Last updated
05 February 2012
Quest for the Good Life 
Natural Fertilisers
We prefer to use natural fertilisers where possible. Although it is true to say that artificial fertilisers have helped with the agricultural revolution and kept food on many tables, there is the issue of residual chemicals in the food that you eat. By using natural fertilisers, you are only adding nutrients that will break down in the soil if not used by the plants. Also, turning everything into compost makes for a better soil and the most natural way of improving your garden.
With fertiliser though, it’s more of a supplementary feed which can be added to the
soil around the growing plants to ensure sufficient nitrogen, potassium, potash and
minerals. Fertiliser can be made from:-
- Comfrey
- Nettles
- Animal Manure -
“Black Jack”
Comfrey liquid fertiliser
One of our favourites. This plant is a member of the borage family. It grows quickly
in the spring and has a very deep tap root. These roots burrow down seeking out
nutrients, called a dynamic accumulator, which builds levels of nutrients in the
plant. They can grow 1+ m tall, with large fleshy leaves.
Once planted, you will find it hard to eradicate, so you must only put it where you won’t mind it growing year after year. The variety “Bocking 14” is the best choice as it is sterile and will not produce seed, so the chance of spreading wildly out of control is minimal. You still have to be careful though with other vegetative parts such as pieces of root or stem. If you allow those to touch the soil they will root and grow anywhere!
Once growing, you can harvest the top growth. Left to wilt, the leaves can be added to the soil to break down, or used as a mulch around crops. Ideal in the bottom of your potato trench, but with earlies, the plant is rarely tall enough to crop in time for planting. If left to break down in a container, it soon produces a black, stinking liquor.
Once it has broken down, the liquid makes an excellent fertiliser. It has high levels of potassium, twice as high as farmyard manure. It does not rob nitrogen from the soil when it breaks down.
We have a plastic dustbin which we fill with water and add comfrey leaves. After just a few weeks the leaves will rot down and produce a smelly tea. A weak tea needs no dilution, but a strong one may need extra water adding, otherwise it could burn the plants.
You can also put the leaves straight into a plastic bin with a weight on top. With no water added, after a period of time they will rot down into a thick black smelly liquid. This cannot be used neat, it has to be diluted down to a ratio of 15:1 (15 units of water to 1 unit of comfrey concentrate).
Comfrey leaves can also be added to your compost heap to activate it and get it decomposing.
Nettles
Nettles are such an asset to any garden. Yes they can grow in the middle of your
veg patch or in a flower border, but if can spare a corner near the shed to let them
grow you will be rewarded with a source of really useful plant material.
If you want to use them yourself then they make great herbal tea, helps with symptoms of hay fever if taken regularly and in the spring. Combined with local honey it can help reduce the problem.
As a vegetable, lightly steamed, it is packed full of vitamins and minerals.
It also provides Red Admiral, Small Tortoiseshell and Peacock butterflies with a place to breed along with 40 or so insects species which benefit from it. But the most important use is in the garden.
In a similar way to comfrey, you can add nettles to water and allow them to break down. When they start to smell you can use the tea as a fertiliser. There’s no reason why you can’t mix the nettle and comfrey tea together to gain a wider range of nutrients.
Put them on your compost heap to help it break down other plant material.
Animal Manure -
A bag of animal manure, such as dried cow pats, is placed in a Hessian sack and suspended in the water barrel. After about a week or ten days, the tea is used neat around plants.
(Be careful when handling animal waste. Use those that have dried hard in the sun to reduce the risk of contamination)