Homemade Water Brews

[roadrunner]

Go to the 13:30-minute point in this video and you'll see the water he uses to drown/kill his weeds and then uses the water to water some plants. He says he uses it on annuals, but doesn't say what type, plus I'm a naturally skeptical person

I've been watching these local permaculture videos lately and noticed that this guy did the same thing I've done; however, I've wondered just how good or bad this water can be for plants, especially the fragile cultivated annuals, such as tomatoes, cucumbers and all the other commonly grown garden plants.

Anyone ever killed a plant by feeding it polluted water?

Even animals won't drink this stuff, but I'm wondering if the soil would filter out the "bad" stuff or if some of the "bad" stuff can harm the plant, if not kill it?

I've always been hesitant to use this water on plants I don't want to kill, so I usually throw it in a mulchy area where it can't hurt anything.

BTW, I mostly do this with the Spanish Needle plant, because it's a nice plant for pollinators, but it creates so many seeds (3,000 - 6,000 highly viable seeds per plant) that it can over-run my garden, so I kill the seeds by soaking.

 

[DirtMechanic]

The Romans used fermenting pots. Its an old way. An even older fermenting pot system was in use by the amazonian tribes responsible for the black earth, Terra Preta. I believe those pots were actually a combination of household garbage, firepit refuse, and honey bucket but that is a bit speculative on my part.

The white hyphae on top is indicative of oxygen loving fungi. The stirring may help it grow. But I wonder or worry that if even anaerobic bacteria and fungi do their part, as they quickly die exposed to air, do those that leave toxins from their poo and decomposition need to worry me? Same question you ask I guess. A 6 dollar aquarium pump would speed that along, eliminating some anearobics, given a nice temperature. I would reform your question and add it to mine, that being since anaerobic decomposers are found naturally, would they not also be seen as beneficial?

 

[Jesse Glessner]

For those who don't think the weeds will do the job I've attached a PDF file of an Alfalfa Tea mix for gardens.
I've used this on tomato plants, pickles, squash, and other veggies and it WORKS! It takes a bit to round up all of the items for the formula and some of those items may cost more than you want to shell out, but, again, it works.