Home made seaweed feed?

josusa47

I make liquid feeds from my own comfrey and nettles cut from waste ground,  I collect seaweed off the beach for mulch, but I buy liquid seaweed extract.  Has anyone tried making their own seaweed brew, and with what results?  I'm thinking one might need to be selective about which species to use.  For mulch, I just use whatever the sea delivers.

Flinster

Interesting. I haven’t made any, but as you mention comfrey... I wondered if I can pick your brains...how big a patch do you have? I’m thinking of growing some up round my pond area, to use for feed, but not sure how much I need to grow to make it worthwhile doing that. 

wild edges

I have tried it but it's almost impossible to tell what the results were. Even commercial seaweed feeds tend not to have an NPK rating. I tend to just use it as a foliar feed and then compost the seaweed I collect to feed into the soil. I did have a great sprout crop one year using a seaweed mulch though.

josusa47

Flinster said:

Interesting. I haven’t made any, but as you mention comfrey... I wondered if I can pick your brains...how big a patch do you have? I’m thinking of growing some up round my pond area, to use for feed, but not sure how much I need to grow to make it worthwhile doing that. 

Depends how big your garden is, and how much feed you want to make!  I have a modest urban garden, I'd guess the plot including the house would roughly equal a tennis court.  My comfrey occupies about 1.5 square metres, it grows about 5 feet tall.  Make sure you get the Bocking 14 strain, it flowers but doesn't set seed.  Otherwise you'll have it all over the garden.  It's a great bee feeder.