Nettles are the worst enemy in the garden, at least that's how it is considered. After seeing the nettle, it is immediately torn out and eliminated from the site. In addition, many have memories of how in childhood, burnt nettles, if inadvertently wander into its thickets. In general, nobody likes nettles.
But in fact, nettle is an extremely useful plant and nettle infusion can be used as a fertilizer. Not only is such a fertilizer incredibly useful for plants, so it is also a vegetable, that is, completely safe. Using the nettle infusion, you can even abandon some chemical fertilizers, which are used for fertilizing plants, maintaining macro and microelements in the balance. Nettle fertilizer is the ideal solution for everyone who wants to see their plants healthy and bring a plentiful harvest.
How to prepare a nettle fertilizer?
The process of preparing the fertilizer from the nettle is extremely simple and does not require any special skills.
- Collect the nettle. Armed with a knife and hiding your hands under the gloves, you need to collect nettles. If your site does not have it, then you can collect anywhere, but not near the road.
- Soak the nettle. Collect the "crop" put in a bucket and fill it with water so that the water covers the nettle completely. A bucket, by the way, should not be small, since during the fermentation process, the amount of liquid can increase.
- Additional Ingredients. In the fertilizer from the nettle you can add some more ingredients. For example, wood ash, compost or even herbs, like tansy, shepherd's bag, etc. You can, without fear, experiment and "invent" new types of fertilizer. But for the first time you can only use nettles.
- The process of fermentation. Bucket with your infusion cover and put in a sunny place. Every day, the nettle fertilizer needs to be mixed, so that the fermentation process passes faster and faster. In hot summer days, this process takes about five days, a maximum of a week, but in the spring-autumn the fermentation will stretch for a week or two.
Finished fertilizer from nettle exudes a specific flavor, foam, bubbles and acquires an expressive marsh color, so you will immediately understand when the infusion reaches the desired state.
How to properly fertilize with nettle?
You have prepared the fertilizer from the nettle, and now let's look at how to fertilize your plants with nettle.
With a nettle fertilizer, plants can be fed and sprinkled. For fertilization, the infusion is diluted with water in proportions of 1:10, and for spraying - 1:20.
Regular use of the nettle infusion will strengthen the plants (their roots, stems, leaves), they will look healthier, and spraying with a nettle fertilizer will scare off some insect pests from your plants.
Fertilize nettle, in principle, you can all plants, but there are some species that do not particularly like nettle fertilizer - beans, beans, peas, onions and garlic . For the rest of the plants, the nettle fertilizer will be just a joy.
In nature, there is nothing useless, and you can see this with the example of nettle. As zealously you always rid the garden of this "misfortune", calling nettles a pest and weed, but in fact it turned out that nettle can help you and your crop better than any chemical fertilizers that one treat, and another, according to the law of the genre, maim . The plants can never be treated unambiguously, because behind the burning leaves can hide useful vitamins and elements that will serve you well. We hope that our advice will help you, and your garden will turn green even more, thanks to the fertilizer from the nettle.