Nettle as Organic Insecticide and Fertilizer

Nettle is one great plant, it can be used for multiple purposes, treat arthritis, anemia (since it's very rich in iron), eczema, lower back pain, it also can be used as a tea, you can make a soup with it, also you can even use it in sarma. I won't write all it's pros and cons, you can find it all on the web.

Fertilizer

Nettle is a great nitrogen fertilizer, it has a positive influence on the plants in terms of growth, chlorophyll creation, makes plants resilient to stress, disease and pests. 

In order to prepare fertilizer you need:

- 1 kilogram of fresh nettle (stem and leaves) cut before blooming. If you do not have access to fresh nettle, you can use 200 grams of dried nettle.

- Plastic bucket 

- 10 liters of water. Rain water is the best for this, but fresh is also fine.

Once you have all things above, put nettle in the plastic bucket, pour water until all nettle is below water. Stir it well and let it ferment. Fermentation process can take from 10 to 20 days, depending on the weather conditions. If you want to speed up the process, leave bucket on the sunny warm place. Once it start to stink really bad, you will know that it's ready, also it will make foam on top.

Plants that really doesn't like this fertilizer: onions, garlic, beans and peas.

If you want to use nettle tea as foliar fertilizer you should dilute it with water in 1:50 ratio.
Fertilizer can be used for watering, in that case nettle tea should be diluted in 1:10 ratio.

Insecticide

Preparation of the insecticide is the same as for the fertilizer, the only difference is the time of fermentation. Since the nettle has a little stingers, those stingers are what are to repel the pests from the plant, the smell will also help with it. Those stinger will break down after 24 hours, so be sure to use the insecticide no earlier than 12 and no later than 24 hours after creation.

There is no need to dilute this when applying, only thing that can be added is a couple of drops of dishwasher liquid, which will make insecticide stick to the leaves. Only way to apply insecticide is by spraying it on the leaves and trunk.

Final words

This is one great organic fertilizer/insecticide. My grandfather used it mostly for tomatoes, it did wonders with it, we had some cases where one tomato had a 1 kilogram, which is enough for meal itself. I personally use it as a fertilizer for my hazelnut shrubs, and it really help them to gain more mass and become lush.