Gwen’s Healing Garden

The #1 Web Site Gardening For The Soil Gardening For The Soul

Did You Know | Environmentally Friendly Gardening Products | Non-toxic Cleaning Products | Indoor Gardening With Foliage Plants

Subscribe to the FREE monthly GHG Newsletter and receive free the E-book A Book Of Quotes: Subscribe here

Nourishing Herb Teas for your Garden

By Susan Belsinger and Tina Marie Wilcox

Many common garden herbs and weeds can provide nourishment and nutrients for growing plants, just as they would for people consuming them. As you weed, cut back or harvest these leafy garden greens, save them in a basket or bucket and combine or use them singly to make a botanical tea — recycle those nutrients — and fertilize your garden. Prepare a tea by infusing the whole or chopped leaves in water for a few hours or up to a few days, be sure to stir it every now and then. When you apply the tea, it is okay to use the leaves too, although they may be a bit slimy if you infuse them for more than a day. Below are just a few garden herbs we use:

Chicory, wild and cultivated, is high in potassium and contains calcium and vitamin A. Comfrey leaves are a good source of calcium, phosphorus and potassium, and contain vitamins A and C, as well as other trace minerals.

Dandelion leaves contain vitamins A and C, as well as calcium and potassium.

Nettle leaves are packed full of nutrients from vitamins A, C, K, B1, B2, B3, B5, calcium, magnesium, phosphate, phosphorus, potassium, boron, bromine, copper, iron, selenium and zinc.

Parsley leaves provide a good amount of vitamins A and C, as well as iron, copper and manganese.

Perilla leaves are loaded with iron and calcium.

Watercress contains vitamins A, C, E, B3, B6, calcium, manganese and iron.

What They Are, and What They Do

Nutritive teas extract the water-soluble nutrients from the natural fertilizers, and — if brewed for three days and stirred or boxed — increase the friendly flora or aerobic microherd of the tea (a phrase to describe the beneficial organisms that consume fungal and bacterial diseases, break down organic matter into humus and make nutrients available to our plants). Here are the specifics on each type of tea for the garden.

Alfalfa meal (rabbit pellets) N: 2.45 percent, P: 0.5 percent, K: 2.1 percent (see Plants Need Tea, Too! for details about "The Big Three" on these key elements and their symbols). Alfalfa is a legume grown as a cover crop to fix nitrogen in the soil, and it is used as a high protein feed for animals. The roots plunge as deep as 23 feet, capturing and transporting plant nutrients to the surface. As a plant fertilizer, alfalfa is valued for its trace element content, including sulfur, iron, magnesium, manganese and selenium. Alfalfa meal contains the growth stimulant, triaconatol, that when sprayed on a variety of crops increases growth and yields. Soak the pellets for three or four hours to dissolve them, boxing a few times, then use as a tea; or add the molasses and soak for three days for an even richer bacterial nutritive tea.

Algae are microscopic green plants that participate in the global environment in huge and diverse ways. We use two phyla of algae in our fertilizer teas.

Blue-green algae (spirulina and chlorella) are highly nutritive human supplements containing protein, B vitamins and a host of other attributes. In gardening, they are used to reduce shock when transplanting. Make a paste with 2 tablespoons blue-green algae to 1⁄4 cup water. Combine the paste with water, stir or box and use right away. You also can grow more blue-green algae by making the tea and adding a tablespoon of quicklime to the water. Store in a warm place with sunlight, box daily, and dip from the top. Dilute this with water to feed plants. Refill the blue-green algae bucket and grow some more living fertilizer.

Kelp (seaweed) is a wonderful organic fertilizer, which may come from any number of plants that grow in the sea. High in potash, it also contains nitrogen, potassium, trace minerals and chlorophyll. Kelp helps to release minerals in the soil and has growth-producing hormones that aid in plant maturation. It is available in dried, powdered form as well as liquid concentrate, and is easily made into teas. Follow directions on the container for mixing.

Bat guano is mined from caves of the Southwest and the South Pacific coastal islands west of the Andes. Nutrients, particularly nitrogen, are preserved in a mixture of droppings and decomposing bat bodies. Fertilizer values vary from N: 5 to 6 percent, P: 2.5 to 16 percent, K: 0 percent. Combine with water and box; then let stand overnight while the hard clods begin to soften and dissolve. Dip from the top when you feed the plants. Add more water to remaining solids and use again. This can be done for several days, then add any remains to the garden or the compost heap.

German chamomile flowers (Matricaria recutita) have anti-fungal properties that we have observed preventing damping-off disease in seedling flats. Flowers are steeped in cold water for one or two days, then strained and sprayed on the potting mix just before planting.

Compost, when well made, is our first line of organic plant nutrition. The compost contains nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium and many trace elements. It inoculates the soil with beneficial micro-and macro-organisms (the aerobic microherd) plus nucleic and carbonic acid. Compost tea is a mainstay in our feeding and watering programs. It never hurts to use compost in any fertilizing tea blend. Compost can be mixed with water and boxed or stirred and allowed to stand for three to four hours before using, or it can be allowed to brew for a couple of days, boxing back and forth every day.

Fish emulsion and fishmeal are made from dried ground fish. The former is made into a concentrate, and the latter is a powdered meal. The odor of both can be offensive to some, and it stays around for a day or two. However, it is a fast-acting fertilizer and makes a good tea for transplants and throughout the growing season. N: 4 to 10 percent, P: 3 to 9 percent, K: 0.3 to 1.9 percent. Follow directions on the container for mixing.

Herbs and greens contain minerals, vitamins, enzymes and essential oils that we process in water for our bodies and our gardens. We research the anti-fungal and insect-repellent herbs to make remedies. We have an overabundance of some plants and are happy to use the bounty in botanical teas to nourish the garden. Cold water will extract much of the nutritive material from plants for use in the garden. We gather the plants, roughly chop them and cover with cold water, leave them to macerate for three days, then strain the liquid. We use the finished tea as a concentrate, adding it to irrigation water, or use it undiluted around plants in need of stronger medicine.

Manure, regardless of its source, provides the three main elements, as well as trace minerals. Most importantly, it furnishes organic matter, becoming humus in the soil, which helps plants absorb nutrients. Fresh manure is rich in nitrogen and generally should not be used directly on plants because it may burn them. Horse, poultry and sheep manure are highest in nitrogen and are considered hot. It can be put into piles to age (for six months to one year), worked into compost, or it can be made into manure tea and fermented for at least 30 days. It can be worked into the garden soil: however, you must wait for at least four weeks after applying fresh manure before planting. On the other hand, aged or composted manure can be used in the garden or made into tea without any wait. Aged manure can be mixed with water and boxed or stirred and allowed to stand for three to four hours before using, or it can be allowed to stand for a couple of days, stirred daily. Manure tea is especially good when transplanting and before plants flower.

Gray water is basically the leftovers from other household water uses. Over the years, both of us have lived in drought situations in different places. When water is plentiful, we don’t think about how much we use, but when it is in short supply, we realize what a precious commodity it is. So we recycle water whenever we can. When we make a smoothie, we rinse out the blender and water our plants with this nutritious water. We rinse the grounds from our coffeepots and the tea/herbs from our teapots, swishing the water around to loosen the particles and use that to water our plants or pour on the compost pile. When we boil a large pot of water to cook pasta or fill the canner for a hot -water bath, we let the water come to room temperature and use it for watering. We wash our dishes with biodegradable soap in a basin and use another basin for rinse water. Once cooled, this gray water goes to water our plants, too. The nutrients from this saved water are a kind of household tea that provides plants with vitamins and minerals, instead of being thrown away every day.

_________________________________________________________________________

Ms. Belsinger is a culinary herbalist, educator, food writer, and photographer whose articles and photographs have been published in The Herb Companion, Herbs for Health, Natural Home & Garden, Kitchen Gardener, Organic Gardening, The Herb Quarterly, Gourmet, Food & Wine, Woman's Day, The Washington Post, and other publications. She has been featured in the Baltimore Magazine, Better Nutrition, Organic Gardening Magazine, Mid-Atlantic Magazine, Victoria Magazine, and The Washington Times. She has co-authored several best-selling, award-winning cookbooks. Her recently released book not just desserts-sweet herbal recipes is the first in the upcoming series living with herbs. She writes, cooks and gardens from her home in Maryland.

For more information and to contact Susan:

Web Site: http://www.susanbelsinger.com/biography.html

_________________________________________________________________________

Tina Marie Wilcox has been the head gardener and herbalist at the Ozark Folk Center's Heritage Herb Garden in Mountain View, Arkansas since 1984. She tends the extensive gardens, plans, coordinates annual herbal events and workshops and facilitates the production of sale plants, seeds and herbal products for the park. She has presented countless educational and entertaining herb and gardening programs throughout the United States. Tina serves on the International Herb Association’s Board of Directors. She is also a member of the Herb Society of America, the Arkansas Native Plant Society, and the American Botanical Council. Her weekly column, Yarb Tales, appears in the Stone County Leader and on the premier garden website, www.cherylsgardenparty.com.

For more information and to contact Tina: Ozark Folk Center's Heritage Herb Garden, P.O. Box 500, Mountain View, AR 72560 (870) 269-3851

Web Sites: www.ozarkfolkcenter.com www.iherb.org

This article was originally printed in The Herb Companion, July 2004.

Home | Top

For more information or questions about material on this site contact www.gwenshealinggarden.ca/Contact_Form.htm