Homemade Garden Tonic
With all the expensive fertilizers and garden aids available at gardening centers, it can be difficult to know what to put in your garden to produce the best growth. Making your own garden tonic is not only less expensive, it also enables you to know exactly what you are putting on your plants. This is especially important when growing fruits and vegetables. Does this Spark an idea?
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Things You'll Need
- Beer
- Ammonia
- Dish soap
- Lawn food
- Corn syrup
- Apple cider vinegar
- Water
- Sprayer
- Gallon jug
- Oak leaves
- 5-gallon bucket
Instructions
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Foliage Feeding Tonic
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1
Mix together a can of beer and a cup of ammonia. Add in 1/2 cup each liquid dish soap, clear corn syrup and liquid lawn food.
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2
Pour the mixture into a sprayer such as a fertilizer or pesticide container that has been thoroughly cleaned. Use a spray bottle for smaller areas.
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3
Spray the mixture evenly over all plants and grass. The foliage will perk up and look greener and healthier in just a few days, according to garden expert and author Jerry Baker.
Vinegar Tonic
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4
Wash a gallon container with hot, soapy water and rinse thoroughly.
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5
Pour in 1 tbsp. of apple cider vinegar and fill the container the rest of the way with water.
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6
Water plants with this solution once every other week during spring and summer. Paul James, host of Home and Garden Television's "Gardening by the Yard," recommends this vinegar tonic to "green up" plants as well as to reduce the pH of alkaline water.
Oak Leaf Tonic
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7
Rake up fallen oak leaves from your yard, or another location. Fill a 5-gallon bucket a third full with leaves.
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8
Fill the bucket the rest of the way with boiling water. Allow plenty of time to cool completely.
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9
Pour the mixture around the base of any plants that need to be perked up. Shred leftover oak leaves for mulch if desired.
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1
Tips & Warnings
Coffee is also a good garden tonic as it is high in nitrogen, according to the Master Gardeners of Hamilton County, Tennessee. Either work dried, used coffee ground into the soil around plants or mix one part brewed coffee to four parts water and use to water plants.
References
- Photo Credit garden image by memorialphoto from Fotolia.com
