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Thursday, July 28, 2011

Homemade Liquid "Compost"



Soil needs to be nourished too!  We need to feed our soil to nourish our edible plants as well as our other plants.  This also helps prevent weeds and pests.  Weeds will not thrive in an environment that is healthy.  When you see tons of weeds popping up everywhere, it’s because the soil is lacking nutrients and/or has been treated with chemical fertilizers and pesticides. 

This recipe is so easy to make and takes very little time.  It’s perfect for those who don’t have the space for a compost bin/pile or just don’t have the time to spend dealing with a compost pile.  It’s great for those who do have a compost pile too!  Because the items are blended into liquid form, it absorbs and breaks down quicker in the soil.  Faster results in the garden, who doesn’t like that?

Homemade Liquid Compost – Food for Your Garden

This is SO simple and easy to make.  Just use whatever you have leftover in the kitchen, there is no absolute recipe.   Make sure to use all organic items and stay away from using bread products, anything with cooking oils/fats, meat, dairy, grains, nuts, tomatoes, and citrus (although some of these items are fine, they tend to attract pests and that’s not what you want in an organic garden). 


In bowl: bulk herbs from making tea, carrot tops (leaves), carrot peel, old organic coffee grounds, old thyme, old strawberries, old watermelon chunks, stale nori, half eaten banana, banana peel (broken into small pieces), leftover brown avocado flesh, old blueberries, pastured egg shells, peach peel

Equipment: Blender

·    Egg shells
·    Vegetable scraps – kale stems, carrot tops (leaves), spent veggies
·    Banana peel broken into small pieces
·    Old coffee grounds (just a reminder here to by Fair Trade coffee!)
·    Used bulk herbs from herbal teas
·    Spent fruit (non-moldy)
·    Stale sea-vegetables

1.    Place all scraps in blender.

Looks gross, I know.

2.    Fill blender ONLY halfway with water (tap water is fine), it is important NOT to add too much water because the volume increases quickly and you don’t want a huge mess in your kitchen from a blender that has exploded.
3.   Place lid on blender.  Start on a low setting and puree until all combined and it becomes a liquid form.
 
Nothing pretty about this, smells like compost too.
4.   Feed it to your soil. 

Three Options:
1) Pour on top of soil, let sit for 24 hours and then water in or turn soil. 
2) Water in after pouring onto soil.
3) Pour mixture into large bucket and fill with water.  Then pour the water-liquid compost over soil.  This works best for larger areas, as it will cover more surface area.  

Here is what's growing in my garden this week (after a dose of liquid compost of course).

Beautiful Hydrangea

Sweet 100 Cherry Tomatoes

Summer Squash and Strawberries

Heirloom Watermelon, the size of a baseball!

More Strawberries

Fuyu Persimmons growing over the fence.

Love our neighbors for letting these beautiful Thompson Grapes grow over our fence!

How does your garden grow?

6 comments:

  1. This is FANTASTIC info; i never knew this and have been looking for a solution for years! THANK YOU Emily - this is by far my new FAVORITE blog!!!

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  2. i found this on pinterest and this was exactly what i needed. thank you thank you thank you!

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  3. I would like to try this except I thought from other compost things I have seen, it seems like the point of compost is to have worms feed on the scraps and then basically the "worm castings" they produce is what is really good for the plants. So can worms be incorporated into this method or does it not really make a difference? Thanks for the idea, I was wondering if my new garden would have to go without compost because I only have an apartment balcony.

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    1. Worms are great, you could incorporate those into your garden as well. This is a homemade liquid "compost" that is meant to add nutrients to the soil; this helps nourish your soil - keeps your plants healthier. It's "compost" in the sense that it's things from your home that you would put into a compost pile.

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