Weed Tea Fertilizer in Your Garden What you Need to Know

Do Weeds Make A Good Fertilizer?

field of weeds for weed tea fertilizer https://greener4life.com

While weeds get seen as a huge pain for many of our gardens, we can put them to good use after we pull them out.

We have the option of taking these weeds and turning them into fertilizer to help feed our gardens.

The weeds contain phosphorus, potassium, nitrogen, magnesium, sulfur, copper, boron, and other minerals and nutrients in the weeds roots and leaves.

Many beneficial microbes are also available in liquid fertilizer made from weeds. These microbes help to improve the fertility and aeration of our soil.

Using the weeds fermented into a tea instead of composting helps reduce the chance of spreading the weed seeds throughout our garden.

While we can use any weeds for this fertilizer, you will want to avoid toxic weeds like poison ivy or poison oak, especially if you use the fertilizer on vegetables.

Weed Tea Fertilizer Recipe

DIY weed fertilizer

What You Need:

1) A plastic bucket with a tight closing lid.
2) Water
3) A collection of garden weeds will fill the bucket about two-thirds full.

Collect up your weeds so that you can fill the bucket about two-thirds full. Just place the weeds into the bucket, and ensure you are not pressing the weeds down in the bucket.

Now add water into the bucket an inch higher than where you filled the bucket up with the weeds. Put the lid on nice and tight and store the bucket in a warm area without direct sunlight. The warmer the spot, the faster the fermentation process happens.

You will take the lid off and stir the solution once or twice weekly. It takes around 4 to 6 weeks for the fertilizer to finish. But be prepared for the smell. Every week you will notice a stronger and stronger smell. I like to hold my breath when taking the lid off because this solution really stinks.

Now use a cloth to run the water through and strain out the organic material. Straining the weed tea through the fabric will make sure we do not have any of the weed seeds in our finished fertilizer.

Put the liquid into a bottle and put the cap on. To use the weed tea fertilizer, mix five parts of water for every 1 part of liquid fertilizer. So if you have five cups of water, put one cup of the fertilizer mix together and water.

NPK of Weed Tea Fertilizer

The values of weed tea fertilizer seem to hover around 3-7-3. The 3 different weed fertilizer solutions were tested after allowing the tea fertilizer to sit for 30 days before it got tested for its value.[2]

List Common Weeds for fertilizer

1) Plantain (entire plant)
2) Dandelions (entire plant)
3) Burdock (roots and leaves)
4) Buttercups (entire plant)
5) Crabgrass (roots and leaves)
6) Curly Dock (roots and leaves)
7) Creeping Charlie/Ground Ivy (entire plant)
8) Japanese Knotweed (entire plant)
9) Ox-Eye Daisies (entire plant)
10) Vetch (entire plant)
11) Lambsquarters (entire plant)
12) Pigweed (roots stems, leaves, and roots)
13) Shepherd’s Purse (entire plant)
14) Purslane

Conclusion

While finding weeds in our garden is hardly ever a good thing finding a way to use them to help fertilize our gardens instead.

Remember to take your time and strain the tea through a cloth to ensure none of the seeds end up in our final product.

We can add the fertilizer directly to our soil or use it as a foliar spray.

It is important to allow the weeds to ferment for four to six weeks for the fertilizer to have a decent nutritional value for our gardens.