Green plants as fertilizer

 

Here are some green plants that can be used as fertilizer in the UK: 

Comfrey 
Rich in potash, comfrey is useful for flowering and fruiting plants and vegetables. To make a liquid fertilizer, add 1kg of comfrey leaves to 15 liters of water and leave it in a sealed container for six weeks. Then, use it undiluted. 

Nettles 
High in nitrogen, especially in spring, nettles can be used as a liquid fertilizer. To make a liquid fertilizer, add 1kg of nettles to 10 liters of water, leave it for about two weeks, and then use it at a dilution rate of 10:1. 

Green manure 
Plowing living plants into the soil is a practice called green manure that can enhance soil fertility. This releases nutrients slowly, which supports microbial activity and benefits plant growth. For example, incorporating green manure crops like legumes can add nitrogen to the soil, improving crop yields. 

Other organic fertilizers that can be used in the UK include seaweed, hoof and horn, dried blood, fish blood and bone, bone meal, and poultry manure pellets.

However, did you know you also can use herbs you grow in your garden to build your soil? Plants such as borage, comfrey, fenugreek, sorrel and many others can help the soil to accumulate nutrients, reduce soil compaction, act as cover crops or green manures, accelerate composting or serve as mulch.

High potash feed

All plant foods (fertilisers) have printed on their packs the proportion of N, P, & K that are in the packs.
N stands for Nitrogen,
P stands for Phosphorus (phosphates) and
K stands for Potassium (or potash).

7:7:7, this being a balance fertiliser, 10:5:3: a plant growth feed
5:5:12 is a high potash feed or Potash Fertiliser.

Just a note on Tomato Feed: 

They are very high in Potash (K) and initiate flowers and then tomatoes but tomato feed is also high in nitrogen (N) for growth. 

The high N is to balance the very high K (potash) which is very import for tomatoes, this means it can be too ‘strong’ for other plants. 

If you would like to use it for other plants dilute it by 50%.

Nitrogen encourages green growth, Phosphates (phosphorous in soluble form) is essential for healthy growth and good for roots, Potash (potassium in soluble form) not only produces more flowers and good fruit but also, makes plants tougher and resistant to diseases and pests.

Last of all, if you feed too much with high N or balanced feeds you may stop flowers forming (why would they need to flower? They are happily growing away). 

If this is the case stop using these feeds, water with plain water for a week or two & then feed with the high potash food.

12 Organic Fertilizers.

12 Organic Fertilizers & Natural Bug Repellants | WebEcoist:
Tomato leaves are packed with alkaloids, which can be an effective repellant for aphids, corn earworms and Diamondback moths.
Go Green Ninja recommends soaking 1 to 2 cups of chopped or mashed tomato leaves in two cups of water overnight, straining it through a fine mesh and adding two more cups of water before spraying it on the plants in your garden.
Keep this mixture away from pets, as tomato leaves can be toxic.

1. Castile Soap Spray Insecticide

Is there anything castile soap can’t do?
The gentle vegetable oil-based soap makes a gentle and effective insecticidal spray for the garden. Dr. Bronner’s, the company that makes the most prevalent brand of castile soap, recommends filling a spray bottle with water and adding a tablespoon of either unscented or peppermint castile soap and a pinch of either cayenne pepper, cinnamon or powdered garlic.
This mixture will kill aphids, mealybugs, whiteflies and spider mites.

2. Manure

There are few things better for enriching the soil in your garden than plain old rotted manure.
You can purchase bags of manure fertilizer at most garden centers or, if you have chickens, goats or rabbits as backyard pets, you can use their droppings, too.
Rabbit droppings have the highest nitrogen content and can safely be added directly to soil, but droppings from other animals should be composted before use.

3. Garlic Spray Insecticide

Garlic spray acts as a deterrent, encouraging insects to move on to more appetizing plants.
Unlike many other types of insecticidal garden sprays, garlic can safely be applied to the leaves of plants.
Drop the cloves from an entire bulb of garlic into the blender along with two cups of water, puree until finely blended and set it aside for a day.
Then, strain out the pulp, mix the garlic liquid with a gallon of water and add it to a sprayer.

4. Nettle Tea

Nettles aren’t a pleasant plant to brush up against – their leaves are covered in stinging hairs that inject histamine and other chemicals into the skin, producing a stinging sensation. But dig them up (with gloves on, of course), put them in a 5-gallon bucket, cover them with water and in three to four weeks you’ll have glorious liquid plant food that experts swear by. Nettles.org.uk has the full recipe.

5. Tomato Leaf Spray

Tomato leaves are packed with alkaloids, which can be an effective repellant for aphids, corn earworms and Diamondback moths. Recommends soaking 1 to 2 cups of chopped or mashed tomato leaves in two cups of water overnight, straining it through a fine mesh and adding two more cups of water before spraying it on the plants in your garden. Keep this mixture away from pets, as tomato leaves can be toxic.

6. Egg Shells as Fertilizer & Pest Repellant

Egg shells are a multi-purpose aid in the garden, acting as both fertilizer and pest repellant. Add crushed eggshells to the bottom of planting holes, particularly when planting tomatoes, peppers and eggplant, or dry them out and blend them into a fine powder and spread them around the base of plants. Placing crushed eggshells (with sharp edges intact) in a ring around the base of a plant will deter slugs, snails and cutworms.

7. Slug Beer Trap

Put a little beer in a saucer or yogurt cup (buried to the brim) in your garden, and slugs will come out from all over for an all-night yeast-consuming fest. Too bad they’ll fall in and drown, but hey – otherwise, they’d be eating all of your precious garden plants. Simple, cheap and the perfect way to dispose of all the dregs left behind after a party.

8. Coffee Grounds as Fertilizer

Don’t toss those used coffee grounds! They could be adding lots of nourishing nitrogen to your soil. Contrary to popular belief, used coffee grounds are not acidic; they can act as a safe substitute for nitrogen-rich manure in the compost pile. They can also be mixed into soil as an amendment or spread onto the surface of the soil.

9. Hot Pepper Spray

Hot pepper is a natural deterrent for many types of pests in the garden. To make your own homemade pepper spray, combine 6-10 hot peppers and two cups of water in a blender and blend on high speed for 1-2 minutes, pour the liquid into a storage container to sit overnight and then strain out the pulp. Add this liquid to one quart of water in a sprayer, and spray your plants liberally every week or after each rain.

10.Grass Clippings

Want a beautiful, effortlessly green lawn? Don’t pick up those grass clippings when you mow the lawn! It’s that simple. Grass clippings are free fertilizer, adding precious nitrogen back to the soil. Short grass clippings decompose quickly, so as long as you mow often enough, they won’t stick around so long that they build up to unmanageable levels.

11. Beneficial Nematodes

It sounds illogical, but sometimes, adding more bugs to your garden will help decrease the total population. Beneficial nematodes are tiny organisms that can kill hundreds of species of soil-dwelling insects including notorious garden pests like weevils, cucumber beetles and vine borers. You can buy them online, or at your local garden center. To use them you water your garden, then mix the packet of live nematodes with cool distilled water according to the directions on the package. Pour the solution into a sprayer and apply it to the soil.

12. Compost

Compost is the single easiest and most effective way to make your garden lush and productive, and all it takes is your kitchen scraps and some nitrogen-rich dry materials like grass, leaves or straw. You can compost even if you live in an apartment – get some urban composting tips here.
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Homemade Acidic Fertilizer

Homemade Acidic Fertilizer: look at Picture of Homemade Acidic Fertilizer!
In fact plants acidic fertilizer is also important as that of organic fertilizers for plants (azaleas,roses,rhododendrons, blueberry, hibiscus and other acid-loving plants) needs acidic fertilizers.
For instance,eggshells are almost 100% calcium carbonate, one of the main ingredients in agricultural lime; vinegar has acetic acid; & coffee not only lowers your soil pH ,it also enriches it with nitrogen,magnesium and potassium.
Too much use of fertilizer can make soil too acidic so thee fertilizers should be used in a limit.

- Epsom Salt Fertilizer
- Coffee Ground Fertilizer
- Egg Shell Fertilizer
- Vinegar Fertilizer
- Fish Tank Fertilizer

Are some of the accidic fertilizers wich can be made in home with less cost for plants.

Epsom salt fertilizer:use in place vegetable plants,rose plant, peppers,houseplants
ingredients:
- 1 table spoon Epsom salt
- 1 gallon (4.5 liter)of water
combine the Epsom salt and water and use this solution to water your plants.repeat once a month. Epsom salt is made up of magnesium and sulphate-both vital plant nutrients.


Coffee ground fertilizer
ingredients:
- used coffee grounds
- newspaper
spread news paper.
then spread used coffee grounds out on the paper and allow them to dry completely in sunlight for about 2-3 days.
sprinkle the coffee ground around the base of your rose plant.
note:
- If coffee grounds are going to be spread upon the soil, why bother drying them?
- Contrary to popular belief, used coffee grounds are not acidic; they can act as a safe substitute for nitrogen-rich manure in the compost pile. They can also be mixed into soil as an amendment or spread onto the surface of the soil.

Coffee grounds can be an excellent addition to a compost pile. The grounds are relatively rich in nitrogen, providing bacteria the energy they need to turn organic matter into compost. About 2 percent nitrogen by volume, used coffee grounds can be a safe substitute for nitrogen-rich manure in the compost pile.

Egg shell fertilizer:
ingredients:
Egg shells
Blender
save your egg shells and allow them to dry.
place the dried shell in the blender and pulse until they are turned to fine powder.
Sprinkle in your garden.
Eggshells are made up almost calcium carbonate.

Vinegar fertilizer:
ingredients:
1 table spoon white vinegar
1 gallon of water

combine the white vinegar and water.
use the solution to water your plants.
repeat every three months.
the acetic acid in vinegar works to increase the acidity of the soil.
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Homemade Fertilizers.

Lower Lovetts Farm :: Richards Homemade Fertilizers: "Richards Homemade Fertilizers"
Comfrey Liquid (1:50)
I pick the comfrey just before it flowers and cram it into a water butt.
This normally takes 6 to 8 weeks depending on how warm it is. Tip: If you put the tub in the sun it works quicker. You can start using it at this stage.
When you get a green sludge (even more vile smelling a month or so later) I bottle it in 75cl bottles, old screw cap wine bottles. One 75cl bottle will do four watering cans of 2 gallons per can - i..e. one litre to every 10.5 gallons of water (50 litres) or 1:50.
Stinging Nettles Liquid
Wood Ash Liquid
Fill the bucket nearly full with water and stir for three weeks.
With tomatoes I use it once or twice a week, but by August when the tomatoes are at their best I use it every day for a short period.
If you want to keep the plants after a prolonged period of watering with wood ash liquid, add some Epsom salts to the pots and the green will return.
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Most perfect fertilizer + pesticide is epsom salt.

the world's most perfect fertilizer + pesticide is epsom salt.
This is so true- every other week- 1 gallon of water,
1 TBSP of miracle grow and 3 TBSP of epsom salt.

Studies show that magnesium and sulfur, two major components of Epsom salt, may help plants grow greener with higher yields and more blooms.
Magnesium creates an environment conducive to growth by helping seeds to germinate, increasing chlorophyll production and improving phosphorus and nitrogen uptake.

Dilute a tablespoon of Epsom salt in a gallon of water will do fine.
You can use it a s foliar spray as well for blossom drop at the same dilution.

Some people just sprinkle a little in a ring around the plant.

I thinks as a spray its 2 oz per gallon. I weighted that out at the weekend and 2oz filled about 4 tablespoons - so I put 1 tablespoon in a litre of spray - and that was at least twice what I needed for everything I could think of spraying!

Epsom salts almost certainly cheaper at the Garden centre than the Chemist, but given how little one uses it may be a bit irrelevant

1/2oz of magnesium to 1 pint of water and use it as a foliar spray for magnesium deficient plants. I have used this on yellowing tomato leaves and they green up nicely.

Dissolved in hot water & then soak your feet in it.
Great for hardening up your soles before a walking holiday.

Also read:
35 Pest and Disease Remedies

Companion Planting Guides

- RHGS Outdoor & Gardening Blog: Companion Planting Guides:
Also: - Companion Planting.
- Companion Planting:
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Fertiliser.

Growing vegetables on Leeds allotments - Fertiliser Teas:
Basic Method for "Tea"

Cover material in water, and soak; most recipes "suggest" that you put a lid on the container - this is essential; also do not put the bin by your back door. It will stink.
After a couple of days you will have a weak but useful brew, usable undiluted.
After 2-4 weeks you'll have a stronger brew; this will require a lid and is not suitable for people with short arms!
Stir every couple of days to avoid the brew going stagnant.
Dilute to the colour of weak tea and water in as a plant food, every couple of weeks.
Or use as a spray on plant leaves (a foliar feed).
This process produces a concentrated plant food, and your brew will need to be diluted for use - 1 part tea to 10 parts water for watering in your feed; 1 part tea to 20 parts water to spray on leaves.
Dump the material waste in the compost heap!
Remember - this is only a short-term remedy for plants which need "a bit of a lift"; it won't solve any problems with your soil, as it will be washed away pretty quickly.

Specific Recipes for "tea" brews

Animal Manure
Fill a small sack or cloth bag and suspend this in a container full of water;
rich in nitrogen (especially poultry or pigeon manure) - good for brassicas, onions
Compost
fill a bag or sack, as for animal manure
Seaweed
rinse the seaweed first to get rid of salt
rich in potash (good for potatoes, tomatoes)
Comfrey
cut back the comfrey plants to about 2 inches three or four times a year
pack a dustbin with the cut leaves, and cover with water
rich in potash (good for potatoes, tomatoes), and minerals; good source of nitrogen (for just about anything!)
Nettles
you can make a couple of "harvests" a year from your nettle patch
pack a dustbin with the cut leaves, and cover with water
said to prevent disease, as well as promoting health plant growth
rich in potash (good for potatoes, tomatoes), and minerals; good source of nitrogen (for just about anything!)
Odd recipes
any combinations of the above!
basically anything nitrogen rich, such as fresh grass cuttings
the original cold tea from the teapot! Tea leaves are high in potash

These methods produce a much stronger concentrate, which should be diluted at

1 part potion to 10 or 20 parts water for watering in,
1 part potion to 40 parts water as a spray-on leaf feed.
They also have a couple of advantages, in that they smell less, and the concentrate can be stored (in dark glass bottles, in a cool, dark place.

Using a bucket
Use a plastic container with a hole in the bottom, and fill it with comfrey/nettle leaves. Put a weight on top of the leaves and leave.
After about three weeks a black, very smelly, liquid will drip from the hole.
Collect this in a bottle (shelter the hole and bottle from the rain!).
The concentrate can be stored in the dark for several months.
Using a wormery
The above method is popular among those people who have paid out £50 for a plastic wormery, got fed up with the work involved - and discovered it's perfectly designed for making comfrey concentrate!
Using a piece of drain-pipe!
Fix a drainpipe with wire and brackets to garage wall;
Wedge a 6-pint milk bottle and funnel underneath the drainpipe;
Stuff the drainpipe with comfrey or nettle leaves;
Put a plastic pop-bottle full of water in the top of the drainpipe (attached to a length of string); this will compress the leaves down the drainpipe;
and the concentrate will drip into the bottle, while the funnel keeps the leaves back.
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Окопник.

Садовое обозрение - Окопник – не сорняк, а друг садовода:

- настой травы окопника – это лучшее органическое калийное удобрение.
Как раз регулярное скашивание травы окопника и позволяет держать его заросли в рамках приличия.
А трава помогает эффективно поставлять калий для томатов, перцев, картофеля и прочих любителей этого элемента питания, без полноценного калийного удобрения трудно добиться хорошего завязывания и вызревания плодов.

Вот мой рецепт эффективного калийного удобрения:

- листья окопника порубить, сложить в бочку и залить дождевой водой (на 1 кг листьев 10 л воды).
Накрыть бочку крышкой и настаивать на солнечном месте неделю.
Поливать растения настоем, разбавленным водой в пропорции 1:10.
Особенно хороши такие подкормки для растений, выращиваемых в контейнерах или нуждающихся в калии.

Если окопника много, то можно скосить траву, порубить и использовать как мульчу для посадок томатов, фасоли и горошка.
Такая мульча отлично подходит для земляники и молодых плодовых деревьев.
Только обязательно кладите ее на влажную и рыхлую почву, а поверх слегка присыпайте сухой землей или торфом.
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Comfrey.

Comfrey (Symphytum species) is essential to organic gardening.:

Mulch
Use the leaves in layers about 5 cm thick over the surface of the soil.
The leaves break down rapidly and provide nutrients to the crops.
Comfrey is particularly good for fruiting crops because of the good levels of potash.
When planting potatoes, lay comfrey leaves in the bottom of the trench and place the potatoes on top.
Or plant clumps of comfrey in the orchard. The leaves are then regularly slashed or mown and left on the surface of the soil to break down.

Comfrey liquid manure
Fill a large container with comfrey leaves, cover with water and a lid and leave for four weeks.
Leaves readily de-compose making a very useful (if extremely malodorous) liquid manure.
This fast-acting liquid food can be used as it is on established plants or diluted about 5 to 1, and used for seedlings, pots, and ailing plants.

Alternatively, firmly pack comfrey leaves into a wide pipe, weight with a stone and suspend the pipe above a small container.
The pipe should be blocked at the bottom end with just a small hole in the middle.
The comfrey leaves rot down releasing a dark liquid that collects in the small container.
Dilute this by about 15 to 1 and use in the same way as liquid manure.

Compost activator
Comfrey added to the compost not only rots down quickly but also adds nutrients and speeds up the decomposition of other materials.
I grow one clump of comfrey near the compost to remind me to add a leaf every time I add other materials.
Other plants in the Boraginaceae family, like borage and forget-me-nots, also break down quickly in the compost.

Weed barrier
Comfrey is used as a weed barrier because it is able to stop running grasses from spreading.
It needs to be planted in a strip several plants wide and it’s important to use only non-seeding, non-spreading varieties otherwise you will only be replacing one weed problem with another.

Slug and snail trap
Comfrey growing in big tubs to keep it under control
Grow comfrey near the compost
Big comfrey leaves are attractive to slugs and, to a lesser extent, snails.
So try layering the leave around but some distance from young seedlings.
Each morning pick up the leaves and remove the slugs and snails that are sheltering and feeding there.
Drop these into soapy water and replace the leaves to trap more slugs.