tried this and got distracted from sitting it daily and it developed a white mold on top. Is it still good? Should I put it in the compost, or dispose of it and try again?
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Earthworms largely eat molds, bacteria, fungi, etc.
There's nothing wrong with molds, as long as you have the earthworms to consume that/those mold.
Plus, molds and fungi are the second line of natural decomposition (after enzymes) of organic matter.
The beneficial bacteria in the earthworm gut has been shown to destroy all bacteria, fungi and molds that are pathogenic to humans.
And leave behind more beneficial bacteria in their castings (worm manure), which work to aid sustained soil & plant health.
Molds, bacteria, fungi, etc are the sources of many natural vitamins, natural antibiotics (consider the origins of the discovery of Penicillin), natural antifungals, and other beneficial natural constituents.
.
They often work in conjunction with enzymes to create all the naturally good stuff that creates healthier plants, and produce.
Beware of bad info from others.
Even feared bacteria & fungi, like E coli and Aspergillis Niger (black mold) are shown to produce beneficial natural antibiotics, antifungals, beneficial enzymes, even flavonoids (which create "flavor" and "taste").
You need to establish a natural balance.
