My Useful Weeds

The weeds in my back yard have grown incredibly well this winter. Heading into spring, I am sure that they'll take off even further.

Rather than let the work involved in getting rid of them get me down, I thought I would see if I could get them to help me in the garden.

Fertiliser From Weeds

Firstly, I have made some fertiliser/plant food from the stinging nettles. Well, some of the stinging nettles. I've far more than I can use to make the nettle fertiliser, or containers to make it in.

To make the fertiliser, I filled a plastic rubbish bin with nettles, covered them with some of my excess rainwater, added a little Seasol (fish extract plant food) to kick the brew along a bit and sat back to wait.

Well, actually I left home for 2 weeks while it did it's bit, leaving any smell for the neighbours to suffer through. Sorry no pictures, of this one, it's just too gross looking, almost as bad as it smells.

In a few days I will separate out and bottle the liquid, for adding to my vegetables to give them a nutrient boost.

Straw For Mulch
Secondly, I have started to cut down some the grass type weeds, like barley grass, rye grass and wild oats. They have been put in a couple of places in the yard to dry out and form the straw that I can use for mulch when the weather warms up.

So weeds are not all bad. Now I just have to work out ways to use the other weeds, like marshmallow and the horrible prickly ones with milky sap.

Any suggestions?