Sprouts: Gardening on Your Window Sill

Alfalfa Tea for the Garden

Alfalfa Tea - a definition

The information posted here on my blog was found at Dave's Garden. Dave's a great resource for all things garden and then some. Consider joining, it is a very good investment!

Dry alfalfa is a good slow-release source of nitrogen, but since you will be "digesting" it by letting it ferment in water, the resulting tea is a soluble, fast-acting nitrogen source.

Also, by making alfalfa (or manure) tea, you don't have to worry about weed seeds sprouting from the fertilizer.

In addition to nitrogen, alfalfa supplies enzymes and trace elements that are not present in chemical nitrogen fertilizers.

The Mix:
Choose a garbage bin or barrel with no leaks and a tight fitting lid. Position it in an out of the way place - you don't want to have to move it once it's full. For a full size garbage bin (20 gallons) add 16 cups of alfalfa pellets or alfalfa meal (4 cups to every 5 gallons or 22 litres of water)

Add 1 - 2 cups of Epsom salts (magnesium sulphate crystals) (or one quarter to half a cup to 5 gallons) Optionally, add two tablespoons of Iron Chelate
Fill with water, put on a tight lid to prevent mosquitos from breeding in your "swamp"
Let stand for one week until it bubbles with fermentation. Your nose will tell you that it's ready.

Using it:

Apply alfalfa tea once per month in the spring and summer, especially after the first flush of flowers, to encourage repeat blooming. You can reduce or eliminate the Epsom salts in later batches.

Stop applying it in the fall, when you want the plants to start hardening off for the winter, and don't want to encourage soft new growth.

Put on some old clothes - you're going to get splashed, and you don't want to be socializing with anyone while wearing the alfalfa tea!

Scoop off the liquid with a bucket and apply.

Pour a gallon of tea per rose around the base of the plant; more for large climbers, less for potted roses and minis.

Soak small potted roses in a bucket of tea for 15 minutes each.

When you have scooped off most of the liquid, you will be left with a thick goop of alfalfa in the garbage bin. There are two ways to treat this:

Method A: You can add another quarter-cup of epsom salts, fill the garbage can one third of the way up again, and stir the mix briskly so that the alfalfa is suspended in the water. This slurry can be applied to your roses immediately. Choose the roses in the back of your beds for this tea, where the greenish brown puddle of alfalfa slurry won't be too visible.

Method B: Add the full dose of Epsom salts, refill to the top with water and let sit for another week. Use the liquid, and then bury the alfalfa dregs into your compost pile (by this time they will be pretty smelly)

Another Recipe:

ALFALFA TEA

32 GALLON TRASH CAN
10 CUPS ALFALFA PELLETS (obtained from feed stores)
1 CUP EPSOM SALTS
1 CUP FISH EMULSION

Add the pellets to the trash can. Fill trash can with water. Stir. Cover trash can tightly with lid. For the next three days stir "tea" several times a day in order to dissolve the pellets. Keep covered. On the third day add epsom salts and fish emulsion. It is ready to use on any vegetable, plant, tree or bush.

When all the "tea" is used, there will be enough pellet residue in the bottom of the trash can that you again fill the trash can with water and make more "tea".

Check out comments for a list of all the good stuff in alfalfa tea.

When life gives you ugly oranges make marmalade!

I'm always on the look out for a way to save money and make the most out of everything. I have been keeping my eye out for people that have more produce than they can handle. I found someone on craiglist that said they had an orange tree with sour oranges and we could have all that we could pick. I didn't think about it being June and many months past orange harvesting time! I drove out to the island with Farm Boy and we picked oranges. Lots and lots of oranges.
They looked pretty bad but they smelled good. I had such plans for all these free oranges. I would dehydrate, can, candy, juice and craft with them. What I ended up doing is making marmalade. The skins were too ugly to mess with dehydrating. The inside was dry, pithy and the seeds had started to sprout from the inside of the orange.

Most of the oranges were not usable. I juiced what I could and then used some organic oranges I purchased for the zest and peel in my marmalade. I put the juice and the thinly sliced organic oranges (seeds removed) in a stock pot with about 1 quart of water and set it to simmer.



The seeds went into a small saucepan with a cup of water and boiled them for 5 minutes to extract the pectin from the seeds. The seeds were strained and the liquid was added to the big pot to simmer. I let it simmer for a good while. An hour or more. Until the peels were very soft. Once the peels were soft I lined a colander with muslin and strained all the liquid from the oranges. I picked out the pretties peels and was able to easily slice off just the zest. It was much easier than the way I have done it in the past. I set the zest aside. I measured the liquid and then added 1 cup of sugar for each cup of juice I had plus a cup of water and brought it all to a boil. I boiled it and stirred constantly until the mixture jelled when dropped on a cold plate. I would say it took about 15 minutes.















I added the zest to the boiling mixture and turned off the heat. I then poured it into prepared jars and then processed it in a BWB for 15 minutes.

In the past I treated my citrus peels by trying to scrape as much of the white off as possible then boiling in a small amount of water with a pinch of baking soda and changing the water at least once. I think this is to get rid of the bitter flavor that some citrus peels have. Lime is especially bitter. I found that I didn't have to do that with this recipe. If I were using lime I would definitely do that.

I ended up with 7 cups of juice and it made 10 half pints of marmalade. It is very good if I do say so myself! We have already gone through two jars. It is wonderful on fresh biscuits or bread right out of the oven. I am sure it would make a wonderful glaze for pork, chicken or salmon.

Freaky Red Bug

What is this nasty little critter? Well after spending good amount of time googling "freaky red bug on pepper plants" I found that this little cutey (NOT) is the baby version of the Leaf Footed bug. The author/photographer seems to find great pleasure in watching these bugs but I very much hate to find them feasting on my jalapenos and tomatoes! I am keeping this army of bugs under control with a weekly spraying with Neem Oil.