Unusual garden waste ingredient to make tomatoes grow bigger in weeks
Tomatoes are heavy feeders, requiring more nutrients than other plants. To make them juicy and big, Monty Don shared a simple hack using one natural ingredient.
Tomatoes are a garden staple, beloved for their straightforward growing process, yet they're known to be quite the gluttons for nutrients, demanding more sustenance than many other plants.
Gardening aficionado Monty Don advises that tomatoes can produce larger and more flavorful fruits when given ample potassium, a key nutrient for fruiting.
The green-thumbed expert also shared a tip for whipping up a homemade potassium-rich fertilizer to boost your harvest, using nothing more than a common garden resident.
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Monty detailed: "Potassium is what plants need to form good flowers and fruit, and fruiting flowers like tomatoes and gooseberries have quite a high potassium demand. You can boost that at this time of year and improve fruit production. One way of doing that is to go to a garden centre and buy liquid or granular fertilizer, but there's no need as you can also grow your own supply of potassium really easily through comfrey."
Comfrey, often dismissed as a garden weed, is actually a treasure trove of potassium and other tomato-loving nutrients like calcium, thanks to its large, fuzzy leaves, reports the Express.
Monty remarked: "Its main use to me in this garden is to provide the raw material for a liquid feed that's high in potassium."
He added a word of caution about comfrey, noting: "A caution about comfrey is that once it gets established, it has deep roots and it's quite hard to get rid of. However, you shouldn't get rid of too much as it really is so useful."
To whip up this DIY tomato fertilizer, start by removing the flowers and stems from the comfrey and chopping up the leaves. Then, pack these leaves tightly into a waterproof container and fill it with water.
Once the container is full to the brim, seal it with a lid and stash it somewhere safe in your garden for several weeks. This allows the contents to break down and liquify.
Monty suggested: "The idea is to loosely fill a bucket or just put what leaves you've got, then put water in on top of that and leave it to brew for three weeks."
He emphasized the importance of using a lidded container for this process and weighing the lid down with a stone, as while comfrey is great for tomatoes, it gives off a terrible stench as it ferments.
"Then, when it is properly made, it will form a black, vile-smelling sludge, and I'm not exaggerating, it smells disgusting. It's covered not to protect the brew but to protect us from its vile smell."
After about three weeks, your mixture should have transformed into an unappealing brown liquid. Transfer this concoction into plastic containers and store it in a cool, shady spot.
When it's feeding time for your tomatoes, strain out the remaining leaves and dilute the fertilizer with water at a ratio of one part comfrey to 10 parts water; a darker mix may require more water. Finally, pour the diluted mixture into your watering can and sprinkle it over your tomato plants.
In his blog, Monty also revealed a few other natural substances he uses to fertilize his plants — liquid seaweed and compost.
Liquid Seaweed is a completely natural and organic plant feed and conditioner. It promotes healthy plant growth, resulting in higher crop yields and more flowers, while also enhancing soil conditions.
