3 Easy Ways to Make Fertilizer Tea

Three straightforward and cheap methods to make fertilizer tea for nourishing backyard greens, indoor vegetation and flowers by way of utility to foliage or soil.

Whether or not your gardening entails greens, fruit timber or flowers, fertilizer tea could be a useful software used along with natural fertilizers to enhance productiveness.

And, with the skyrocketing value of fertilizers, it’s helpful to know learn how to make gardening tea your self with subsequent to no expenditure wanted!

What’s Fertilizer Tea?

Fertilizer tea is a nutritious liquid produced from granular fertilizer, compost or garden clippings.

It’s utilized to plant foliage or on to the soil to offer a fast burst of vitamins and to hurry progress.

The right way to Use

As a result of fertilizer tea is diluted with water, it’s a delicate answer that gained’t burn plant leaves or roots.

Thus, it may be utilized extra regularly with out the danger of overdoing it.

I like to use each 2-3 weeks.

As soon as a plant blooms, it’s best to solely apply fertilizer tea to the soil.

Three Methods to Make at Residence

There are three major methods to make fertilizer tea. Two of them are completely free!

So if the skyrocketing costs of natural and business fertilizers have you ever involved, select one of many free strategies under to maintain your gardening efforts as cheap as attainable.

Grass Clippings

The best technique for making fertilizer tea is to make use of freshly lower grass clippings after mowing the yard.

This technique additionally prices you nothing.

Grass is of course excessive in nitrogen and potassium, two very important vitamins for rising and established vegetation.

To switch these vitamins from the clippings right into a fertilizer tea, observe these directions.

1. Collect up a number of the contemporary, inexperienced clippings subsequent time you mow the garden.
2. Fill a 5-gallon bucket two-thirds of the best way with these cuttings.
3. Prime up the bucket to simply under the rim with rainwater or filtered water. Don’t use faucet water which incorporates chlorine and different toxins.
4. Place the bucket in a spot that’s heat and dry however doesn’t get direct afternoon solar.
5. Let the clippings ferment for 3 days uncovered. Stir at the least as soon as a day.
6. Pressure out the clippings and affix the lid to the 5-gallon bucket to maintain critters out. I counsel doing this by pouring the tea right into a second 5-gallon bucket with a strainer excessive.
7. Add the moist clippings to your compost pile or discard.
8. Decant a number of the fertilizer tea as wanted in a twig bottle or business sprayer for widespread utility each two weeks or each time your vegetation might use a lift.

Notice that in the event you deal with your garden with pesticides or weed and feed, it’s best NOT to make use of the clippings to make fertilizer tea, particularly if you’ll be utilizing it in your vegetable backyard.

Compost Tea

Fertilizer tea produced from compost is aptly referred to as “compost tea”.

It’s additionally straightforward and free in the event you make your own compost with kitchen scraps.

You may as well purchase a bag of natural compost inexpensively from a neighborhood nursery in the event you don’t have your individual pile.

*Don’t use compost made with manure to make compost tea.

The tactic for making compost tea is similar to fertilizer tea. Merely observe these steps:

1. Take one shovel of completed compost and place in a 5-gallon bucket.
2. Prime up with rainwater (greatest) or filtered water to simply under the rim.
3. Place the uncovered bucket in a heat, dry spot that doesn’t get direct afternoon solar.
4. Stir day-after-day for 3-7 days.
5. Pressure out the compost (I do that with one other 5- gallon bucket and a strainer) and affix the lid.
6. Throw moist compost again into the compost pile.
7. Apply undiluted compost tea to plant foliage or as a soil drench each two weeks or as wanted.

Natural Granular Fertilizer

In circumstances the place you wouldn’t have a compost pile and don’t have yard clippings available, you may make fertilizer tea from granular fertilizer.

*I like to recommend solely utilizing this technique with pure natural fertilizers (I use this brand).

To make tea with granular fertilizer, observe these steps.

1. Add 1 cup of natural granular fertilizer to 1 gallon of rainwater or filtered water in a big bucket.
2. Stir and let the combination set for twenty-four hours uncovered outdoors in a shady, dry spot that doesn’t get direct afternoon solar.
3. Pressure out the fertilizer and use the solids to mulch across the root zone of backyard vegetation and flowers.
4. Apply undiluted liquid at a fee of 1-2 cups per plant or 2-4 cups for giant vegetation as a soil drench or spritzed on leaves as foliage feed.

Fertilizer Tea vs Compost Tea

When you have each compost and contemporary, unsprayed yard clippings out there, which is greatest to make…fertilizer tea or compost tea?

In that case, it’s best to decide on compost tea as a result of the vitamins within the last liquid will probably be extra intensive than from grass clippings alone.

Shelf Life

Do-it-yourself fertilizer tea will final for months in the event you retailer it in a dry place.

I’d counsel making a contemporary batch whether it is greater than a 12 months outdated.

Remember to at all times retailer it with a tight-fitting lid, because the combination will proceed to ferment and get smellier as time goes on!