Everyone knows that water is the most essential thing for life. That’s true for any living thing be it animal or vegetation. It is obviously why gardeners are encouraged to water their gardens on a consistent basis.
However, successful gardeners don’t just settle for plain water. The good ones may also include a splash or two of club soda or mix sources of nutrients in water to make something like a tea.
Club soda contains all the nutrients plants love including carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, potassium, sulfur, and sodium.
(Courtesy: John Kocijanski at flickr)
No one is advocating that you pour a bottle of Coca-Cola on your garden. Like salt, the sugar, which is a massive amount of the Cola, can be devastating to a plant because it doesn’t permit the plant to absorb water.
However, club soda (aka carbonated water) is ideal for plants because it contains nutrients including carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, potassium, sulfur, and sodium, all essential for the health of a growing plant. Plants are known to grow quickly when they are able to absorb these nutrients.
Surprisingly, even though most sodas are not good for plants, 7-Up has been used to preserve the life of cut flowers in a vase. That’s because the sugar and lime contained in the drink help to serve as a preservative. Adding a teaspoon of bleach can also help decrease the presence of bacteria that could be growing in the water of the vase.
Garden elixirs can also be a mixture of water and other things that contain the nutrients that keep plants thriving.
For example, it is probably a lot easier to distribute a compost tea on a garden than spreading just the compost. Gardeners have been known to steep compost in water in much the same way one would steep tea. The process of making compost tea takes three or four days. You have to brew, mix, aerate and strain the solution. Once created, you can apply it as a spray or as liquid fertilizer. However, it is essential that the tea be aerated properly or the plants can be damaged. Moreover, the tea does not contain the organic matter the soil needs.
Anyone who keeps a compost pile on their property knows about the benefits of the things that become compost. Kitchen scraps, eggshells, coffee grounds, tea leaves, fruit and vegetable scraps include minerals and vitamins that have proven to be beneficial to plants. You can combine all of this into a liquid fertilizer by simply combining them with water in a blender. Dilute with an equal amount of water. Once prepared, simply pour the solution directly onto your garden.
There are other natural elements you can use to create nourishing concoctions for your garden. They include seaweed, manure, and comfrey herb.
Seaweed is an ideal source of minerals for plants.
(Courtesy: A. Gantt at flickr.com)
Seaweed is an ideal source of minerals for your plants and is easy to come by if you live close to the sea. Simply gather some up and rinse well to remove the salt, then fill a garbage can halfway with the seaweed and leave it alone for two to three months. The decomposed seaweed will become a liquid that needs to be diluted in a bucket of water in a ratio of half a cup of seaweed liquid to one bucket of water. Once prepared, simply apply to your garden as you would a liquid fertilizer.
Any gardener who has spread manure on their garden knows its beneficial effects. To make into a liquid fertilizer, fill half a garbage can with manure and half with water. Let the mixture steep for a month and then dilute using a ratio of one cup of the mixture to one gallon of water.
Comfrey herb is a great source for making liquid fertilizer because its roots have a large amount of potassium and the leaves have nitrogen. Process the whole plant in a blender and then let it steep for three weeks so that it can break down and become more absorbable for the plants. Dilute it with water in a one-to-one ratio and then feed to the plants.
