Liquid plant feed or ‘nettle tea’

Early spring is the ideal time to start preparing nettle plant feed before the comfrey (Symphytum) comes through for the next feed.

When finding nettles don’t worry if you collect from a busy roadside as they are for the garden feed not for human consumption. When making nettle tea as a tonic for health never pick near polluted areas.

Ingredients:

• Bucket with lid or suitable cover
• Water
• Gloves (nettles do sting!)

Pick enough nettles to fill a container, never pull up the root as you will be destroying your nettle source. Also nettles are also essential in local ecology with native Butterflies including the red admiral using nettles leaves to lay their eggs on.

Cover the nettles with enough water to cover the whole plants. Leave for 2 to 4 weeks until it looks like a brown tea. After around 2 weeks it will be ready to strain the liquid through a sieve (Don’t use your kitchen sieve, keep a separate sieve for the garden liquids). Dilute one part nettle plant tea feed to 10 parts water ( imagine you are making strong squash in your watering can). Use to promote all leaves and vegetative growth within garden plants as this feed will be very rich in Nitrogen.

Nettle feed after one week already looking nice and gloopy!