[green fingers]

Hello
Read somewhere to cut nettles and keep in water to turn into liquid manure.  Have been stirring mine for about 2 weeks and I think this is about the tme to use it.  It smells absolutely foul.
So has anyone else used this and was it a cheap and effective way of manuring?

[compostqueen]

liquid manure is made from manure. If you make a brew from nettles it's called "tea" as is comfrey treated in the same way.  It's all very good stuff but has to be diluted as it will be very strong. 1:20 usually    I think it's the way to go as artificial feed is dear and I don't think it does the soil any good in the long term. Also it's easy to over feed and get sappy growth which is so beloved of aphids

[green fingers]

Just checked my gadening book and it says to dilute 1:4.

So not sure who is right on this.

[Trillium]

Manure tea is not a specific science, it's just approximates. Dilute it to the strength you feel comfortable with as everyone's batch will differ in strength.

Nettle tea can be made in a similar way but needs longer to ferment. Comfrey tea is also excellent. Check out John's excellent article on the merits.

http://www.allotment-garden.org/vegetable/comfrey/comfrey.PDF

[compostqueen]

I think specifically it's comfrey 1:20 but if it's the colour of weak tea it should be ok

I'm not a scientist  as you perhaps guessed 

[noshed]

Don't splosh it about just before you are going to eat your sandwiches though.

[Yabba]

Don't splosh it about just before you are going to eat your sandwiches though.

Does the volume of splosh matter? ... and is any particular sandwich more susceptible? :roll:

That's about as scientific as I can bear

¥

[compostqueen]

 

[Faz]

I just made my first batch of liquid manure yeasterday and managed to spill it all over my trousers before I had figured out a decent way of separating the solids from the liquid - I ended up using a cat littler tray (one of the ones with several sections that allows you to separate the cat poop from the clean litter).

I am glad it wasn't comfrey tea that got spilled on my trousers otherwise i would have been banned from the house!

[compostqueen]

yep, stinks a treat doesn't it. Mind you it fades - eventually     I make mine in a pipe attached to my shed. Stuffing the pipe with loads of comfrey leaves and ramming them down is very therapeutic    You get a slow drip into a catcher underneath.

[Idra]

You can also use a hessian sack, either for manure or leaves. Fill it up tie the neck (leave string long enough to reach outside container) and use like a giant tea bag.

[strangerachael]

I made a batch of comfrey tea but I'm afraid I haven't had the stomach to do it again 
My plan for this year (for my toms anyway) is to  plant them in a trench, scatter chopped comfrey along the trench and water into this, topping up the comfrey as it rots. Good plan?