Post by Pharmer Phil on Feb 4, 2006 12:09:36 GMT -6
Milk and water
A mixture of ½ pint milk in 1 gallon of water, sprayed onto brassicas and nasturtiums in May and every 3 weeks thereafter may help to prevent cabbage white butterfly.
Use 1 gallon of water to each pound of nettles, and leave to ferment. Dilute the mixture 10:1. Initially, the liquid turns cloudy and starts to become colored until it is a dark liquid in which all vegetable matter has disappeared. It emits a smell which may be thought unpleasant and which increases with maturity.
It can be used in the early stages of fermentation for preparing seedlings for planting out by dipping the roots. It inhibits various pests and diseases, e.g. celery rust. The same brew may be sprinkled over foliage as an aphicide and aphid deterrent. When it has matured, the fertilizer may still be used in the same ways if mixed half-and-half with water. With fermentation well advanced a proper fertiliser results, which will feed the plants and make good many soil deficiencies. It can also be sprayed on to plants which have been damaged by frost as an aid to renewal.
When the liquid is old, thick and concentrated, with a very strong smell, it can still be poured undiluted around the roots of trees, preferably at the beginning of winter. This concentrated nettle and herb mixture, with added chalk, is also used to treat tree trunks. It is painted on the bark with, if necessary, a little water-glass as an adhesive. Damage that is slow to heal in old trees can be cured in this way.
Finally, the solid residue which remains at the bottom may be used as a starter for the compost heap or spread on the top of green manures when these are cut.
Other herbs may effectively be added to the basic nettle brew, including comfrey, and the leaves of any member of the cabbage family. The addition of cabbage leaves or thinned out cabbage plants to the preparation will do much to make crops thrive.
Nettle tea
A nettle plant tea is good against aphids.