Can you make a liquid fertiliser with Alkanet?

[Primrose]

I know you can make one with Comfrey, which I don't have, but I'm fighting a continual battle with Alkanet in my garden (the weed with tiny blue flowers and a long tap root) and wonder whether this can be used in a similar way. I usually just put the leaves on the compost heap.

[Mike Vogel]

I think you can do that with anything, Primrose. I think this Alkanet is related to comfrey anyhow and I'd expect it to make good feed or good compost accelerator.

I make liquid feed out of bindweed and dandelions and other weeds on the plot and I think it has been a pretty successful venture.

[Johnboy]

Hi Primrose,
Hope that you had a wonderful birthday!
Most of the Borage family of plants will make nutritious compost but with Green Alkanet I suspect that to actually compost it would be helping to spread it because it sets seed continually.
I think that the best way to deal with it is to drown it and allow it to decompose that way. This will be a very smelly process, like making Comfrey Tea, so you need a vessel with an easily removable but tight fitting lid.
Over the years I have experimented in making concentrates from various plants and have never tried Green Alkanet 'cos it doesn't seem to grow in this area. But I have made teas of various plants and have actually produced one which seems to work very well. This is Comfrey, Nettles, Ground Elder and Pot Marigold. These are mixed together and produced as a concentrate worked extremely well. None of the plants should be in flower for this. Only leaves are used and the roots such as Dandelion are chopped and squashed and allowed to dry out and when properly dry added to the normal compost.
JB.

[Mike Vogel]

Sorry for being imprecise - when I put this alkanet in the compost bin I always take off the flowers, so only leaves and stalk go in. I drown all my weds on the allotment, as we've been discouraged from burning them.

[Johnboy]

Hi Mike,
With the drowning method the teas produced are of good value and any solids left are beyond regrowth after a fairly short period of time and these can be added to the normal compost heap. If coming to the end of the season when teas are no longer of use you can store these in containers and used on the following years crops.
JB.

[Mike Vogel]

Yes, JB, that is what i try to do - make a lot of feed over the summer which I use the following year while making a new lot etc. I have found I get tea after about 6 weeks and I reckon the original stuff looks far too far gone to germinate, so i compost it or add it to the soil as mulch.

[Primrose]

Can you give me some idea of how to work out dilution rates, or do you just use these liquids neat?

[Granny]

I've got more alkanet than comfrey in my garden and have used both as fertiliser for a few years now. I'm very imprecise. I have a 100 litre water butt which I fill with water and put an onion sack (one of those made from orange plastic mesh) stuffed full of comfrey/alkanet leaves in it. Leave it for 2 or 3 weeks then serve it up on tomatoes etc until the butt is empty. Then I take a deep breath and fish the sack out from the bottom, empty it onto the compost heap and start again. It's a pale murky green colour.

I empty the last bit into large plastic bottles so that I've got enough to last until the next batch is ready.

I'm sure there are better ways but I find that very easy.
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Granny