This is a little gardening tip that I learnt from watching Vasili’s Garden a few months back. Vasili was filming in the garden of an old guy of Italian decent and he asked him how his vegetables grew so vigorously. The old bloke took him behind his shed and showed him this brew in an old 44 gallon drum that stunk to high heaven. So I decided to make some myself!
Back in November 2011, I found a bucket of sheep poo that I had forgotten about. I divided it into two equal amounts into two 20 litre buckets, added about 2kg of chicken manure then topped it with water and stirred it for about 10 minutes so that it was all nice and mushy. Then I popped on the lids and left them in the sun.
Fast forward to January 2012. This is what it looks like now.
It stinks really bad, but I know it is full of goodness for the garden. I usually give it a stir to mix it all up.
I use it like this. I pour about 1 litre (1 qt) into a 9 litre watering can.
Then I top it up with water from one of my rainwater barrels.
I mainly use this for my fruit trees, and over the last month they have a renewed vigour. After I have watered them or it has rained, I make up a few of these and pour on half a watering can for each tree.
Maintenance is easy. You just top up the stinky bucket with more water,
Then give is a good stir and pop the lid back on until you next need it. What could be any simpler? I have been using it since the beginning of the month, and my plants have gone ballistic! Their growth has amazed me.
The other form of home made liquid fertiliser is from my worm farm. Here is a picture of it below.
To gross you out even more, here is a close up of the little bugger having a feed on some avocado. They just love them.
So as a husbandry measure, each month I pour about half a watering can of water through the worm farm to keep it moist. Then I collect the valuable liquid in a 2 litre ice cream container.
I then add 1 litre to the watering can, and then…..
you guessed it, top it up with water.
I use this on vegetables after I have already watered them. As with all liquid fertilisers you have to be careful because if you only give the dry soil fertiliser, then the plant has no choice than to suck up all the nutrients. Plants prefer to take it up at their own rate, not in one big hit. So hence the watering before adding this brew.
Both fertilisers are so easy to make and not only help the plants, but add life back into the soil in the form of microbes. So if you have a particularly poor soil, don’t just use this type of liquid gold. Make sure you add lots of organic matter (some dig it in, some don’t), and mulch, mulch, mulch. It won’t be long before you have healthy soil, and the plants will thank you for it in the form of an abundant crop.
Liquid gold was never so easy to make. I makes me wonder why I ever bought that organic liquid stuff when it is so easy to make your own!
Does anyone have a different method?
i did the same with dried chook poo that id had in a bag for about 1 year (really dry) same method and i gave it to my tomatoes and potatoes and ive had great success. keep meaning to collect some seaweed to dry so i can do the same with that. i also had some lawn clippings sitting in the wheelbarrow that got a down pour of rain so i left it to sit for a couple of weeks, it smelt just like a dairy shed. plants loved it, same diluted down of course.
I have a rubbish bin full of kelp which I use as a liquid fertilizer
Your mention of the smell reminded me of tales of my dear Uncle Phil’s homemade garlic spray (for to defeat unwanted insect pests).
The making, back in about 1990, involved him boiling up umpty-something garlic bulbs in the family kitchen – his wife and any of his 3 daughters that were around at each brewing time did not appreciate the incredible “aroma” that filled their large home.
The spray was effective so I must get the recipe from Phil!
I would love to have the recipe, sounds like a good one 🙂
I cannot wait to use my worm bin to do the same once gardening rolls around. So cheap and easy!
I do the same, but sometimes I just fill half fill a bucket with weeds and add water. The garden loves it!
We have the same system in a 200L drum with a spout and tap welded in the side. I add manure, weeds and fish skeletons. It stinks, but I swear the plants double in size overnight when I use it! We are currently building a worm farm….
I have a plastic garbage can of liquid fertiliser. I throw in chook manure, kelp, weeds, comfrey – just about anything. It all rots down beautifully and plants love it.
I don’t mind the smell – it’s really not that bad as long as you don’t splash it on yourself.
I put cut comfrey leaves into a container that drips down into another container underneath it – this is a very thick mixture,a nd doesn’t seem to smell as bad as systems like this that use a lot of water. I also used to make a seaweed tea, but now just lay it onto he ground like mulch – guess I am lazy, but it all seems to work!
We get all our liquid fertiliser from the run off from our our compost toilets and waterless urinals. We treat it the same way and dilute it but I haven’t seen the kind of instant results others have spoken of here. I was interested to read the bit about using liquid fertilisers on dry soil. We do tend to use it as a substitute to watering rather than an addition. Time to try using it on pre-wetted soil I think.
I’ve been using chook poo and weeds to make weed tea. Once a week or so I give all the plants a drink. I figure that it can’t hurt and it might help!
Hi Gavin, because we have cattle, I use the poo from the lactating mums and pop in a bit comfrey. As you say, it works a treat!
Hi – we use the Bokashi compost system & I use the diluted liquid that drains off that to feed my plants. I make sure fruiting plants like tomatoes get plenty of this. Bokashi is great if you have only a small area like we do – we have 2 buckets and rotate, one to fill and the other to ferment. I put everything in it – meat, citrus, tissues, eggs shells etc.
Hi Gavin,
Jacqui from New Zealand………I have just put comfrey leaves in a container with worm wee from my worm farm, and emptied the rain water from buckets in there as well.
Is this a good combination? And will it work well for me to eventually pour round my lemon trees, blueberries, apples and roses?
Haven’t time to read everything on here but it looks interesting for further perusal…..thanks.
Hi Jacqui. Comfrey and worm wee are most excellent forms of organic fertiliser. It makes a great “tea”, and can be used liberally on plants to give them a boost.