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Stinking brew! Alfalfa Tea

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Oh my. I did something this evening that I have to do under the cover of darkness. No, I’m not doing something illegal or trying to hide some big gardening secret from my neighbors.

No, nothing quite as simple as that I’m afraid.

You see, I’m quite sure that my neighbors are well aware that something is going on when I do my sneaky deed.

It’s the smell that gives it away.

Remember sometime near the beginning of July I posted that I was going to brew a batch of Alfalfa tea? Yup, well I did. It brewed and fermented, and I stirred it and tended to it and the herbal grow juice was more than ready to be poured onto my garden beds.

I used two large garbage bins. Added 6 cups of alfalfa pellets to each bin and filled them to within 4 inches of the top. Then I added 1.5 cups of Epsom salt to each container as well. The alfalfa contains a natural growth hormone that the plants respond to very quickly, plus the alfalfa gives them a nitrogen boost too. The epsom salts add some magnesium to the mix. Just for good measure I also added some Iron Green. Read the directions on the bottle to figure out how many capfuls of iron Green to add per litre or gallon of water. I followed the directions but I can’t remember how much I added at this time.

When I was done preparing the mixture I gave it a good stir with a big stick and then put the lids on the containers. I stirred it two or three times a day for most of the last three weeks. It was ready after about one week but we were going through a heat wave here so I wasn’t ready to use it.

Oh, I also added about a cup of molasses to each container on the third day. This feeds the bacteria that is developing and aids in the fermentation process.

It’s very important to stir the mixture at least once a day to add some air into the fluid that brewing away in your driveway, or backyard. If you don’t it will smell even worse when you decide to use it.

But I digress. I stopped to tell you my recipe for alfalfa tea in case you want to try it on your own garden. You might not, by the time I finish my story, but let me testify that it works. No matter how bad it might smell you will get results and you’ll get them very quickly. Honest, I wouldn’t lie to you.

I guess, to my neighbors, this might seem like a big garden secret because I only pour the stuff on my garden late at night when most people are inside their homes. Then they see that my garden is lush and full of new growth on all the plants and that I have lovely blooms on all of my flowering plants.

But I don’t pour it on the garden at night because it’s a secret. No, I’d gladly share my recipes with them. No I do it because it smells terrible. Like a cross between poop and vomit. Really disgusting. Well, this batch was anyways since I’d let it go to long thanks to the heat wave.

I’m sure anyone around can smell it for several blocks.

My husband helped me. He pre-watered the garden beds so the alfalfa tea wouldn’t just roll off the mulch when I poured it around the plants. I, of course, had the nasty job of filling watering containers with the nasty brew splashing myself in the process as I walked back and forth from the flower beds to the brewing containers.

Whenever a bus would go by and stop at the corner we’d try to hide ourselves in case someone walked in the direction of our home. If we saw someone walking down the street and knew they would pass our house we’d stay out of sight then too. The job is so nasty that you just want to get it over with and you don’t want to stop and talk to neighbors inquiring about the awful smell.

Chris went over the areas that I had applied the alfalfa tea to and did a normal watering of the area. This helps soak the alfalfa tea into the ground and, well, it cuts the smell down a lot too.We had to shower when we came in to get the smell off of us, but I think my hands still smell.

I wouldn’t do this if the results were nil to mild. Uh huh, it wouldn’t be worth it. The results are spectacular! I started using alfalfa tea last year. I think the garden got at least four doses of the stinking brew. Within days of each application new growth could be seen on most of the plants. The roses would start to grow basal canes, and other plants would start to push out flower buds.

You’ve seen pictures of my garden on this site, and if you’ve been cruising around you’ve also seen my plants on Tricia’s Musings and Breath of Life, that should be proof that it works and that my garden is healthy. I don’t use any chemicals in my garden. Everything is natural.

If you are daring, and you’d like a lovely garden, take my advice and make some alfalfa tea. It stinks but it works. You’ll love it. Oh yes, you might want to apply it to your garden when your neighbors aren’t around just as I do, otherwise I’m sure those around you will have something to say about it.

More information on alfalfa tea:

Fertilizing roses – Alfalfa Tea

What are the Benefits of Aerated Compost Teas vs. Classic Teas?

Enjoy!






Benefits of using mulch on the garden

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I went out of town this past weekend and I was a little worried about my garden.

You see, we are going through a heat wave here in Toronto. Friday’s temps were 31 Celsius (87.8), Saturday and Sunday were 32 (89.6 F) and 34 C (93.2 F), and yesterday ended up reaching 35 C (95 F). Now those temps wouldn’t necessarily be so bad if it were dry heat, but here in Toronto we seem to get a lot of humidity. If you add in the humidity factor the temps were well over 40 Celsius (104 F) each day. Those temps are enough to make me wilt so it’s no wonder I was worried about my plants, especially all the new ones that I finally planted last week.

I should have watered the garden on Friday seeing as we were leaving early Saturday morning but I was very tired for some reason. Not watering added to my worry. I was sure I’d come home to wilted or dead plants. Lucky for me it did rain sometime on Saturday.

I’m sure the shredded red cedar mulch that I put on the garden helped too. We covered all the bare spots between the plants with two to three inches of cedar mulch. This helps keep the weeds down. Actually- it makes them virtually non-existent. It also helps keep the soil moist too. Well, it won’t if you don’t water at all, but if you give your garden a good watering every two or three days the soil should stay slightly moist and your plants will be happy. As long as I do a good deep watering I don’t have to water every day, even during a heat wave- apparently.

We use the red coloured mulch because 1. we like the look of it, and 2. because in studies it was said to help tomatoes grow faster. We do grow some tomatoes in one corner of our garden and they do do well.

I even put some mulch on my potted plants to help them retain moisture.

Do you use mulch on your garden beds? If you do, what kind do you use? And have you noticed any difference in your garden since you started using it?

No longer Neglected

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My poor garden, it hasn’t been getting the level of care that I normally give it this year. I’ve been so ill that I’ve been barely getting outside to work in the garden with the exception of watering it a couple of times a week. Thankfully it’s been raining often enough that I don’t have to be out there everyday watering.

Yesterday afternoon and evening I made an effort towards getting the garden under control again. All of the plants are growing beautifully with little help from me. The roses have been blooming their pretty little heads off, the Holyhocks are beginning to bloom and so on. However, without my assistance some of the plants were leaning on to others, crowding them out and making the garden look more than a little bit sloppy.

I spent several hours yesterday putting some stakes around floppy plants, tying them up with garden tape and just straightening them out. It looks amazing!

Today I plan to distribute the contents of my compost pile around all the plants and add some coffee grounds that we picked up from a local coffee shop to a new batch of compost. Then I’m going to put some red cedar mulch on all my flower beds. I’m a bit late in doing this but they say that if you have problems with slugs, and I do, you shouldn’t mulch until at least mid-June, and you should turn the soil a few times prior to that to keep kill the slug eggs. Better late than never. It looks so nice when the mulch is fresh. I’ll take some pictures.

My arms are, of course, a mess again after tangling with several rose bushes. Oh well, they’ve all been tamed now so they won’t get me as badly for the rest of the year.

Later, I’m going to make some alfalfa tea for my garden. No, the garden and I aren’t going to sit and relax over a hot cup of steaming herbal tea. Uh huh, this is a special organic fertilizer that I make several times each year, let it ferment, and then pour it on my garden when all the neighbors are asleep since it smells so god awful bad! Really, it smells so nasty but works so well. I put it on my garden at least 5 times last summer and I think that’s why I have giant roses, abundant blooms and a more than slightly over grown garden this year.

I’ll write up the alfalfa tea recipe later and make a post about it’s magical work.

In other news – As you know this site is still in it’s infancy. If you actually been reading this post I’d like some suggestions as to what you might like to see me write about.

I’m thinking about make a weekly or perhaps if I’m really ambitious a daily feature in which I write about a particular plant’s profile. The write ups would include photos of the plant, hardiness and care data, when it usually blooms if it blooms and planting advice.

Would you like to see plant profiles on this site? If you would, give me some suggestions as to what plants you want me to begin talking about. See my Whats Growing page for an idea of the kind of plants I’m familiar with.

Don’t forget that tomorrow is Green Thumb Sunday. If you’d like to participate by posting a garden, plant or nature photo on your site tomorrow let me know and I’ll send you the bl0groll code and add you to the roll.

Ok, got to get back to the garden. Hey isn’t that a song? LOL

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