Home made feed

[rary]

I have made a home made feed for my plants using 6X manure and worm juice, added to 25 lots. of water I know that feeding makes a difference to taste and colour of fruits and flowers, but what benefits do you get by adding seaweed to the mix

[Mr Bones]

I find seaweed is a good general growth enhancer plus it adds lots of minerals and trace elements. It also seems compatible when used with other feeds.

[cheops]

Can I ask what is worm juice. Please don't say you put worms in your liquidiser.
I make a liquid feed by keeping seaweed in a trug of water for a couple of months and each time I mow the lawn I steep the cuttings in water for about a week and strain the 'mess' through an old towel to make a liquid feed and the old grass cuttings after straining i mulch around the bases of the fruit bushes. The blackbirds love to shuffle this mulch with their feet in search of treats.

[Bigmallly]

Can I ask what is worm juice.

Worm juice is the by product of a wormery, the juice runs into the bottom of the wormery where it is collected via a tap & diluted as feed.

[cheops]

Thx Bigmally. It's amazing how much I learn every day - but when I realise how little I know it's not really amazing.

[Scarlet]

^^^^ Cheops! Ive just eaten my dinner! Yuk!

[rary]

^^^^ Cheops! Ive just eaten my dinner! Yuk!

Was it prepared with a blender

[BUFFS]

Was it prepared with a blender

I thought it was sausage machines that had worm feed.......

[ESBkevin]

Seaweed does indeed have more trace elements than many other forms of feed. Worm castings and worm wee are very rich in nutrients and these also very readily available to the plants roots. If you're in less of a hurry good old leaf mould is similarly rich in trace minerals harvested from the subsoil as is part composted wood chippings etc.

I use manure straight into the ground and add lots of compost (which includes woodchip and leaves). I mulch with woodchip/leaves and I make Nettle tea for green/early growth and cumfry tea for flowering/fruiting growth. I have a small worm farm that I use to encourage tender young plants at home. In addition human urine is very rich in nitrogeon and can be used (like nettles) as a compost accelerator or again diluted and put dirent into the ground.

Once the soil is in a decent healty state and depth (a couple of years heavy composting usually does it), it becomes less important to feed because the soil has all it needs. It does pay to mulch so that heavy rain doesn't wash out/down the nutrients away from the root systems.

Green manures help keep the soil covered and recycle the soil nutrients wher you need them.

You might also investigate the fungus that attaches to roots and aids water and nutrient collection for the plants called mycorrhiza. This can be cultivated yourself or bought in to innoculate plants, it is recommended to do minimal tilling once it is established in the soil to allow it to develop more extensivly.

Anyway Rary I agree with you that food grown with natural feed/compost tastes much more like it should and beats supermarket bought chemically grown monoculture stuff into a cocked hat. For me the next move will be more toward heirloom seed varieties to see if those taste even better, rumour has is they do!

[rary]

Thanks ESBKevin, as no doubt you will know from my ingredients I have a wormery too, and to be honest most of the worm cast goes into my flower baskets, I suppose I should add more to the veg. compost to see if there is any difference in growth or taste, I have just sowed four different lots of lettuce, so once they are up I will use some when transplanting and see if there is any difference growth and/or taste. When using my adle today I could actually smell the seaweed, mark you it didn't make it smell any sweeter just different