For years I have wanted to make this, but some how I never came to it. Now we finally did and it is so easy.
We have a lot of stinging nettle growing on our property. After winter, I just had to wait until they grew to a usable size for cutting off and collecting.
I used a hedge trimmer to cut the stinging nettle off and putt on some very thick gloves to collect them.
I used a new rain barrel to prevent mold from growing and collected stinging nettle until it was ¼ full. I used the hedge trimmer to cut the stinging nettle into smaller pieces right in the rain barrel. I put the rain barrel underneath an elderberry tree, where it has shade at least a part of the day.
The stinging nettle was topped off with water (the rain barrel is half full) and I gave it a good stir. My husband made a funny video of this.
I put on the lid, which does not close air tight, and waited for about 3 weeks.
In the mean time our fruit trees in the raised beds are struggling. We are already having a drought and the soil in the raised beds is of the heavy clayy type, which hardly holds any moisture. It will take some more years of adding compost and mulch before it will be a good soil for the plants and the trees. Against the caterpillars the stinging nettle manure will not help, but I do hope (with enough watering to go along) that it will strengthen the health of the fruit trees and will help against all of the aphids inhabiting them at the moment.
After about 3 weeks of waiting this was what I found after opening the lid.
It might not show on the picture very well, but the stinging nettle manure is covered with a lot of white spots. I was very disappointed thinking this was mold and I would have to throw the stinging nettle manure away. But, after doing some research on the internet, I have learned that it is no big deal. We have to filter the stinging nettle manure anyway and the plant roots only take what they want and do nothing with the mold spores. I just should not water over any leaves. Since I mostly made the stinging nettle manure for the fruit trees, that is no big deal and I was relieved. The stinging nettle manure is finished when it is not bubbling any more and besides from the mold it can also be possible to have wild yeast growing on the top, which is no problem at all.
The stinging nettle somehow fell apart completely, so we could only poor everything trough some kind of filter. We decided to try this with a burlap sack we held tight over another rain barrel. At first this worked very well, but with all of the plant material the fluid did not run trough very quickly, so this took some time and was a very stinky matter.
The stinging nettle manure should not go bad, so I will see if the amount I made (about 50 litres) will last the season, or if I will have to make a bigger amount next spring.
I will use it to strengthen all of my fruit trees and I will use it for the vegetable plants in my raised beds (without pouring over the leaves). Since the soil in there is very poor of nutrients I think it will help the plants. I will watch the plants in other gardens very carefully, but if I see anything like aphids or other problems they will get some as well.
O je, as I have read the stinging nettle manure should be diluted 1:10, so I am just going to but a nice bottom in my watering can and fill the rest up with water. I am not sure how often I should use the stinging nettle manure, but for now I will repeat it every 2 weeks with my fruit trees in the raised beds, until I see improvement.
And we have some alleys against the aphids. We found a lot of ladybirds on our fruit trees, so we are very happy about that.
Beautiful Chaos 