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Today we will make a cocktail solution as a foliar spray for instantly energizing our growing plants. This not only make your plant grow faster, but also produces loads of flowering and fruiting. And everything you see in the video are based on scientific concepts and research. The main advantage of this magic foliar spray is that its independent of your soil ph.
Well, before I show you the actual recipe or the Formula for the making of our so called magic solution, you must know some Basic concepts. Please do not skip these 5 points am gonna discuss now. Will try to make it as short and as simple as possible, specially for beginners.
1. What do you mean by foliar Spray? Foliage means leaves! So the term foliar spray says it all, that is Spraying a liquid fertilizer on your plants foliage which aids in absorption of certain essential elements like calcium, magnesium through their stomata. Stomata are pores found in the epidermis of leaves which help in nutrient absorption and also gas exchange.
2. Calcium and Its importance: Calcium is the most important component of a plants cell wall. Hence for cell division and growth its indispensable, especially in rapid growers like tomatoes. So we will keep this point in mind and add calcium into our mix.
3. Magnesium and Its importance: Did you know Magnesium is the central atom in between four nitrogen atoms in the chlorophyll molecule. For beginners, Chlorophyll is the pigment present in leaves which is essential for photosynthesis – that’s plant food production. So we will keep this point in mind and add magnesium into our mix using our famous organic Epsom salt.
4. Soil PH concept: We have discussed in detail about the importance of soil ph in nutrient absorption in my video titled Ideal Soil PH for plants. You can check that HERE. Well! when it comes to foliar spray of fertilizer solution, its completely independent of the soil PH, because nutrients are absorbed through leaves.
- And last concept: Many Experts recommend applying egg shells andcalcium tablets to soil and some evenmake a smoothie juice or paste using all kitchen waste like banana peels, fruit peels and what not. This in perhaps unscientific according to me to directly apply to your plants. I don’t know! If you have any scientific explanation to this, please do write in the comment box. What I feel is why not utilize this idea of making this smoothie and keeping a dedicated heavy duty blender or mixer for this purpose for faster composting. Yes! if you are adding this paste to your compost bin and feeding your earth worms, this can accelerate composting process.
So you can utilize this concept of foliar feeding if your plants are not performing well despite all your efforts, care, fertilizing, watering promptly and what not! Many viewers keep asking the same question. So why not make it a habit of alternating your feeds – that’s fertilizing your plants once in 15 days with foliar spray to feed your plants. Because this idea is independent of soil PH value.
Now The Formula or the recipe of this Magic Fertilizer liquid.
I will quickly list out the ingredients one by one and quickly explain the benefit of each of these components.
1. Water: Nothing to explain about this universal solvent. We will formulate this recipe for 1 liter of water.
2. Milk: You can use skimmed milk or if available Raw milk is best. You can even use spoilt milk, butter milk or stuff like that. Use it with lower than 20 percent dilution in water that is 1:5 dilution. So you can add about 100 ml or 200 ml milk to our universal solvent. Milk is not only a source of calcium, but also an antifungal for treatment of powdery mildew and blossom end rot disease on tomato and other vegetable plants. It also kills many plant viruses like tobacco mosaic virus. In place if milk you can add 1 liter of a special water. Yes that’s special calcium rich water for plants. It s nothing but the left over water after you hard boil few eggs. The egg shells release a lot of calcium into this water during boiling.
3. Epsom Salt that’s magnesium sulfate which is a greatest source of magnesium and sulfur. This is easily available at a gardening store or at your local pharmacist and even online. So the dosage is max 5 gms or little lesser than a teaspoon per 1 liter of water.
4. Then the Most important ingredient for adding the major NPK elements into the foliar spray is COMPOST TEA. So, how do you make compost tea? Its really simple. Just Add a handful of decomposed manure or compost like cowdung powder or vermicompost per liter of water. You can make your own quantity of 2 liters or 5 liters depending on your garden size. Allow this to brew for atleast 1 week. Make sure you stir this atleast once every 24 hours to oxygenate this mix till 1 week. Then strain out the liquid using a cloth and use this liquid. I shall make a detailed video some other time on how to use some simple gadgets like an aquarium air pump to quickly make your compost tea.
Well, For now, Once the compost tea is ready, you should dilute this like 1:5 in water and then add about 1 liter to the above solution. Normally if you are using only the compost tea as a foliar spray, you need to use 1:10 dilution. But here we are making a 2.1 liter solution in total. I Hope you got my point!
That’s it, mix it thoroughly and load the spray bottle or use your electric sprayer or whatever and foliar feed your plants. Spray very early in the morning or late in the evening because leaf stomatas are well opened at this period so that absorption happens at its best.
