Nourish your garden with nettle tea
Why buy expensive fertilisers from the garden centre when you can have your own steady supply of highly nutritious organic plant feed for free?
If you’re blessed with a wild patch in your garden you might find an abundance of nettles in spring and summer – an ideal ingredient for making a nutritious feed for your plants throughout the growing season.
A good liquid fertilizer can help restore your soil, prevent diseases and give your plants a quick pick-me-up, particularly for container plants.
Nettles are high in nitrogen; ideal for making a fertilizer for all garden plants, fruit and veg.
Try this easy ‘nettle tea’ recipe at home. It’s a great activity to get kids involved - they’ll love making stinky potions in the garden!
How to make nettle fertiliser for your plants
1. Pick enough nettles to fill half a bucket.
2. Crush the leaves then leave the nettles to decompose in a bucket of water for roughly two weeks.
3. When it starts to stink, it's ready! Perhaps pop a lid on the bucket if you'd rather not bother the neighbor with the smell.
4. Dilute the feed – 1 part feed to 10 parts water – and use to water your plants, preferably early in the morning or the evening.
Top tip
Apply leftover nettles as a mulch on top of the soil. This helps lock in moisture and prevent evaporation on hot days.
Try other weeds
Comfrey is another common weed that makes great homemade fertilizer. Rich in potassium, comfrey is ideal for growing flowers and fruit, including tomatoes.
Dandelions are also a wonderful fertilizer ingredient, high in calcium, magnesium and potassium.
Did you know..?
Nettles make a tasty and nutritious soup? Whizz up with cooked potatoes, onion, garlic and vegetable stock for tasty spring in a bowl.