Could you feed your plants without buying any fertilizer?
This is how we feed a garden for free with fermented plant juice, AKA Dave’s Fetid Swamp Water. I thought I was clever, but the Koreans were hundreds of years ahead of me.
From the description of my latest video:
“If there was a fertilizer shortage, would you still be able to grow a garden? Do you know how to turn weeds into fertilizer? Today you’ll learn how to make your own liquid fertilizer/compost tea from readily available materials, like weeds, chicken manure, food scraps and more.”
This is the shirt I wore in the video. It was an original design by my friend Aardvark, who I greatly miss.
Do you see how easy it is to make fertilizer? I’m not worried about feeding my backyard gardens if there is a serious fertilizer shortage. The shortage will be terrible for the price of purchased food, but it won’t affect those of us who are growing our own food organically and know how to scavenge what we need to keep the garden fed.
Also, I love the way the old Minolta lens I used in this video looks. Check out these freeze frames:
Yes. I am a nerd. I love my weird lenses.
Other Composting Resources
JADAM Organic Farming: https://amzn.to/3lwHKOM
The Regenerative Grower’s Guide to Garden Amendments: https://amzn.to/3lwHShe
I am currently reading the latter of those two books and it’s great so far. I enjoy thrifty gardening, and am having my mind stretched.
If you don’t have Compost Everything yet, I cover this method of making Dave’s Fetid Swamp Water in there, as well as share many other methods of EXTREME composting!
Don’t worry. You can turn almost anything into fertilizer. God has provided abundantly, if we have eyes to see. Everything from fish guts to kudzu can be used to make the delicious stinky garden teas that plants crave.
You can have greener thumbs by this weekend!
8 comments
You do such interesting things. Now I have to figure out if I want to take the top off my 55 Gal drum instead of set it up as a rain barrel for the garden like I have been intending to do for the last 5 years . . .
Your turning an old bathtub into a worm bin is also pretty exciting.
Hi David – great tips in here, very timely for most people! I featured your article in my newsletter here https://www.veg-geek.com/newsletters/24052022 so hopefully a few more people get to read it!
Thank you, Anthony.
How would this method be used in places like new mexico and arizona?
Whatever plants you can find, first. If no plants, then urine, rabbit manure, kitchen scraps or whatever else is high in nutrients.
David, I know you’re in Alabama, and they do have access to the Gulf, which in some years can be a great source of seaweed. It looks like the Eastern Gulf has an abundance this year. I just wanted to share this website with you. https://sargassummonitoring.com/
Doesn’t look like we have much this year in Texas, or I would probably make a run to the beach to gather some for the garden.
Hi David! Just finished Compost Everything (and a couple others…) One question I’ve been looking for an answer to on the fetid swamp water: Once you’ve started a bucket, can you “recharge” with additional compostables as you get them? Or would it be better to keep a couple-three barrels going, and when you’re watering from one you’re collecting compost for another?
Good afternoon David. I am a long-time follower and a first-time poster. Thanks for the great posts on your Fetid Swamp Water. I took your advice and made some of my own. I live in southern Illinois, just outside St Louis, about 15 miles from the Mississippi, so I call my brew Rick’s Mississippi Mud. It smelled terrible, like sewer water, but I have no doubt that my garden will flourish after using it. Here is a post on my blog about it:
https://www.missionendure.com/blog/mission-endure-79-ricks-mississippi-mud
I will do my next application in another 2 weeks.
I love the website and the YouTube videos. Keep’em coming.
Rick Marshall
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