How can I feed my plants naturally?

There are so many great reasons to feed our plants naturally says Jean Vernon.

The cost of everything is rising. Don’t let the rising price of fertilisers affect your plants and gardens. Instead use natural and low-cost alternatives to get the results you want.

Plants make their own food in their leaves using sunlight and carbon dioxide. Read that again. Plants make their own food in their leaves using sunlight and carbon dioxide. Yes, it’s true, all plants play a vital role locking up carbon in their leaves. It’s called photosynthesis, and though we learn about it at school, we don’t always appreciate the huge significance of this incredible process.

But plants need more than these sugars to survive and thrive. They take up water and nutrients from the soil and use these to boost their productivity. But there’s more going on in the soil than you may realise. Factor in the fungi – our plants use the fungal network to access otherwise unavailable and inaccessible nutrients and micro nutrients deep underground. By joining forces with the fungi plants can access food and water well beyond the reach of their roots. It’s just one of the reasons that the no-dig method works because cultivating the soil breaks these delicate connections.

Major nutrients

Commercial fertilisers are rated by the balance of three major nutrients; N Nitrate, P Phosphate and K Potash. Most also contain a blend of micro-nutrients to boost plant growth and in particular increase production of flowers.

The N:P:K are the crucial main ingredients of any commercial fertiliser; they are also present in natural fertilisers but it is not easy to quantify them. In simplistic terms the N enhances leafy growth, the P supports healthy root formation and the K promotes flower production. So, most plants need a high ratio of these three elements. Different commercial plant foods offer different combinations. But when feeding plants naturally, you don’t get the nutrient analysis, but you can still provide nutrients for your plants. So, for example, if you want a feed high in nitrates, stew nettles or comfrey and make a leaf-tea that can be watered onto your plants. When you want higher levels of phosphate make a banana skin brew and for more potash use comfrey tea, wood ash or seaweed extract.

Composting

Every garden needs a compost system, whether it’s a heap, a bin or a full-on three bay composting structure. Making your own garden compost is one of the most powerful actions you can take in your garden. You can recycle garden waste and kitchen prunings as well as paper packaging (Amazon paper is perfect), cardboard and many other natural materials. It’s really quite incredible as your garden army of mini-beasts and microbes set to work on your waste breaking it down into rich, crumbly garden compost. And then you can use it to feed your soil and ultimately your plants. You don’t even need to dig it in, you can top dress around your plants and let the worms take it down. Once you are hooked you will never have enough compost bins and your soil will gradually come alive with wildlife. Your healthy soil will feed the plants and you don’t need to spend a penny.

Worm poo and compost tea

Worms are the gardener’s friend and a healthy soil is teeming with them. That’s why the robins follow you around the garden, waiting for that tasty worm as you dig. Harness the power of worms in a wormery. They can become family pets and are a great way to engage the kids. They need regular ‘feeding’ with small amounts of vegetable peelings. But you get to harvest the nutrient rich ‘black gold’ otherwise known as worm poo. It’s great for feeding plants in containers, or mix a little into the planting hole when you plant. And if you have a wormery with a tap you can siphon off a very nutrient rich compost tea. It will need diluting but can be used to feed patio pots and containers.

Chop and drop

I can’t claim this idea as my own. I saw it first at Yeo Valley Organic Garden, where the garden team literally deal with comfrey and other perennials by chopping it down and letting it cover the bare soil where it breaks down. You can even do this with nettles as long as you do it before they start to set seed. There are border perennials like yarrow, persicaria and alchemilla that would also respond to this method. The benefits are that it protects bare soil and feeds the garden plants as it breaks down.

Green manures

Traditionally green manures are plants that ‘fix’ nitrogen from the air in nodules on their roots. This helps feed those plants. But if the plants and their roots are dug back into the soil as they rot down, they release that nitrogen and any other minerals and nutrients back into the soil. The plant bulk also opens up the soil structure, encouraging more mini-beasts into the soil which help to break down that plant matter further, feeding the soil as the process develops. One of my favourite green manures is fiddle neck, phacelia. If left to flower it has soft blue flowers that are rich in nectar and help to feed the pollinators too.

Nettle/comfrey and weed tea

If you’ve got nettles, dock or comfrey in the garden, you can make a nutrient rich tea very easily. In fact, you can actually add all sorts of garden ‘weeds’ to the mix to increase the variety of nutrients in the brew. These plants draw essential minerals and nutrients from deep in the soil and these are released into your liquid feed as the leaves and stems decompose. The secret of success is to let it steep for a few weeks. It will smell bad, but the worse it smells the better it is. Ideally you need the leaves. If your nettles are seeding remove the seeding shoots first and leave them somewhere for the birds. Add the leaves to a tub of rainwater and keep pressing it down. You could weight it with a rock. Then cover it and let it stew. As the leaves break down, the nutrients are released and the tea can be diluted (about 15 parts water to one part tea) and watered around your plants. The rotten plant material can be added to the compost.