lost of questions

[starbright]

Hi guys

Have a few questions for you all, as I said before I am a beginner to veg growing but I am also trying to live as "green" a life as possible so....

I have heard that seaweed extract is great for my veggies and especially my strawberries but it costs £5.99 a bottle and it comes from all over the world so builds up air miles which I am trying to reduce. I was wondering if anybody knew whether or not I could go hunting on beaches and put some seaweed into my composter?

I have also heard that potassium feed is great for veggies? could I just pour my water after boiling potatoes on y veggies or into the composter?

Also does anyone know any alternatives to buying expensive nitrogen feeds??

Look forward to responses?

[SarzWix]

Not sure about the seaweed thing, as i don't live near the coast, but can't see why you couldn't put it on the compost heap as long as you rinse it well to get the salt off?
A cheap way to produce liquid feed is to soak comfrey leaves/nettle leaves in a bucket of water, until they stink, strain it into bottles, then dilute it so that it looks like very weak tea and feed it to your plants. Have a look in the the Digging Around section, there's a lot of good advice there

[Two_Sheds]

Seaweed tea:
Rinse off the salt. Leave seaweed to soak in water for 2 weeks before use. Dilute to a pale sherry colour.

[andrewo]

Another good feed is put manure (either horse or cow) in some old sacking and throw into a water butt (seperate from your others and not linked to and downpipes). Leave until the water takes on the consistency of tea, and then water down 50/50 with water, great feed.

[dexterdoglancashire]

Hiya starbright! Yes, of course you can go for a walk along the beach and collect seaweed and put it in your compost - I was rather hoping to do that tomorrow - give Dexter a walk on the beach! It just depends on the weather! LOL (well, you have to, dont you!) Bernie

[Snadger]

I may be wrong but I don't even think you need to compost it! You could just lay it on the surface as a mulch much as you would straw or grass clippings! It's hardly going to start growing is it, surely it's got to stop raining soon!

[NattieG]

While we're on the topic of home-made feeds, I was wondering about potash fertiliser? We've got a wood burning chimnea in the garden so plenty of ash, does it need to be prepared in any way or what quantity do you add to the soil?

[smallblueplanet]

Tamar Organics sell seaweed extract - £9.95

"PURE SEAWEED EXTRACT GRANULES. Still the most popular way to buy seaweed feed. Each pack contains six sachets of pure seaweed extract and each sachet is enough to make 1 litre of seaweed concentrate. This is then diluted further to use as a root feed or a foliar feed. Thats up to 1800 litres of feed for less than £10. You supply the plastic recycled plastic drinks bottle and add the water. 1 litre of concentrate makes 300 litres of foliar feed or 100 litres of root feed."

[starbright]

excellent guys thanks so much!! i much prefer to go hunting for things and make it my self! going to drag the hubby son and dog up the beech tommorrow although im guessing it will still be pouring down. managed to get someone to give me a bag of comfrey leaves so shall make that to.

thanks guys
lisa