Make Your Own Garden Feeds
Updated November 2026
Turn your scraps, weeds, manure and compost into free feeds, plus how to protect plants with registered, bee-aware products
Some of the best garden inputs are free, and you already make them. Kitchen scraps, lawn clippings, weeds, animal manure and finished compost can all become liquid feeds that grow strong, productive plants. For pests and diseases, water, hand-picking and predators come first, and registered products used to the label come after, so you never have to guess a dose.
This is the heart of a working homestead. Your outputs become your inputs. The chickens make manure, the worms make castings, the compost bin turns scraps into black gold, and all of it feeds the garden that feeds you back. See how every part connects in Connections, and learn the soil side in our composting guide.
🌱 Plants in this guide: Comfrey and Banana. Each plant profile has sowing times for your region, companion plants and common pests.
Homemade Fertilizers and Feeds
Liquid feeds are quick to make and gentle on plants when diluted properly. The golden rule for nearly all of them is the same: dilute until the liquid is the color of weak tea, then water it onto moist soil around the plant, not onto bone-dry ground. A light feed every week or two beats a heavy feed now and then.
Compost tea
A gentle, all-round feed that spreads a little finished compost a long way. There are two ways to make it.
- Simple steep: put a shovel or two of mature compost in a burlap sack or old pillowcase, drop it in a bucket of water, and let it steep for 1 to 2 days, stirring now and then. Lift the bag out and use the liquid.
- Aerated brew: bubble air through the mix with an aquarium pump for 24 to 36 hours, often with a spoon of unsulfured molasses to feed the microbes. This grows more living organisms but needs to be used the same day.
Dilute to the color of weak tea. Use fresh, ideally the day you finish it, and water it onto the soil. Do not store it, as it goes anaerobic and sour.
Worm castings tea and worm leachate
If you run a worm bin you have two of the best free feeds going. Worm castings tea is made by steeping a couple of handfuls of castings in a bucket of water for a day, then watering it on diluted to weak tea color. The liquid that drains from the bottom of a worm bin, the leachate, is usually quite concentrated.
Dilute the worm bin liquid heavily, around one part liquid to ten parts water, until it is the color of weak tea, before you use it. Use every week or two through the growing season.
Comfrey or nettle feed
Comfrey leaves are rich in potassium, which makes this one of the best free feeds for flowering and fruiting plants like tomatoes. Nettle is higher in nitrogen and better for leafy growth early in the season. The method is the same chop and steep.
- Chop a bucket of leaves, weigh them down with a brick, cover with water and put a lid on loosely.
- Leave for 2 to 4 weeks. It will smell strongly, so keep it away from the house and the neighbors.
- Strain off the dark liquid.
Dilute hard, roughly one part feed to ten parts water, until it is the color of weak tea. Use weekly to biweekly. The smell is the price of a free, high-potassium feed.
Manure tea
Aged manure from chickens, cows, horses or sheep makes a good general feed. Use well-rotted manure, never fresh, as fresh manure is too strong and can carry pathogens.
Put aged manure in a burlap sack, suspend it in a bucket of water and steep for a few days. Dilute the result to weak tea color. Use on the soil around plants, not on the leaves of anything you eat raw, and water it in.
Banana peels, wood ash and Epsom salts
These get talked up more than they deserve, so here is the honest version.
- Banana peels contain some potassium, but soaking them in water gives only a weak feed. They are better chopped into the compost or a planting hole. Treat them as a small bonus, not a main feed.
- Wood ash from untreated wood adds potassium and lime, so it raises soil pH. Use it sparingly, a light scatter worked into the soil, and not around acid-loving plants like blueberries. Keep it dry until you use it.
- Epsom salts are magnesium sulfate. They only help when a plant is genuinely short of magnesium, shown as yellowing between the veins of older leaves. A foliar spray of about one tablespoon per quart of water can green it up. They are not a general fertilizer, so do not use them as one.
Seaweed solution
Seaweed, often sold as kelp, is a tonic more than a fertilizer. It is low in the main nutrients but rich in trace elements and natural growth stimulants that help with rooting, transplant shock and general resilience. You can buy concentrate, or steep rinsed fresh seaweed in water for a few weeks where it is legal to collect it.
Dilute to weak tea color and use as a soil drench or a light foliar feed every week or two. It pairs well with a richer feed like comfrey rather than replacing it.
Protecting Plants Without Homemade Sprays
We do not give homemade spray recipes. Kitchen mixes are not registered, so their dose, crop safety and pre-harvest interval are untested, and a mix that suits one plant can scorch the next. Water, hand-picking and the predators that do your pest control for free come first. When you do need a spray, choose a product with an EPA registration number on the label, check that the label lists your crop and pest, and follow it on rate, timing and the wait before harvest. Read more on that approach in our pest and disease guide.
Water, the free spray
A firm jet from the hose knocks aphids, mites and thrips off a plant, and most cannot climb back. Do it in the morning so the leaves dry through the day, and repeat every couple of days until numbers fall.
Soapy water for hand-picked pests
For Japanese beetles, stink bugs, slugs and snails, pick them or knock them into a bucket of soapy water early in the morning. This drowns them, so it is a bucket and not a spray. Wear gloves and eye protection for bugs that squirt.
Milk spray for powdery mildew
A genuinely useful spray for powdery mildew on squash, cucumbers, beans and the like, and the only kitchen mix we suggest. Diluted milk appears to disrupt the fungus on the leaf surface.
Make it at about one part milk to nine parts water. Use as a preventive or at the first white patches, spraying both sides of the leaves in the morning so they dry through the day. Repeat weekly.
Registered products, used to the label
These are the products we name when water and hand-picking are not enough. Each one is used to its own label, so check that your crop and pest are listed.
- Insecticidal soap: an EPA-registered product for aphids, whiteflies, mites and other soft-bodied pests, on contact only.
- Horticultural oil: scale, mealybugs, mites and citrus leafminer on new flush. Use it in mild weather, below about 90 degrees F.
- Neem oil: EPA-registered neem oil products can be used following the label. It is a step up from soap and oil, not a first reach.
- Potassium bicarbonate: a registered product for powdery mildew.
- Sulfur: powdery mildew and rust. Not in heat above about 85 degrees F, and not within two weeks of an oil spray.
- Copper: a protectant for fungal and bacterial leaf diseases, applied before wet weather.
- Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis): caterpillars only, and safe for bees.
- Iron phosphate baits: slugs and snails, safe around pets and wildlife.
- Pyrethrins: a fast knockdown for severe outbreaks, sprayed at dusk. They also kill beneficial insects, so spot-treat.
- Spinosad: caterpillars, thrips and spotted wing drosophila where the label lists your crop.
What to Use for What
A quick reference. Always dilute feeds to weak tea color and water onto moist soil. Any spray goes on in the evening, away from flowers and bees, and to the label.
| Your goal | What to use | How often |
|---|---|---|
| General all-round feed | Compost tea or worm castings tea | Weekly to biweekly |
| Boost flowering and fruiting | Comfrey feed (high potassium) | Weekly to biweekly |
| Push early leafy growth | Nettle feed or aged manure tea | Biweekly in spring |
| Tonic for trace elements and stress | Seaweed or kelp solution | Weekly to biweekly |
| Fix magnesium deficiency only | Epsom salts foliar spray | Once, then check |
| Aphids, mites, whiteflies | A water jet, then an EPA-registered insecticidal soap | Water every few days; soap to the label |
| Powdery mildew | Milk spray, 1 part milk to 9 water, or a registered potassium bicarbonate product | Weekly, evening |
| Fungal spots, rust | Registered copper or sulfur | To the label, before wet weather |
| Caterpillars | Hand-picking, row cover, then Bt | Bt every 7 to 10 days and after rain |
| Slugs and snails | Hand-picking, beer traps, iron phosphate baits | Evenings, after rain |
The Homestead Loop in Action
This is where the pieces join up. Your kitchen scraps and garden waste feed the compost bin and worm bin. Those turn into compost, castings and liquid feeds. Comfrey and nettles grow in a corner and become a free potassium feed. The garden grows the harvest, and a glut becomes a stocked pantry through preserving. Nothing leaves the system that does not have to. See the whole picture in Connections.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is compost tea worth making?
Compost tea is a gentle, free liquid feed and a good way to spread the benefit of a small amount of finished compost across many plants. It will not replace feeding the soil with actual compost and mulch, and the science on disease suppression is mixed, so treat it as a useful top-up rather than a miracle. Use it fresh, diluted to the color of weak tea, and water it onto the soil around your plants.
Do banana peels actually feed plants?
Banana peels do contain potassium, but the amount released is modest and slow. They are fine added to the compost or chopped into a planting hole, but soaking peels in water makes a very weak feed. For a real potassium boost for fruiting plants, comfrey or a seaweed solution does far more. Treat banana peels as a small bonus, not a main feed.
What should I spray on aphids?
Start with a strong jet of water, which knocks many aphids off, and let ladybugs clean up the rest. If a colony persists, use an EPA-registered insecticidal soap or horticultural oil, following the label, spraying directly onto the aphids, including under the leaves, in the cool of the evening. Soap only works on contact, so repeat at the label interval.
Are sprays safe for bees?
Any spray can harm bees and other pollinators, so treat it with respect. Never spray open flowers, and spray in the evening when bees have stopped foraging so the spray can dry before they return. Insecticidal soap, neem and oil sprays can all kill bees on direct contact, so keep them off blooms entirely. Milk sprays and registered potassium bicarbonate products for fungal problems are the gentlest on pollinators.
How often should I feed with a homemade liquid feed?
Most homemade liquid feeds suit a weekly to biweekly schedule through the growing season, applied to moist soil. Diluted to weak tea color they are gentle, so a light, regular feed beats an occasional strong one. Ease off as plants slow down in fall and winter. Plants in pots need feeding more often than those in the ground because nutrients wash out faster.
Are there any kitchen sprays you recommend?
Only one: fresh cow's milk at one part milk to nine parts water, for early powdery mildew. Water from the hose is the free spray. Everything else on the kitchen shelf is unregistered, so we leave it out and point you to registered products instead.
See also: Composting Guide and How to Grow Tomatoes
Plant profiles
Each profile has sowing times for your region, companion plants and common pests.