We’ve been using homemade fertilisers in the Polytunnel and in the greenhouse this year and we really think it makes a difference in the garden.
With a bit of effort you can use some ingredients from the garden to create some super food and some super defence against pests.
Fertilisers
Comfrey tea
Growing comfrey is very useful as the roots penetrate deep and all the nutrients are stored in the leaves. You can collect the leaves into a bucket with a little water and let it soak for a few weeks!
We dilute the tea in the watering can and feed plants at the base.
We’ve been using this throughout the season mostly on our Tomatoes and Chilli Peppers which have grown wonderfully.
Click here to read about our chilli or Tomato growing experiments.
Coffee Grounds
Our local pub goes through coffee like you wouldn’t believe and they save all the grounds for us! It can be used directly onto soil as a Fertiliser or can be added to the compost bin. We feed our worms coffee grounds and they absolutely love the stuff.
Click here to check out how we’re farming worms on a small scale to obtain that black gold (worm poop)!
Manure
Take a trip down to your local stable and get digging. You want to go for poop that’s been resting for a couple of seasons. If it stinks bad, it’s not ready.
This stuff is extremely valuable in the veggie garden and we mulch it around our fruit trees too. It really does make a difference!
Our best fruit tree year was after we spent some time in Autumn mulching every tree base with a mix of just Manure and charcoal. This combination along with some winter pruning gave us the best harvest ever the following spring!
Use whatever is available to you, as long as its seasoned.
Duck Manure is amazing!
Along with being one of the most nitrogen rich manures, it is also one of the most frequently dropped!
If you own ducks you’ll notice the extreme amount of poop around and it is very wet which means it is broken down much quicker and dispersed better within the soil. Dry bedding is used to soak up alot of the moisture and then composted into piles and after a season is perfect for mixing into a compost with other organic materials such as leaf mould, charcoal and the amazing black gold from our worm farm!
Leaf Mould
When the leaves are falling you want to collect as many as possible into a big pile where it will start decomposing and the following year you can use this as a mulch. It works as a wonderful weed suppresser in the vegetable garden too!
Homemade Pesticide
Rhubarb leaf
The same method is used to harvest the leaves and allow them to rot for a few weeks revealing a truly stinky but amazingly useful liquid.
I used my brew to destroy colonies of Aphids which came in numbers over various crops this spring and again in summer. In Spring my Lupin plants were covered and my Runner Beans too.
Dilute the tea into a mist spray bottle and add a little washing up liquid, shake it up and spray directly to the foliage infected. USE GLOVES and spray down wind!
The brew will be washed away with water and does contain natural toxin that’s considered poisonous to us so we don’t use it on any plants that are soon to be fruiting.
The lupins I sprayed were completely clean of any Aphids the next day and didn’t come back but the foliage was a bit burnt, the plants did make a slow but full recovery! It’s best to start weak and build up the strength to avoid this!
The beans struggled and I had to use the method every couple days for about a week until finally the colony was wiped out and then beans went on to be huge healthy plants with a decent harvest.
Pyrethrum
This year we’re growing our own pyrethrum pesticide. This method is using the dried flower heads of some varieties of chrysanthemum. It attacks the nervous system of insects including Aphids, white fly, caterpillars and Spider mites which can devestate crops. Its instant action and washes away very quickly so we’re looking forward to using this next year!
Homegrown and Hopeful 