DIY Organic Weed Tea: How to Make Free Liquid Fertilizer

By tomatinka.

My experience in preparing and applying liquid fertilizer made from grass and weeds.

Many gardeners are looking for an alternative to expensive manure. Plus, shoveling manure is a lot of work, which requires time, effort, and good health. Compost piles, as an alternative, certainly give their results. But their preparation also requires effort, time, and a lot of organic matter.

However, we can always quickly prepare a simple and effective liquid fertilizer from the weeds and grass that can always be found on any plot. You can feed any garden crops with this type of “weed tea”.

Why Weed Tea is the Perfect Solution for Sandy Soil

I work in my garden practically alone. After reading a lot of literature on fertilizers, I adopted this type of feeding, slightly adjusting it to my conditions and soil type.

My soil is sandy, so almost all the organic matter laid in the soil in the fall washes away into the lower soil horizons by the following autumn. But watering with a nutrient infusion from a barrel throughout the season saves the situation! The plants constantly receive the macro- and micro-elements necessary for their growth. Their immunity increases, the plants get sick less often, and they produce a healthy, stable harvest.

How to Brew Your Liquid Fertilizer

I make my infusions similarly to a compost pile.

In a 200-liter (55-gallon) barrel, I loosely pack weeds without compressing them. Everything goes in: burdock, stinging nettle, dandelion, and chamomile. I pull up or mow everything that grows in the garden before it produces seeds. Then, I fill the barrel with water.

To this solution, I add half a bucket of wood ash, which is about 2-3 kg (4.5-6.5 lbs). Alternatively, you can use the same amount of dolomite lime. A neutral pH makes the microorganisms work much more actively!

In the spring, you can use less wood ash, but in the fall, it is very beneficial, as plants need more phosphorus and potassium. Since all plants need nitrogen in the initial stages of vegetative growth, I also add a little cow manure or chicken manure to the barrel. If it’s cow manure, about half a bucket. If it’s chicken manure, 1-2 kg (2-4 lbs) is enough.

The “Hay Trick” for Disease Prevention

This infusion, besides being a fertilizer, can also serve as a disease preventative. When transplanting, plants usually get mechanical damage, and the risk of infection by fungal diseases increases.

For prevention, I add a clump of decomposing, moldy hay to the barrel. You can also pour boiling water over this hay first, let it cool, and then pour the liquid into the barrel. The Bacillus subtilis (hay bacillus) multiplies incredibly fast once it cools down. By doing this, we get practically a homemade bio-fungicide (similar to commercial products like Fitosporin or Serenade) that suppresses pathogenic fungi and bacteria.

For the same purpose, I add yeast or dry bread to the brew. I use one packet of dry active yeast (11 grams / 0.4 oz) per barrel. If using fresh baker’s yeast, 50 grams is enough. As for dried bread crusts—about half a kilo (1 lb).
In the fall, I make homemade wine. After straining it, I don’t throw away the leftover berry pomace; I freeze it and dump it into the barrel the following spring.

To make the infusion rich in calcium, you can add a couple of kilograms of bone meal. During the winter, I collect eggshells, dry them thoroughly, and grind them up. I also add half a bucket of ground shells to the barrel.

Ratios and Brewing Time

Practically any concentration of the solution in the barrel, when diluted 1:10 for root feeding and 1:20 for foliar feeding, will not be harmful to plants. But for those making it for the first time, you might need specific proportions: If you are making just a simple weed tea, use 1 kg (2.2 lbs) of fresh weeds per 10 liters (2.5 gallons) of water. This is the optimal proportion.

I cover the top of the barrel with a piece of glass, but leave gaps at the edges for air access (oxygen is needed for aerobic brewing). Under the glass, the infusion heats up faster and ferments more actively. I usually don’t wait longer than 10 days.

The very first barrel goes to watering trees and berry bushes. I add one liter of the brew per bucket of water. I water generously, until the soil is completely soaked, just like regular watering. Then I mulch the bushes and trees with hay or straw—any mulching material will do.

Lately, I’ve liked using black spunbond (landscape fabric) for mulching. Grass doesn’t grow under it, but the soil breathes. If you lift it and dig the soil slightly, you can see a huge number of earthworms.

Application Rules

After emptying the barrel, I top it up with water again, and about four days later, I use it to water my transplanted vegetable seedlings: tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants. I use one bucket of the diluted mixture for every 4-5 bushes.

For root crops, I don’t use it until at least 10 days after germination. I apply it just like a regular watering, until the soil is fully moistened.

I water the plants this way throughout June, adding the barrel infusion to every watering. After each watering, I add fresh grass and whatever other ingredients I have on hand back into the barrel. (Note: I exclude the manure for the second batch). I top it off with water, and the process repeats. Once the plants are well-developed and healthy, I stop the feedings, and they begin to fruit abundantly.

I use these infusions for almost all plants and have never noticed a negative reaction. For cucurbits (squash, pumpkins), I mix this weed tea with a manure tea in equal proportions. Then, again, I dilute 1 liter per bucket of water. I do this only once at the beginning of the vegetative stage to promote new roots and strong vines.

The only thing in my garden I do NOT use this infusion on is blueberries. I wouldn’t use it on any acid-loving plants (because the wood ash in the tea raises the pH).

Enhancing the Tea (Optional)

I rarely use synthetic mineral fertilizers; I try to do without them. But those who do use them in their gardens often enrich their weed teas with them. They add nitrogen in the spring, and phosphorus-potassium fertilizers later in the season (about 20 grams per bucket of liquid).

Fans of EM (Effective Microorganisms), in turn, add these products to the infusions. To do this, they add 0.5 liters of Baikal EM-1 (a popular Russian EM inoculant). Such a product improves the smell of the fertilizer and likely saturates it with additional beneficial microflora.

To ensure that the microorganisms in the barrel don’t die from being poisoned by their own fermentation byproducts, the infusion must be refreshed by adding at least some fresh water. Without adding water and fresh components, it is better not to store such fertilizer for more than two weeks. It’s better to dump the remnants onto the compost pile and start a fresh batch.