Homemade fertilisers

zanador

Hi all - does anyone know a good homemade fertiliser for a potted plum tree, a rose, and a potted blueberry in ericacious soil?

I've been looking online but some of the stuff I don't have at home, or I'm not sure exactly what they mean.

Thanks!

SnowyMuckish

You can make homemade fertilizer from common garden weeds like nettles. This feed tends to be high in nitrogen. For fruit trees a comfrey feed would be better as it’s high in potassium which helps flowering and fruits. You can buy comfrey seeds easily online (well when we weren’t in lockdown!) but a word of warning if you plan to grow it. It spreads very easily so best planted somewhere out of the way, behind a shed or somewhere like that.

Making a feed is very easy, fill a bucket as much as you can with nettles or comfrey, really pack in tightly, cover with water and leave it sitting for a few weeks. That makes a concentrated feed that you can water down.

PCeeeee

SnowyMuckish wrote: »

You can make homemade fertilizer from common garden weeds like nettles. This feed tends to be high in nitrogen. For fruit trees a comfrey feed would be better as it’s high in potassium which helps flowering and fruits. You can buy comfrey seeds easily online (well when we weren’t in lockdown!) but a word of warning if you plan to grow it. It spreads very easily so best planted somewhere out of the way, behind a shed or somewhere like that.

Making a feed is very easy, fill a bucket as much as you can with nettles or comfrey, really pack in tightly, cover with water and leave it sitting for a few weeks. That makes a concentrated feed that you can water down.

I am in the process of doing this. I intend to test it on the grass.

Stinks like hell

mulbot

Am using my nettle fertiliser at the minute, 3 weeks steeped, such a stink but is definitely better than anything I've ever bought.

magicbastarder

there's another readily available, liquid feed that's high in nitrogen you could consider.

monty_python

If you aerate the liquid it won't stink. Give it a good stir up and get as much air as you can into it and the smell will be alot less strong

PCeeeee

magicbastarder wrote: »

there's another readily available, liquid feed that's high in nitrogen you could consider.

Requires split second timing . I have also experimented with this. 😉

Though I suppose you could bottle it.

zanador

magicbastarder wrote: »

there's another readily available, liquid feed that's high in nitrogen you could consider.

If I was male, then a piece of piss.

If i were to plant a confrey patch then better to keepnit contained? A sunken bed?

monty_python

zanador wrote: »

If i were to plant a confrey patch then better to keepnit contained? A sunken bed?

There is a certain type of comfrey that doesn't set seed so doesnt spread.
I think it's called bocking 14 or something like that

SouthWesterly

Seaweed is another good one. Soak in water for cancer few days and use the liquid

magicbastarder

that's an unusual typo!

New Home

Horse tail/Mare's tail treated in the same way as nettles is excellent, too (and a way of putting it to good use, too). Comfrey is also used as green manure, you sow it and when it's big enough you just turn the soil and bury it like you would with manure.

KAGY

New Home wrote: »

Horse tail/Mare's tail treated in the same way as nettles is excellent, too (and a way of putting it to good use, too). Comfrey is also used as green manure, you sow it and when it's big enough you just turn the soil and bury it like you would with manure.

comfrey will grow from a small piece of root, and will grow vigorously out competing any young plant or veg, so if using it as a green manure I'd grow it somewhere where and just dig the leaves in where needed. I'd know, I've been trying to get rid of it from a raised bed, every year there's a new small plant or two

New Home

Friends of mine have been using it this way for years, but I can't tell you what variety they've been using.

zanador

I've a 3 x 3m wild patch at the end of the lawn (which is kind of meadowy). If I planted confrey there would it spread through the lawn? I keep the lawn long so wouldnt necessarily see seedlings.