This simple, effective recipe for homemade liquid fertilizer is highly customizable—so you can use whatever you have on hand!
How to Make Homemade Liquid Fertilizer
As shared in my book Compost Everything, feeding plants with homemade liquid fertilizer allows you to stretch fertility a long, long way and reuse “waste”:
Many people have written in to say how much they appreciate this simple method for creating homemade liquid fertilizer for plants.
As Gardener Earth Guy commented on the video:
“This is the absolute best garden trick I’ve learned in a long time. My bananas have gotten giant, sweet potatoes have rope vines, and loquats are getting giant. What doesn’t get a chop ‘n’ drop goes in the bin.”
You can throw in weeds, fruit, kitchen scraps, urine, manure … just find organic matter and throw it in. I like a wide mix.
You May Also Enjoy:
“Homemade Fertilizers—15 Simple and Inexpensive Options”
“How to Make Fish Emulsion Fertilizer”
“Aerobic Compost Tea, Worm Tea, and Leachate—A Clarification”
“Make Peace With Your Poop (and Then Make Compost With It!)”
This is a pretty simple batch, only containing moringa, compost, cow manure, and urine. I did get some Epsom Salts after making the video and also threw that in. A 55-gallon drum of homemade liquid fertilizer like this can easily feed 10,000 square feet of corn for a growing season. I know—I’ve done it!
It really beats making “normal” compost and having to spread it all around.
What Do You Think?
What’s your favorite recipe for homemade liquid fertilizer? Any additional tips beyond what I’ve included in the video? Please share your thoughts by leaving a comment below!
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This article was originally published on March 13, 2018. The author may not currently be available to respond to comments, however we encourage our Community members to chime in to share their experiences and answer questions!
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David The Good is a Grow Network Change Maker, a gardening expert, and the author of five books you can find on Amazon: Compost Everything: The Good Guide to Extreme Composting, Grow or Die: The Good Guide to Survival Gardening, Totally Crazy Easy Florida Gardening, Create Your Own Florida Food Forest, and Push the Zone: The Good Guide to Growing Tropical Plants Beyond the Tropics. Find fresh gardening inspiration at his website TheSurvivalGardener.com and be sure to follow his popular YouTube channel.
COMMENTS(16)
Hello! I’m looking forward to checking this out, as soon as time permits.
Wow! It been a great time with the grow network.
I appreciate you sharing your “formula”.
Nice hat David! You’ve got a new fashion item there, huh?
it sounds like your luck is about like mine, if you can fall you will usually not at the best of times. last year I was repairing the fence for my neighbor & slid on a weed bruising my right hip. that afternoon I was spraying around the foundation of my house & stepped back , tripped & fractured my left hip.
MARGE, I ORDERED THE CD FOR THE HOW TO USE SOUTHWEST PLANTS FOR MEDICINE AND HAVENT RECIEVED IT AFTER A COUPLE OF WEEKS. CAN YOU TELL ME HOW LONG IT TAKES?
Hi Jim,
Oh dear! Are you talking about the DVD set “Treating Infections Without Antibiotics”? Could you please email Nikki – the TGN Customer Happiness Director? You can reach her by clicking on the “Help” tab down in the lower right of your screen. Or simply email “happiness at thegrownetwork.com”.
Nikki takes pride in getting packages out quickly – and she is amazing with the details of every order. And she is super helpful and easy to work with too.
Nice hat David! You’ve got a new fashion item there, huh?
What is the urine from, human or animal?
I was actually wondering about the origin of the urine also.
Also wondering the origin of the urine.
Human, but animal works fine as well.
I have used a similar recipe that David talked about in his “compost everything” book. It smelled horrid and my tomatoes loved it!
I was rewatching this and had a crowd of kids around me by the end. Compost tea is mesmerizing.
What do you use if Moringa is not an option? You live in the south, I live in the North, zone 4b. It doesn’t grow here.
Whoops, I just went back and relistened. I guess I missed it the first time. High nitrogen would be anything in the Leguminoceae, so there’s lots of weeds in that family.
I don’t think I even want to know about the urine…