Frugal Gardening: Make your own Organic Plant Food, it will Save You Money

Making your own organic plant food is a great and inexpensive way of keeping your plants, shrubs and vegetables fed. They are simple to make as you usually have the ingredients already to hand whether in the garden or kitchen.

Coffee Grounds

Nearly everyone drinks coffee so what better way to recycle the grounds after you have used them. Simply sprinkle around the plants once they have dried out and let nature take its course. They are also a great addition to the compost heap, just put them in the compost with the other things you are composting.

Green Tea

Plants love green tea too so a good recipe is 2 green teabags and 1 litre of water. Leave for 2 hours until the tea has thoroughly mixed with the water then pour onto the soil around the plants.

Egg Shells

Now every gardener worth his salt always puts egg shells into the compost so why not bypass that and put directly onto the soil for the plants to enjoy.

Collect egg shells until you have enough. Once a month should suffice.

Put them all in a mixer and grind them down to a fine powder.

Sprinkle around your plants for an organic food they will love.

Fish Tank Water

If you have an aquarium next time you do a water change re-use the water in the garden. Fish produce waste which the plants will breakdown and use giving you wonderful blooms. Just make sure you haven’t used any chemicals in the tank water or added salts.

Seaweed

Yes seaweed! Next time you go to the beach take home a handful of seaweed. You will need to store it in a bucket for about 12 months and let the rain cover it. Once covered store for 12 months then add 2 tablespoons of seaweed water to 1 litre of normal water and mix. This is very good for the plants and they will love you for it. You can even use the seaweed by mixing it with the soil around the plants once you have left it standing.

Manure

We all know how horse manure is just brilliant for plants especially roses. Well you can also use manure from other animals and use it liquefied in a spray bottle. Cow and chicken manure are excellent for making liquid fertilizer to.

Manure

Rain water

Add the manure to the rainwater and leave, the longer the better.

Remove the manure and use on the garden.

To make a spray just add ½ litre of water to ½ litre of manure liquid then spray the base of the plants. This way you will be getting more from the manure with it spreading further in the garden.

Animal Bedding

If you have a small animal like rabbit, gerbil or hamster then when cleaning them out reuse the waste on the garden. Just mix into the soil around the plants and let them do the rest.

These are a few of the ways in which you can make your own organic plant food. Simple and easy to make they are one way of saving money and being more frugal in the garden.