No doubt about it, the absolute king to replenish and revitalize, augment and amend our garden soils is compost. No way I’d ever dispute that or think differently. However, there is one other source of free organic nutrients in the garden that few people even know exists: vigorous, unwanted colonizing plants, which we’ll refer to as weeds are the focus here today. A massive storage bank of free nutrients just waiting to be unlocked for us.
There’s no special recipe for it other than time and a little bit of patience, and all the materials that you require are a bucket and some water. Today, let’s tap into that wealth of nutrition containing all those plants in our garden that are often considered just a nuisance.
Before we get into the nuts and bolts of making your own weed fertilizer, let’s discuss why it’s something we’d even want to do in the first place. To get an idea of what makes weed fertilizers so good, we first have to take a quick look at the qualities and life strategies of the weeds themselves. Honestly, any whole plant can be used to create a decent organic fertilizer, but it’s the weed plants’ vigorous and colonizing nature that makes them so special.
This group of plants, which comprises many different species, has a few unique traits that others simply don’t. One, as colonizers, they can extract nutrients, valuable elements, and compounds where other plants simply can’t even live. Their ability to pull micronutrition and macronutrition out of seemingly nothing is amazing. The other thing they can do is pull those nutrients faster, more efficiently, and in greater quantities. The types of plants that grow like this are sometimes referred to as dynamic or biodynamic accumulators, a fancy word for specialized plants that uptake minerals and nutrients and store them in high concentrations in their cells and tissues.
So even in garden beds in regular soil, the nutrient profile of the leaves and foliage of weeds is going to be greater than that of other plants, which means as they break down, these guys are going to give us a bigger bang for the buck, much more so than regular plants. A more concentrated nutritional profile often consisting of a greater range of nutrients as well. Pretty amazing stuff.
Okay, that’s the why, but how exactly do we go about unlocking all of this fertilizing potential? Once you’ve made that decision to make your own weed fertilizer, other than the weeds themselves, you only need two things: a bucket with a lid and some water. So let’s go ahead and collect some weeds so we can get started.
Personally, I always try to collect an assortment of weeds. That way, I get a more varied and dynamic nutrient profile. Whatever you have available, pretty much all weeds are going to work with this, but some definitely are better than others. So here’s a list of the best ones.
Okay, with our weeds all collected, it’s time to stuff them into the bucket. No joke, really pack them in there. To make this process a bit faster, you can cut up the leaves and stems. You don’t have to, but it does speed things up.
All right, once your bucket is packed full, add in the water right to the surface. Every piece of foliage needs to be submerged. Good stuff. Pop on that lid and now we wait.
The goal here is to completely ferment and break down all that plant material. Longer is better, but six weeks does appear to be the minimum. Keep that lid firmly on as we want this process to turn anaerobic, and pretty quickly. You’re not going to want to be dealing with that smell.
After a month and a half or so, our weed fertilizer is ready to use. Now, there could be some plant material left over as well as some seeds, so let’s go ahead and strain it first.
Some of the anaerobic smell may still linger, but not nearly as bad as those first couple of weeks. For application, this stuff’s pretty safe at any concentration. However, I firmly believe that we gardeners are often overfeeding our plants, so I like to use this solution at a ratio of one part to three parts water, or 25 percent. Full or half strength does work too, but for you foliar feeders, I say dial it back to 25 or less. I’ve never burnt the leaves with this stuff, but why risk it?
This weed fertilizer is gonna work at all stages of your crop’s life cycle and should be a completely balanced blend. It truly is awesome: seedlings, transplants, plugs, as well as established plants will all benefit from a dose of fermented weed fertilizer.
One thing to remember though, weed tea or weed fertilizer is not compost tea. On the one hand, compost teas are activated and cultivated in a highly aerobic, oxygenated environment. Weed fertilizers, though, are made by fermentation, which is completely anaerobic. So even though they’re often lumped together, compost teas and weed fertilizers are not one and the same.
Okay, that was a decent amount of info. Let’s go ahead and recap the main points so that we don’t forget a thing. My absolute favorite part of making a weed fertilizer is converting a nuisance chore around to one of the best free sources of organic nutrients. As vigorous colonizers with no equal, weed-type plants extract and hold on to a greater amount and array of nutrients and compounds than the average plant does. Powerhouse potential is locked up in their leaves and foliage just waiting to be extracted. Fortunately for us growers, unlocking them is super easy.
Fermentation over the course of six weeks or so is the method that’s most effective, and it can be accomplished with just a bucket, a lid, and some water. Submerge those plants, roots and all, for about a month and a half, and you’ll have the best fertilizer that money can’t buy. And to step it up even more, use as many different types of weed species as possible to get the greatest array of nutrients.
For application, dilute to 50 or even 25 percent and watch your harvest soar this summer.
Gardens are amazing systems of life and productivity. Working with instead of against them can bring that productivity to a whole new level. Hopefully today, I’ve sold you on the virtues of making your own weed fertilizer, and instead of being a nuisance chore, you’ll see them as an added bonus.
Hey, happy gardening, guys, and I’ll see you soon. Thanks so much for reading,
