To make a homemade, nutrient rich, organic tea for your plants:
- Mix compost and alfalfa in a bucket full of water.
- Stir the mixture, and let it soak for several days.
- Use the nutrient rich mixture to water your plants.
Watch this video to find out more.
Further Information
- Home Brew Changes pH of Plants (video)
- Landscape Lasagna (video)
- How to Use Gelatin as Plant Food (video)
- Organic Gardening 101 (article)
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Danny Lipford: Tricia, a lot of the tips that you share with us involved making different mixtures. I guess you do a lot of mixing at your home.
Tricia Craven Worley: I do. I do a lot of mixing, and today I’m going to make tea.
Danny: Okay, what kind of tea, and what’s it good for?
Tricia: Well, it’s not for you, but actually it’s a great tea for plants. And what I’m going to do is just use some compost and some alfalfa. Now, I actually have alfalfa here, but you could also use alfalfa pellets. Both of these things are very, very good for nutrition in the soil.
Danny: Okay.
Tricia: So what I’m going to do is take maybe a shovel full, I’m going to use my hands in this instance, of the composted matter.
Danny: Okay, then starts stirring the dish?
Tricia: Please, start stirring. And then a couple of handfuls of the alfalfa, and remember you can also use the pellets. And what this is doing is it’s making literally a tea just like you would sip a tea at home. So likewise, just like you need to let it have time to get brown, you’re going to let this get brown.
Danny: Okay, now do you fill this all the up to the top?
Tricia: Yes, in this instance this is about a 5-gallon batch. So this is something that you might want to keep on the patio for your patio plants.
Danny: Yes, I see.
Tricia: And so when you water them you’re also giving them the nutrition.
Danny: Okay, and then you just let it sit there a couple of days, and water it from time to time . . . I mean stir it from time to time?
Tricia: Stir it from time to time, and when it’s all poured out, you can actually use the matter at the bottom to put around your plants for some composting. Now, I have a friend who’s an organic gardener, and he uses a manure tea.
Danny: Oh, is that right? I hope he has a lid on that.
Tricia: He does! So 32 gallon, and he just uses it all the time for his roses, and he’s an award winner.
Danny: That sounds great!
