Learn how to make your own liquid fertiliser, sometimes called a compost tea. With just two ingredients you can create a great garden booster!
Welcome to our third video in the Simple Skills for Self-Sufficiency Video Series! This week we’re sharing how to make your own homemade liquid fertiliser often known as compost tea.
Liquid fertiliser is an easy and fast way to help your plants grow. It’s oftentimes quicker than composting, so it’s great if you’re trying to get plants shooting up in a hurry. While it’s often called composting tea technically what we’re sharing is a liquid fertiliser weed tea or comfrey tea.
Just like our bodies, plants need to be “fed” well in order to be healthy. In addition to water and sunlight, plants require nutrients to make them strong. Nutritionally dense homegrown veg are in turn great for our bodies. So making a liquid fertiliser is a win-win for your garden and for you.
In this video, Pip Editor Robyn shows you how to make a simple comfrey and tansy tea. But if you don’t have those ingredients never fear! Robyn shares some other tips for things you can make your own liquid fertiliser out of.
To make a compost tea liquid fertiliser you will need:
- A bucket with a lid
- Weeds, comfrey, tansy or chicken manure
- Water
Liquid fertiliser takes about three to six weeks to ferment. Robyn recommends using a bucket with a lid as it can get quite smelly! At the end of the process you will be left with a nitrogen rich garden “tea”. Dilute this with water in a ratio of 1 part tea to 10 parts water. Robyn waters her seedlings with it weekly to ensure they get off to a great start.
Want to know more?
If you really want to get into growing we’d recommend subscribing to Pip Magazine. In the magazine you get month-by-month growing guides, seed-saving instructions and heaps of other information about getting down and dirty in the garden.
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