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The Beneficial Weed That You Can Turn Into A Garden Fertilizer
By ZARA M.
You can create nitrogen-rich plant fertilizer for free using a kind of weed you may already have in your garden or a nearby park: nettles.
Caterpillars eat stinging nettles and butterflies lay eggs on the underside of the leaves, so be mindful and take a maximum of one-third from any patch of nettles that you find.
To make this homemade fertilizer you'll need a bucket with a lid, a pair of sharp garden scissors, garden gloves, and a bucketful of rainwater that has been sitting for a little while.
Wearing gloves, cut stems with nettle leaves, roughly chop them, and fill half the bucket. Fill the rest up with rainwater, and use a stick to prod the vegetation underneath the water.
Now put the lid on and leave the bucket at the end of your garden where any smell won't be a nuisance. After a few weeks, your homemade fertilizer will be ready to harvest and use.
The nettle fertilizer will be very concentrated, so use one part fertilizer to 10 parts water. The fertilizer will be high in nitrogen, chlorophyll, and plant polyphenols.
Nettle fertilizer is perfect to use at the beginning of the season on seedlings to stimulate vigorous leaf growth. You can also use it on anything that doesn’t flower.