Fermented stinging nettle tea - recipe and steps to prepare and use it

How to make stinging nettle tea to use as a pest repellent and fertilizer

Thanks to fermented stinging nettle tea, create your own 100% organic fertilizer and parasite repellent!

Discover fermented stinging nettle tea, an excellent fertilizer for plants in both gardens and vegetable patches, and an amazing pest control agent for most parasites like aphids.

This will help you avoid using harmful chemical products while not losing in efficiency!

Fermented stinging nettle tea is increasingly used across the world, and is even sold in specialized stores. Did you know it is perfectly possible to prepare it yourself?

Health: health benefits of stinging nettle
Just in: nettle + tomato = abundance 🍅 🍅

Uses and effectiveness of fermented stinging nettle tea

This nettle-based preparation has unique growth-stimulating properties on plants, and it also repels most pests, aphids, mites and ticks.

Fermented stinging nettle tea isn’t a curative treatment that would heal plants after diseases. It works preventively thanks to its immune system-boosting powers.

An effective fertilizer – Plants need nitrogen to grow. Nitrogen is found in all fertilizer types, and fermented stinging nettle tea naturally boasts a high nitrogen content. It thus brings target plants all the nutrients they need to stay in great health.
Parasite repellent – If thinned with water and sprayed on leaves directly, fermented stinging nettle tea will act as a strong repellent against all insects, aphids, mites and ticks.

Preparing fermented stinging nettle tea

The recipe for fermented stinging nettle tea has been handed down for generations, but its relevance has increased nowadays thanks to its organic and completely natural properties. After all, fermented weed tea is very effective, and stinging nettle especially so.

Using 100% organic products in your garden is a key to successfully treating your plants or making fertilizer while protecting the planet.

Note that fermented stinging nettle tea is very affordable, since the only equipment needed is a sprayer for application.

The fermented stinging nettle tea recipe is very simple

Tear up the stinging nettles
Place them in a basin or a bucket. Absolutely avoid metal containers. Use plastic, wood, or eventually styrofoam.
Mix with water
Here are the ratios to follow:
Fertilizer → 35 oz (1 kg) stinging nettles for 10 quarts (10 liters) water
Repellent → 35 oz (1 kg) stinging nettles for 20 quarts (20 liters) water
Macerate 1 to 2 weeks, remember to mix every couple days.
Filter the fermented stinging nettle tea
Only collect the liquid. Get rid of the remaining nettle pulp (spread it on the compost pile).

Uses of fermented stinging nettle tea

Use of fermented stinging nettle tea as a pest repellent

Spray on plants directly with a sprayer to use it against parasites. No dilution required, if the ratios above are followed.

The fermenting releases several acids from the fresh plant, as well as a special type of lectin protein. Acids and lectin are key ingredients in fending off aphids, since lectin interferes with their development cycle.

With this same dosage, you can also soak soil mix and let it dry off. This will help seedlings resist damping off after sprouting.

Use of fermented stinging nettle tea as fertilizer

Thin with water (10 to 20% tea-to-water ratio) and pour it on the ground as you would liquid fertilizer.

With this diluted ratio, the weed tea won’t have much effect on pests and fungus, so there’s no point spraying leaves. In fact, wetting leaves if the weather is hot might even trigger bouts of mildew.

Thanks to this mixture, you save on expenses and protect the environment, too.

In the good old days, a fistful of stinging nettle leaves was placed at the bottom of the planting holes when transplanting tomato seedlings to boost tomato harvest.

Read also:

Here is how to fight aphids efficiently
Top 5 weeds to make weed tea from

Smart tip about fermented stinging nettle tea

Although preparing fermented stinging nettle tea is very easy and shouldn’t raise any issues, here are a few tips to make preparing it even easier…

Crushing or chopping the nettles will speed fermentation up.
For larger quantities, use your lawn mower: spread on the path and collect nettle shreds from the hamper.

Images: own work: Rosalyn & Gaspard Lorthiois; Pixabay: K Wol, Mario

A comment ?

Your reactions

Marcia wrote on 2 August 2023 at 16 h 23 min

I made a large batch of normal nettle tea in very hot weather. It has produced mould. May I still use it on épées au ergo es and tomatoes in the greenhouse , please
Sandy wrote on 25 May 2021 at 2 h 07 min

Is the stinging nettle plant the same nettle plant that causes severe rashes if it touches your skin?
- Gaspard wrote on 25 May 2021 at 4 h 45 min
  
  It doesn’t really cause a rash, more just the stinging sensation. The one that causes rashes is “poison ivy”, that some people are even allergic to. It doesn’t make for good fermented tea.
Betsy Lamb wrote on 25 January 2021 at 16 h 08 min

Will this kill or harm pollinators or caterpillars?
- Gaspard wrote on 25 January 2021 at 18 h 19 min
  
  Hi Betsy, stinging nettle tea won’t harm (most) caterpillars and pollinators. Of course, a full undiluted dose won’t do them good, but a normal application is harmless to them. It’s quite specific to mites and aphids, actually. However, other weed teas can impact caterpillars of all kinds: rhubarb tea especially. Pollinators such as bees and bumblebees won’t be as impacted, either: stages where they might be vulnerable often take place where you don’t spray, such as the hive, in an insect hotel, or in the ground.
  
  Since these organic methods aren’t commercially sold or even patentable, there isn’t much open research that can answer your question in detail yet, so constant observation is the key!
Roberto Verdi wrote on 23 June 2020 at 16 h 53 min

I don’t have stinging nettles growing in my area in Florida. Could I use the stinging nettle tea available in Natural Food stores ?
- Gaspard wrote on 23 June 2020 at 17 h 56 min
  
  Hi Roberto! Well, it would work, no doubt about it – but if you’re using the small sachets of tea normally planned for brewing drinking tea, there are a few problems:
  – first of all, you’re going to pay a fortune. Tea for food consumption is very expensive for the weight you get, because of all the sanitary precautions and small packaging.
  – secondly, a lot of the value of fermented tea mix is in the fresh nutrients. Tea for drinking is dried, so some of the nutrients are lost.
  – thirdly, it’s a bit harder to start the fermentation process from dried or powdered plant material. To trigger it, you’d have to add yeast in some form. The easiest is to add other local weeds, these will almost always have lots of yeasts on their leaves and branches.
  
  Here’s a page explaining the ins and outs of weed tea. Perhaps some other weeds that grow in your garden might be used. What weeds are growing near your place?
  
  Note: there are garden stores that sell ready-made stinging nettle tea for garden use. Perhaps this product is available in stores (it is online).
Alice wrote on 25 April 2019 at 4 h 17 min

I want to drink the tea, I love nettles.
- Gaspard Lorthiois wrote on 25 April 2019 at 13 h 02 min
  
  Hi Alice! Well this fermented tea isn’t meant for drinking – it actually would taste rather foul!
  
  But you can use fresh nettle leaves in boiling water and drink that for tea, it’s a great diuretic among other health benefits.
Lucille Wilkins wrote on 26 October 2018 at 19 h 33 min

I have a plum tree that will be in it’s second year after planting. I noticed this spring that it seemed to have aphids, but didn’t know how to safely get rid of them ( I like to use more natural ways to treat these problems). I will be trying this process in the spring. Can I use the nettle after it has been dried?
- Gaspard Lorthiois wrote on 28 October 2018 at 11 h 23 min
  
  Hello Lucille, stinging nettle tea is a great way to get rid of aphids on plum trees, and it’s completely natural at that! Using dried leaves won’t be as effective, since some of the active compounds degrade as they dry out. Although active compounds are mostly heat resistant, they break down in time and dried nettle won’t help as much against the aphids. It’ll retain many of its nutritional benefits, though, so you can still use dried nettle for fertilizer. It gives iron, trace elements like potassium, zinc and copper so it’ll benefit your plants anyway. I’m sure you won’t let it go to waste!