my folks did this for years, they had a huge stainless steel tub with a tap on the bottom . They would keep that thing chock full with weeds, prunings and seaweed. Honestly, their vegetable garden was the bomb. The soil was insanely rich, they could grow anything.
Someone in your family already knew what we are just learning. Wow. Hopefully, you are now able to have your own gardening experience! These days, that knowledge and experience is priceless. 😊😇🙏🏾
I've been doing this before I even knew it was a 'thing'. I just figured that if weeds are going to grow then they should pay the cost and contribute to their existence. After all, they are expendable!😂 A big THANK YOU, Scott for your very practical, unpretentious share. God bless you!
Great video. I use a modified version your 5 gal bucket method. 1 use 2- 5 gal buckets. I put holes in the bottom of one bucket, then put it inside the other to use the bucket with holes as a strainer when I want to use the brew. Keeps the solids in the first bucket , so no straining required
I like your idea. I could handle that better being in wheelchair. I am brand new to gardening. I have been saving my organic scraps & giving them away for years. Time to think again perhaps. Having fertilizer isn’t knowing how to grow - types of soil. PLUS I’m in arizona- dry rocky Not sure where to start. Think I’ll ask God - He’s the best gardener.
I put cow/ horse manure , nettles and any other weeds with seeds into a Hessian sack (which keeps all the material contained ) and then put it into a 50gallon drum ,I just take the water from the outside of the sack ,that way I don't have to filter all the debris out .
When I freaked out over mold growing on the soil from kitchen scraps my parents advised I could add directly to the garden, my dad pointed out there’s mold already in soil. That a soil that is free of mold and other microbial life is dead. Also, Scott is 100% right about anerobic breakdown. It’s how stuff under the dirt breaks down? It still feeds roots and past generations have been using these methods for thousands of years!
Thanks Grace, I save all my scraps and sit them outside until I can pitch onto the garden......it looks so moldy until I wonder if I am adding unhealthy bacteria.........are there any videos on this.......your dad is right.....
@@carolburnett8372 In FL, I have a parade of coons, possoms, stray cats [according to my cameras] even a deer or 2 at night along with squirrels and rats at other times that would certainly invade whatever I leave outside or pitch into the garden. This swamp water idea is covered and seems like something I'm gon'a try.
@@robertaw3559 I have looked at so many videos and pictures, that I forgot about the swamp water........is this where you place the scraps under water and make a kind of scrap tea???
When I first saw David and his wife talk about this method years ago, I was fascinated and a little disturbed. Fascinated by how simple and logical it was and disturbed at why people are so freaked out over smelly things in the garden. To me, that seems odd especially given how many people use animal manures to amend their soil. In any case, it is refreshing discovering that you'd hung out with David and felt compelled to try this method as well.
I've basically been doing this for years except I use 2 buckets, odd and even months. I use the liquid as you show but add the rotted weeds to the compost pile. I only use invasive grasses and weeds as material for the buckets. And to all those who say it's the wrong way to do it - well, it works for me! Great video Scott
@@toobaffled_on_X_site For the "weed tea" yes, just weeds and maybe some comfrey leaves. I add compost every season to my beds and the only bought-in fertilizers I use are blood and bone and fish emulsion.
I've been gardening for 30 plus years. I'm just starting to use compost this year. I have a 5 gallon bucket to put scraps in with a lid. I also fish. After I fillet my fish, I put the carcass in a five gallon bucket, fill it up with water, and put a air tight lid on it. Thanks you for your video.
I love this idea... I surf fish and keep wanting to use the heads and anything else if i do filet... with the fertilizer shortage looming, I kept thinking about this as I already buy fish emulsion... I'm like why cant I make my own? I already have several inside and outside worms bin systems and lately ive even been trying my own dilute urine (10-15 to 1) which I discovered works great for nitrogen and all the damn vitamin leftovers I take that I mix with worm tea... wow! everything is doing great and I surmise I'm a rather unusual girl when I have to go on YT to share enthusiasm for rotting fish parts 🤣
Fish guts and carcasses are the best! I just bury them around my veggies, roses, everything and they love it ❤️ Didn't know about seaweed, glad I know now as I have unlimited access to it!😎
I keep the fish carcass about two weeks. Like I said, I fill the bucket up with water. I don't use any part of the fish. I use the water. Once the bucket is empty I fill it back up again and let it sit again. If you bury any parts of a fish. It attracts scavengers. They will dig it up. And the plant with it. Just use the water.
As it doesn't rain inside my 50' x 20' hoop house, when prepping the soil/beds for the growing season I use 12 cups of molasses in 12, 2 1/2 gallon watering cans - to feed the sleepy microbes & fungi - then water well. ( I'm pretty sure a couple cups of molasses, in the large barrel, would supercharge the Black Gumbo)
Hi Scott I made this gnarly swamp water a while back and it really does smell gross🤪 When you take that lid off, it'll take the top of your head off! but I put Vicks vapor rub under my nose and I can't smell it anymore. They use that trick when they perform autopsies on badly decomposed bodies, so I thought it would probably work and it did. No more stinky swamp water. Yay!!! Thanks Scott
I've been doing something similar with my leftover grass cuttings,fall leaves, kitchen scraps etc but I didn't know I could make a tea like liquid for fertilizer. Great idea thank you so much!!
Great Job! 👍Robbie and Gary from S. California is a container gardener. She uses the same theory. She has a compost-in-place system that uses the dead and yellowed plant leaves and kitchen scraps to fertilize her container garden. I started putting those yellowed and dead leaves in a bucket of water. I also started catching the runoff from my containers when I water. I feed all of these waters back to the plants. It makes a big difference to the garden. I will be starting a fetid water system in a 30-gallon garbage can since I watched your video! Thanks 😊
Late winter, early spring I have a large amount of stinging nettle (Padre Island) I did this last year after Dave's vid, Used just the stinging nettle, Works! Water is important, I used untreated well water, Rain is good, City water, needs to stand a few days. Works! had bumper crops, couldn't give away my surplus fast enough. Thanks goes to David the Good. And thank you for redoing.
With all of the 'can't do this or that' going around, it's a wonder any of us have survived this long. We really need to take a serious look back into the commonsense ways of gardening! Thanks, Scott for showing us one of them. I've been doing that in an 18-gallon tote and will continue with this newly added 'how to' information. I was still thinking I needed to keep the browns and greens equal. LOVE your channel!!!
The first barrel you cut already gives you the lid you need for itself. Just flip the top part over the remaining body of the barrel, and you have a 3 inch thick lid , easy to remove. I used my barrels to collect rain water , and I use the lid to keep leaves from entering the barrel. Obviously I cut out the existing cap from the lid to accommodate the downspout from the roof
I've been making compost tea for a couple years now. No cover. Less than 5 gallons. Today we cooked shrimp. When finished cooling, ice bath, I put that water in the tea I was brewing. A little smelly when stirring the mix. I'll put a little olive olive oil on top to drown mosquito eggs. Next. I saved the cooking water and shells separately to use for pepper plants we bought today. SO MUCH TO LEARN. Thanks you.
I use an old chest deep freezer filled with this, I am so glad to have seen this because I was afraid to put on my plants!! It had set for over a year! Thank so much for all the info!!
I did this with food scraps leaves and paper very gross but I had the best potatoes. So many I had to can a single 20 foot row. And they taste good too!
Perfect smelly brew to wind my nosy neighbour up 😇… I think a handful of garden lime every foot or two should eliminate the smell - it’s what they did in the old long drop toilets to stop them smelling back in the day
I've used Dave's method. Works wonders and this is a timely reminder with the cost of fertilizer maybe increasing. It did seem to work as well as fish emulsion or a fresh compost layer to me.
I do a version of this especially with deep tap rooted plants like horse radish, comfrey leaves, dandilion. Because of the minerals that are brought up from the depths of the soil. There are also deep tap rooted weeds that can be used as well that can be added as well. Free food for worms (I raise them for castings) and fetid swamp water grin.
You put your dandelions into your tea mix or just the roots? I have used the leaves and flowers either in my salads or make a hot tea for relaxing in the evening
I think that was awesome tips! I would build a stand and add an off/on nozzle along with a screen filter. That way I can just turn the knob and fluid goes into my watering can.
Thankyou for sharing this great gardening tip, "you are so right" this method is exactually what my Dad did for his garden, and his garden over the years has always looked full of lushy leafy rich green healthy trees, shrubs and smaller potted plants that always gave out beautiful big blossoms. I am a keen gardener myself , but I have all my plants growing in extra large pots, shrubs, palm trees, succulents and my herbs. I will start doing this, but I will have to do it in small volume as I already "must frustrate" my close neighbours when I put out dynamic lifter soaking in water brew fertilizer, that also smells bad. KEEP UP YOUR GREAT GARDENING, YOU HAVE A GARDEN TO BE PROUD OF.
Yeah that stuff is really good for your garden and it's free but the smell is so bad it's hard to get out there and face the chore down. So glad you pointed out that you need to block the mosquitoes from laying larva in the liquid. I make it a practice to remove weeds before it goes to seed. This has cut down my need to weed over the years. If I think I have weed seed in my tea I will only use the liquid after straining it. The rest goes off the property. I avoid replanting weed seed onto my property. Both my neighbors generously share their many weeds with me. I try to water it in very early in the morning in hopes that it'll have settled by the heat of the day so my neighbors don't have to smell it. I focus my watering in of the tea at soil level near the base of the plants. I use worm castings to make tea as well and will put that on the entire plant especially if I see some insect activity that I want to stop. I wait a couple of days and follow up with a lot of fresh water and then continue to harvest from the garden.
Hi Scott, I do the same and then add 10 parts water to 1 part nettle tea. I am also doing rhubarb leaves as a pesticide this year. It's great sharing tips to help gardeners thank you x.
I need to get my compost going next, and learn more on this swamp water, knowledge is a very valuable. Thanks for sharing this and keeping his knowledge alive
This is great! I love the end when you say to put anything you hate in there. I'm looking at a lot of spring grass/weed that is coming up. I was trying to decided how to get rid of it. Looks like I'll be pulling it up (we've just had a lot of rain, yay) and stuffing it into a barrel. THANKS!!!
My thoughts of anaerobic composting: The fact that you have seal off the container from not only mosquitoes but all detritivores combined with the fact that the inputs are underwater means that more of the volatile compounds are retained. I have mused over this often when it comes to traditional composting. As greens like leaves turn brown, almost all of the nitrogen is being released straight into the atmosphere versus breaking down into a form available for plants. Now, multiply this across the many other volatile compounds found in plants and suddenly aerobic composting has a big carbon and nitrogen footprint. And with all the detritivores feasting on it as well that don't stick around, is it any wonder that compost piles shrink so much? Much of the inputs are being released into the atmosphere and consumed by detritivores. Plus having a big container of swamp water is a good way to quickly charge biochar. So anaerobic composting is a great and simple way to capture all the inputs of a compost bin.
Yeah the closed system is what I appreciate here. Its not air tight, but closed enough that it should retain more of the compounds released by decomposition.
Again, some research, there's a ton of it out there. www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0956053X2100547X www.epa.gov/anaerobic-digestion/basic-information-about-anaerobic-digestion-ad mechanical.uonbi.ac.ke/sites/default/files/cae/engineering/mechanical/Lecture%2024-Anaerobic%20and%20Aerobic%20Digestion%20(many%20slides).pdf
@Ms. Farmgirl Do some research. You sound like you don't have much experience. I have used this technique for years with no issues of plant health or my health. My garden loves it. It works!
@@ms.farmgirl think of it this way. This is no different than the digestion in animals. The barrel is the stomach and intestines. Does it stink? yes, would I eat or drink it? no, Do I foliar feed with it? Not leafy greens but everything else. This is green manure just like any other herbivore, full of nutrients that plants love. Btw this is not the same as municipal sewer sludge that is used to make products like milorganite and other “Bio solid” products that have chemicals, pharmaceuticals and God knows what else. Scott is dropping some wisdom to help people close the loop, reduce your carbon footprint, save some money ( fish emulsion and chem ferts are expensive) and grow some organic (this can be defined as vegan fertilizer) food. Do any of these things interest you?
I like this type of fertilizer. Free and natural. I use banana plants after they have produced a bunch of bananas. After 2 weeks in the barrel with rainwater; the potassium and phosphorus content is very high.
Suggestion if it tapers cut it a few inches down and then cut another cut about an inch and slide the top inside instead of over then you’re only using 1 barrel 😁 the rim should prevent it from slipping in
Got a few of the 30 gallon barrels that look like yours but my local feed & seed was out of the 55 gallon barrels with lids. I'll be getting a couple to keep near the compost bins to make Dave's fetid swamp water in. I use the 30 gallon barrels as radiators to keep my citrus from freezing.
@@2A4BDGV Fill a 30 gallon plastic barrel with water. As it heats up in the daylight from direct sun exposure, it will then radiate that heat all night. i place my barrels on the North side of my young citrus and then cover them during extreme cold events, barrel and all.
I've been doing this for years, just never knew it had a name lol. I have an enormous amount of comfrey and I take the leaves and put them in the bottom of a dry bucket and put a brick on top and just let the comfrey leaves rot and create their own comfrey sludge. It's like a paste rather than a liquid and omg it can be smelled down to the end of the cul-de-sac. It takes me a year to get a bucket full of liquid but when it's ready it's worth more than gold. Of course I can just add some comfrey leaves to rainwater and make comfrey tea, but the thick comfrey sludge from just the decomposing leaves is even more powerful. I never knew it needed to sit before using and I've always put it on my plants without diluting it and I've never burned or killed any plants. I like your thinking do what you think you got to do. Yep there's a lot of right ways to do things 👍
I made a tea bag for mine .I use a pump. Move bag to side and pump doesn't get glogged up.When liquid gone you can pull bag out and empty dregs to dry for ground cover
Thanks for the post. I started two 5 gallon buckets using grass clippings and rainwater this summer. I stirred it occasionally and by late November I wasn't sure how to use it. My compost pile had a lot of chopped leaves so I worked them into the compost. After watching this, I have a better understanding of proper applications. I look forward to using it in a better fashion this year. Thanks again.
Oh man,I wish I had seen this two days ago. We have had so much rain here in CA. I left 2 buckets full of weeds out in the rain, just dumped them out into my composite pile yesterday and man o man did it stink. I’m going to look for two of these barrels and do the same thing. Thanks for the great tips
maybe place a drip hose attached to your barrel and open the valve and let it automatically feed/fertilize? and perhaps append a rain barrel and open both valves and let em mix?
I grow a few lines of Comfrey especially for making this brew. The plants are attractive and flowers attract Bees and such, Comfrey spreads and establishes a good weed barrier to reduce infestation into Gardens etc. and I chop and drop into sealable Plastic containers that are easy to maneuver around the garden. The result stinks to High Heaven but is a plant growing powerhouse. Between seasons I empty the gunk out of the containers into my Gardens or compost piles, dig it in and let it rot down until I replant. Comfrey grows like crazy all through the year [but tapers off in Winter] so there is always a heap of raw material to use for brewing. After establishing itself it will hang in there for years and is hard to remove so be careful where you plant it.
Thank you for making me feel that I have been doing Okay! I've been doing this for a few years now because I live in a tiny unit with not much room to garden! Instead of a compost pile, I found it easier to do the WEED TEA! Everything for free! I got the bucket from empty buckets I found in Grocery stores, I use water from washing the veggies!! Thank you again! Now I feel encouraged! Before people used to complain about the foul odour!!
Check out Randy Smith's comment above about adding "charcoal" to his "fetid water'. Not the charcoal you buy, but have a little "stick campfire and roast a hot dog or marshmallows" and use that "charcoal" that remains and it should take some of the smell out. 🤔However, on the other hand, fish emulsion stinks good too!
@@dfsheep1 Ok let me chime in. The charcoal you are referring to is called bio-char, only add bio char to your brew if you are going to let it sit for an extended period of time. The reason for this is bio char is like a sponge and needs to be "innoculated" by absorbing nutrients slowly or it will absorb them from your gardens soil when added. Once you've inocculated the stuff though, it will hold and feed your gardens roots with nutrients for many years. Just make sure you mix it into the soil, not spread on the surface.
I have been planning my swamp delivery system for this year. I got a new water softener and kept the old plastic brine tank. At the bottom it has a shelf that the salt sits on top of. The shelf has holes all over it. The shelf sits up above the bottom, by about 4 inches. That will work nicely to keep the bottom of the can plant debri free. It is probably 25 or 30 gallon trashcan size with a good lid. My plan is to add a hose bib and faucet handle so that I can attach a hose and water directly from my can. It is easy to add water to my can and dilute it in the can just before use. That will make room to add more water and add more plant or household scraps to my can. I also have something I bought and used last year from Home Depot that I can fill with the swampy water then screw onto my watering hose that dilutes it as you water. I also got lazy and found it is easy to dump a bunch in the garden rows then water it in diluting in the garden. And I got even lazier and tipped my entire can of swamp water into my densely planted stand of corn. It really doesn't matter to worry about the dilution too much. It stinks to high heaven but it is fantastic fertilizer.
I do worm composting and the liquid given off is amazing also. Tons of good stuff but no bad smell. I like this method and will be looking into doing this after the holidays.
You are right it does stink bad! but it works. I make a bucket with stinging nettles, another one with comfrey and another with just general run of the mill weeds. I do put a shot of old maple syrup in each bucket to help the fermentation process. You could use molasses also.
Your video offers an alternate avenue to take advantage of a problem I'm experiencing-silver maple seeds. I have long thought what a waste and a nuisance. Last year I bagged 5 lawn and leaf bagsful that went to the city waste management. There has got to be a lot of good nutrients I could capture with your swamp water method. Thanks
Thank you so much Scott! You’re an answer to prayer! I like the way you think and create solutions or recognize them. I have kept all my trimmings for a few years and recycled it someway in my tiny yard. Gardening in pots. I have been wondering what we would do if there was no access to fertilizer and sent out a prayer. Here’s the perfect practical answer that contributes to sustainability and carries a life cycle process full circle!!🎉🎉🎉 Love it🎉🙏
Xcellent presentation ! We always used our night urine on our potted , now even planted trees. Daily, trying to spread the "goodness" and the plants thrive ! For a long time our urine was their only fertilizer ! When i need pee outdoors, my husband shouts " under the apple tree"
@@marktwain368 I pee in a cup and then pour it on my watering can and then fill with water to dilute the pee. I read 1 part pee to 20 parts water is a good mix.
I dump all the left over drinks in ours like pop , juice , milk , tea, beer . We have 6 kids so we tend to have a lot of left over drinks . It does smell really good if you like that kinda smell lol . I have been soaking our bio char in that goodness the past few months . Thanks for sharing !
Oh yes great advise. Thanks so much. All the critical gardeners who have staff to do everything for them. We are hands on gardeners here.. Compliments of the season. Lilian
Hello Sir, Love your channel and Dave's too. To get nutrients of any kind to your living plant nature and only nature can create organic plant food. You need first bacteria and fungi to eat the organic material, store it in their bodies and then nematode's and protozoa mush eat those two types and when they poop it out then and only then it is plant nutrients are available. There is a lot of thing that can go wrong it this method. I would be glad to have a phone conversation with you on this matter. Life needs air. Have a very Merry Christmas and to all your loved ones.
On the white barrels like that I just cut the molded on lid off, right below the bottom side of the lid where it is narrowest. Then turn the lid over and it sits on the barrel just fine because the lid rim on top is wider in circumference than the narrow circumference under the lid. I use the same kind for rain barrels.
we are fortunate to have a pool, we cant use a cover in the winter the weight of leaves from ours and neighbors trees pull the cover down and the bricks, blocks and wood into the pool so we stopped using a cover and every year drain and clear it out. Several years ago I started to use the 'swamp water on my garden' have to come up with a barrel to store it in love the idea of using that black water through the growing season. Good video
I usually dump in some fish emulsion, trace minerals, and kelp fertilizer into my swamp water. However I store mine in with my bio-char. Then I can grab whichever I need at the time, and I know my char is charged.
Scott, so happy for you and the way your channel has grown. I subbed when you were well under 50k and look at ya now! I echo what you say about this method of fertilizing; nasty but great! And I love the way you debunk all the fancy techniques that may sound good but are a ton of trouble, and maybe not even necessary. Great stuff! Jim in FL
Yes. I do container gardening, i have one hole in the container and when i water plant i catch the water and pour it back into my plants. Stinks like sewage but plants grow.
Hello Scott ! I had in mind to do that exact the same in my garden . I was a little affraid to acciding my soil. Vut now i see you do it . I gonna do it top . Thanks for the advice . Jp
I've been using this method with a bucket also. I throw in mimosa leaves and grass clippings, random weeds. Hopefully soon ill have a barrel to make more concentrated David's swamp water
Kudos for calling out those who say anaerobes are "bad." Some are, most aren't. Korean Natural Farming is all based on anaerobic supplementation, and it works too. I think what happens is that when adding 'swamp water' to the garden, the obligate anaerobes (i.e., biology that REQUIRES very low oxygen to thrive) will die off in the aerobic regions of soil and provide food for the biology that thrives in aerobic soils. Their consumption releases the nutrients plants require. The vast majority of swamp water microbes are facultative anaerobes (i.e., they tolerate low oxygen conditions) and will either die in the soil (and become food) or permeate into the deeper layers of soil (having less oxygen than the surface), and set up house- grow, metabolize, and feed the deeper roots. So it all makes sense to me. A fact most folks don't realize is that soil microbes are the dominant life form on planet Earth: and since most, by far, of the planet is anaerobic, the diversity and number of anaerobes far exceeds aerobic microbes. So my adding such things as swamp water to the garden, we are adding to the biodiversity of the soil, and that's always a good thing. Now, where can I get cheap 55-gallon drums?
I have some of those blue barrels. I was looking at them the other day and thinking about useing them for the weed. Thanks Scoot for confirming my plan. :)
Enjoyed this vid. My first compost turned out like swamp water and I threw it into a large hole beside my cedar trees. I was thinking it was to stinky and dangerous for my garden. Later that season I put raspberries beside that location and they really grew great. Free is usually best and I prefer to to lay out my weeds and use them as mulch or compost them normally. Good old chop and drop seems to be the easiest as long as you do not mind a bit of a messy garden.
Your dog is looking to get these minerals and nutrients too. I would let him have some as they know exactly what they need. And i agree with you..centuries ago they had no aerators..they did what was available and they lived. LOL
i have a huge barrell. so far this year it has been mostly the marigolds from our garden. i have been putting it on the tropical plants in the green house and they are all pushing new growth. Also applying to our onions and other veggies in the garden is helping
Scott, I am presently brewing my first ever barrel of Dave's swamp water. Come spring when this 6b zone will be ready for me to use it. I intend on sticking a 2-inch pipe into the barrel, attach the blow side my shop vac to it and twice a day put air into the aerobic juice. I don't know if after a few days the bacteria will change to anaerobic or not, but I should know by the elimination of the smell (or not). Merry Christmas Ray Delbury Sussex County NJ
Thank you for this video. I have tried to make it and got some pretty stinky. I actually did not have any idea how long to make it brew. Now I have a more clear picture. I need a bigger container and I need to pack more in the container. I need to leave it to brew longer too!
I use an old home brew container with a tap at the bottom. Also over here in the UK we have nettles which are high in nitrogen (I think). I add seaweed and the result that smells like a dog's gas blaster going full titty is just great for the veg.
After seeing Dave's swamp water video several months ago I started my own in a 5 gallon bucket. At the time mine was made up of water from my small fish pond and a mix of weeds and rhubarb leaves. It was late summer in Indiana and the warm days quickly put the "fetid" in my swamp water mix.You weren't kidding when you said it stinks like sewage! When things began to cool off some I made up a batch of homemade charcoal in my fire pit and added about a half gallon of the busted up charcoal to the mix and stirred the mixture up every couple of days. Within a week or so the smell was gone. Not sure how well the swamp water will work when it comes to charging the charcoal and turning it into true biochar but it certainly seems to be doing a great job of absorbing the noxious odors. Thanks for sharing your thoughts showing your process!
Fetid is a good word, stinky is another. I about gagged when I opened up a 5 gallon bucket about 4 years ago but I use this method constantly. It is great fertilizer, I still gag a bit but I make this in 5 gallon buckets because I dont want too much of it around my small yard. You are not wrong, this is great gold tea for the plants.
Great video BG! I’ve been doing it with my stinging nettle leaves. This is my first year trying it. It’s amazing what it’s doing to my brassicas. It’s stinks 😷. But it’s great. I’ll be trying your method soon. I have tons of weeds. Thank you 😊
Great video. Two comments and a statement or two: don’t use city water for ANYTHING! Start the swamp water with 100% rainwater. And collect a clean bucket of rainwater. When you start using your tea, dilute it with pure rainwater only. Another place to get buckets is by using trash cans. New or used. Another source of Vegetation is Bermuda grass clippings! Or any grass… Another idea is to add is a water spout near the top get your concentrated fertilizer. Adding a mesh filter will stop the solid matter. Last: maybe pumping a cubic inch of pure oxygen into the bottom of this bucket, slowly each week will speed up the process! And add a single pill of one a day vitamin, chopped up and liquified, into the drum in the beginning will add trace nutrients. What do you think?
Weeds, especially taprooted ones are great bioaccumulators. I started my first swamp water project last summer using only comfrey leaves, 4-5gal buckets worth. By the fall I started to use a little, and will probably get most of it in my beds before plant out giving it enough time to cycle in. The coming year, I'll be trying as you suggest -what ever weed I happen upon, especially poke, thistle, aster, grass, and general garden waste. Some are replying about pairing it with biochar. Sounds like a winner. Thanks, Scott.
And you probably could benefit from having a second tub with aeration to stop and kill the anaerobic bacteria and start an aerobic breakdown of the fiber in the plants. Always good to use the full bacterial process.
I inadvertently made swam water over the winter as I just threw kitchen scraps into a tub off my deck (it was too cold to put into the compost bin). It was really gross, but dumped it by a fruit tree and composted the solids. Now that I have two of those blue containers, I’m going to make a permanent swamp soup. Thank you for showing me how to cut the blue containers, I had no idea how I was going to do that. 🙏
In Germany, we do this too, using stinging nettles exclusively. They're a very common weed here and are supposed to be super rich in various nutrients. I was thinking the other day, maybe you could use other weeds as well😉
Thanks for the video I’ve learned a lot I didn’t realize that it was very valuable …I accidentally started doing that and just decided to dilute it down when I water my garden from a container..I didn’t know it was that beneficial …I will keep my brew going…I really like your concrete blocks around your garden I like that set up😌
After several years of experimentation, I have discovered that anaerobic compost will stop smelling strongly after about 2 years .. so I now have 6 30 gallon barrels cooking, making 2 fresh ones every year. I guess 'smelling strongly' is relative .. maybe I should say that it doesn't smell quite as bad as it does in the first month or two of the process 😁
I did a large comfrey bucket and left it for a year. I was absolutely dreading the smell of it when I opened the lid but to my surprise it smelt of nothing really! Will do that all the time now..... If it still stinks, leave it longer :)
@@TheRainHarvester Great question, and probably nobody knows, but if it’s all soluble, where would the good stuff have gone? Experiment with a nutrient-free seed starting mix in pots. That seems like a good science project for a curious gardener. My attention span is too short.
We started making David's fetid swamp water last year. It is awesome. Then we can use the solid matter for mulch to make room to add more garden waste. I'm glad I subbed to your channel. Thank you!
Will have to try this next year. I usually throw the weeds/uprooted plants in the compost pile but was looking for a concentrated version for fertilizing.
Dave a great teacher …I incorporated his process a while back and believe my plants feel pretty good after they get a drink of that quite pungent fragrant emulsion ….free with no waste …a win win …thank you for sharing
I am going to try this. We have lots of vines that grow all around the yard and I have tried cutting them down and throwing them in the trash but they just keep coming back so I will not have to go any where to get my organic material. I may go around and pick up some fresh cow patties to get a start of good anaerobic bacteria.
I've been thinking about doing something like this. I know what you mean about the negative feedback. I think negativism is worse than it's ever been. I bet if a video about putting ice cream on warm cobbler was posted there would be comments made about how those two mixed together like that would make something bad. 🙄It's inevitable. Good video.👍
my folks did this for years, they had a huge stainless steel tub with a tap on the bottom . They would keep that thing chock full with weeds, prunings and seaweed. Honestly, their vegetable garden was the bomb. The soil was insanely rich, they could grow anything.
But did you wonder why all your neighbors fled the neighborhood?
Someone in your family already knew what we are just learning. Wow. Hopefully, you are now able to have your own gardening experience! These days, that knowledge and experience is priceless. 😊😇🙏🏾
@@ralphmoore9422 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
OH just think - there is a fish Resturant close to me that uses fresh fish and sells fish raw......I would ask them for fish scales......
I've been doing this before I even knew it was a 'thing'. I just figured that if weeds are going to grow then they should pay the cost and contribute to their existence. After all, they are expendable!😂 A big THANK YOU, Scott for your very practical, unpretentious share. God bless you!
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Same here man I am a poor gardener gotta learn lots of tricks
Great video. I use a modified version your 5 gal bucket method. 1 use 2- 5 gal buckets. I put holes in the bottom of one bucket, then put it inside the other to use the bucket with holes as a strainer when I want to use the brew. Keeps the solids in the first bucket , so no straining required
Great idea!
I'm new to this channel and idea of fertilizer.....excited to try it.....DOUBLE excited to try it now with your double bucket idea!!!! Thank you
I'm doing the same thing. Great idea isnt it?
I like your idea. I could handle that better being in wheelchair. I am brand new to gardening. I have been saving my organic scraps & giving them away for years. Time to think again perhaps.
Having fertilizer isn’t knowing how to grow - types of soil.
PLUS I’m in arizona- dry rocky
Not sure where to start.
Think I’ll ask God - He’s the best gardener.
Awesome modification
I put cow/ horse manure , nettles and any other weeds with seeds into a Hessian sack (which keeps all the material contained ) and then put it into a 50gallon drum ,I just take the water from the outside of the sack ,that way I don't have to filter all the debris out .
Consuming produce grown with fertilizers with manures NOT AGED FOR AT LEAST THREE YEARS will prove VERY unhealthy and dangerous .
When I freaked out over mold growing on the soil from kitchen scraps my parents advised I could add directly to the garden, my dad pointed out there’s mold already in soil. That a soil that is free of mold and other microbial life is dead.
Also, Scott is 100% right about anerobic breakdown. It’s how stuff under the dirt breaks down? It still feeds roots and past generations have been using these methods for thousands of years!
Thanks Grace, I save all my scraps and sit them outside until I can pitch onto the garden......it looks so moldy until I wonder if I am adding unhealthy bacteria.........are there any videos on this.......your dad is right.....
@@carolburnett8372 In FL, I have a parade of coons, possoms, stray cats [according to my cameras] even a deer or 2 at night along with squirrels and rats at other times that would certainly invade whatever I leave outside or pitch into the garden. This swamp water idea is covered and seems like something I'm gon'a try.
@@robertaw3559 I have looked at so many videos and pictures, that I forgot about the swamp water........is this where you place the scraps under water and make a kind of scrap tea???
When I first saw David and his wife talk about this method years ago, I was fascinated and a little disturbed. Fascinated by how simple and logical it was and disturbed at why people are so freaked out over smelly things in the garden. To me, that seems odd especially given how many people use animal manures to amend their soil. In any case, it is refreshing discovering that you'd hung out with David and felt compelled to try this method as well.
I've basically been doing this for years except I use 2 buckets, odd and even months. I use the liquid as you show but add the rotted weeds to the compost pile.
I only use invasive grasses and weeds as material for the buckets.
And to all those who say it's the wrong way to do it - well, it works for me!
Great video Scott
So you mean you don't buy fertilizers?
Is it only weeds? What else do you include, please can you break it down?
@@toobaffled_on_X_site For the "weed tea" yes, just weeds and maybe some comfrey leaves. I add compost every season to my beds and the only bought-in fertilizers I use are blood and bone and fish emulsion.
Me too 😁Natures way!!!
@@ausfoodgarden Thanks for your input.👍
Stinging nettle even better
I've been gardening for 30 plus years. I'm just starting to use compost this year. I have a 5 gallon bucket to put scraps in with a lid. I also fish. After I fillet my fish, I put the carcass in a five gallon bucket, fill it up with water, and put a air tight lid on it. Thanks you for your video.
I love this idea... I surf fish and keep wanting to use the heads and anything else if i do filet... with the fertilizer shortage looming, I kept thinking about this as I already buy fish emulsion... I'm like why cant I make my own? I already have several inside and outside worms bin systems and lately ive even been trying my own dilute urine (10-15 to 1) which I discovered works great for nitrogen and all the damn vitamin leftovers I take that I mix with worm tea... wow! everything is doing great and I surmise I'm a rather unusual girl when I have to go on YT to share enthusiasm for rotting fish parts 🤣
Fish guts and carcasses are the best! I just bury them around my veggies, roses, everything and they love it ❤️
Didn't know about seaweed, glad I know now as I have unlimited access to it!😎
I keep the fish carcass about two weeks. Like I said, I fill the bucket up with water. I don't use any part of the fish. I use the water. Once the bucket is empty I fill it back up again and let it sit again. If you bury any parts of a fish. It attracts scavengers. They will dig it up. And the plant with it. Just use the water.
Whew! I bet that stinks to high heaven!
You should bury those fish carcasses. It's better than miracle grow !
As it doesn't rain inside my 50' x 20' hoop house, when prepping the
soil/beds for the growing season I use 12 cups of molasses in 12, 2 1/2
gallon watering cans - to feed the sleepy microbes & fungi - then
water well. ( I'm pretty sure a couple cups of molasses, in the large barrel, would supercharge the Black Gumbo)
Hi Scott
I made this gnarly swamp water a while back and it really does smell gross🤪 When you take that lid off, it'll take the top of your head off! but I put Vicks vapor rub under my nose and I can't smell it anymore. They use that trick when they perform autopsies on badly decomposed bodies, so I thought it would probably work and it did. No more stinky swamp water. Yay!!!
Thanks Scott
I've been doing something similar with my leftover grass cuttings,fall leaves, kitchen scraps etc but I didn't know I could make a tea like liquid for fertilizer. Great idea thank you so much!!
Great Job! 👍Robbie and Gary from S. California is a container gardener. She uses the same theory. She has a compost-in-place system that uses the dead and yellowed plant leaves and kitchen scraps to fertilize her container garden. I started putting those yellowed and dead leaves in a bucket of water. I also started catching the runoff from my containers when I water. I feed all of these waters back to the plants. It makes a big difference to the garden. I will be starting a fetid water system in a 30-gallon garbage can since I watched your video! Thanks 😊
Late winter, early spring I have a large amount of stinging nettle (Padre Island) I did this last year after Dave's vid, Used just the stinging nettle, Works! Water is important, I used untreated well water, Rain is good, City water, needs to stand a few days. Works! had bumper crops, couldn't give away my surplus fast enough. Thanks goes to David the Good. And thank you for redoing.
With all of the 'can't do this or that' going around, it's a wonder any of us have survived this long. We really need to take a serious look back into the commonsense ways of gardening! Thanks, Scott for showing us one of them. I've been doing that in an 18-gallon tote and will continue with this newly added 'how to' information. I was still thinking I needed to keep the browns and greens equal. LOVE your channel!!!
The first barrel you cut already gives you the lid you need for itself. Just flip the top part over the remaining body of the barrel, and you have a 3 inch thick lid , easy to remove. I used my barrels to collect rain water , and I use the lid to keep leaves from entering the barrel. Obviously I cut out the existing cap from the lid to accommodate the downspout from the roof
I've been making compost tea for a couple years now. No cover. Less than 5 gallons. Today we cooked shrimp. When finished cooling, ice bath, I put that water in the tea I was brewing.
A little smelly when stirring the mix. I'll put a little olive olive oil on top to drown mosquito eggs. Next. I saved the cooking water and shells separately to use for pepper plants we bought today. SO MUCH TO LEARN. Thanks you.
Thankyou for sharing your wisdom, you have reduced the suffering of plants worldwide as we watch and learn from your videos. Once again, thankyou!
I use an old chest deep freezer filled with this, I am so glad to have seen this because I was afraid to put on my plants!! It had set for over a year! Thank so much for all the info!!
Why are you yelling!? 😬
Good idea,I have a old fridge with too freezer so we may try that, probably to late to use this yr,but should be great for next yr! Thanks
I did this with food scraps leaves and paper very gross but I had the best potatoes. So many I had to can a single 20 foot row. And they taste good too!
Forgot to say compost not quite ready in a tumbler in some water. Let it sit a couple days. Strained it and made the gross tea!
Perfect smelly brew to wind my nosy neighbour up 😇…
I think a handful of garden lime every foot or two should eliminate the smell - it’s what they did in the old long drop toilets to stop them smelling back in the day
I've used Dave's method. Works wonders and this is a timely reminder with the cost of fertilizer maybe increasing.
It did seem to work as well as fish emulsion or a fresh compost layer to me.
I do a version of this especially with deep tap rooted plants like horse radish, comfrey leaves, dandilion. Because of the minerals that are brought up from the depths of the soil. There are also deep tap rooted weeds that can be used as well that can be added as well. Free food for worms (I raise them for castings) and fetid swamp water grin.
You put your dandelions into your tea mix or just the roots? I have used the leaves and flowers either in my salads or make a hot tea for relaxing in the evening
I think that was awesome tips! I would build a stand and add an off/on nozzle along with a screen filter. That way I can just turn the knob and fluid goes into my watering can.
Thankyou for sharing this great gardening tip, "you are so right" this method is exactually what my Dad did for his garden, and his garden over the years has always looked full of lushy leafy rich green healthy trees, shrubs and smaller potted plants that always gave out beautiful big blossoms. I am a keen gardener myself , but I have all my plants growing in extra large pots, shrubs, palm trees, succulents and my herbs. I will start doing this, but I will have to do it in small volume as I already "must frustrate" my close neighbours when I put out dynamic lifter soaking in water brew fertilizer, that also smells bad. KEEP UP YOUR GREAT GARDENING, YOU HAVE A GARDEN TO BE PROUD OF.
Yeah that stuff is really good for your garden and it's free but the smell is so bad it's hard to get out there and face the chore down. So glad you pointed out that you need to block the mosquitoes from laying larva in the liquid. I make it a practice to remove weeds before it goes to seed. This has cut down my need to weed over the years. If I think I have weed seed in my tea I will only use the liquid after straining it. The rest goes off the property. I avoid replanting weed seed onto my property. Both my neighbors generously share their many weeds with me. I try to water it in very early in the morning in hopes that it'll have settled by the heat of the day so my neighbors don't have to smell it. I focus my watering in of the tea at soil level near the base of the plants. I use worm castings to make tea as well and will put that on the entire plant especially if I see some insect activity that I want to stop. I wait a couple of days and follow up with a lot of fresh water and then continue to harvest from the garden.
I've been doing this for years. Best fertilizer you will ever have for your garden
Hi Scott, I do the same and then add 10 parts water to 1 part nettle tea. I am also doing rhubarb leaves as a pesticide this year. It's great sharing tips to help gardeners thank you x.
Make a tobacco tea and spray it as pesticide if needed. Nicotine is a organic insecticide.
If you cut the barrel just like you did on the first one, you can flip the lid upside down and it fits perfectly. That's how we do it.
I agree.
Yep, that’s what we do. It’s a great fit.
Great tip guys...I'd like to add this to a platform and put a drain valve in and making sure a bucket or tub can fit under the drain plug.
Do you need drain holes or do you need a lot of water
Dog poop should be good too and your urine
I have a rolling patio ice box. It has a faucet drain. I use that.
I need to get my compost going next, and learn more on this swamp water, knowledge is a very valuable. Thanks for sharing this and keeping his knowledge alive
This is great! I love the end when you say to put anything you hate in there. I'm looking at a lot of spring grass/weed that is coming up. I was trying to decided how to get rid of it. Looks like I'll be pulling it up (we've just had a lot of rain, yay) and stuffing it into a barrel. THANKS!!!
Great video!! I add meat m fish bones to mine too..I love David the good!!Bone broth of the garden!😀love this!!
My thoughts of anaerobic composting: The fact that you have seal off the container from not only mosquitoes but all detritivores combined with the fact that the inputs are underwater means that more of the volatile compounds are retained. I have mused over this often when it comes to traditional composting. As greens like leaves turn brown, almost all of the nitrogen is being released straight into the atmosphere versus breaking down into a form available for plants. Now, multiply this across the many other volatile compounds found in plants and suddenly aerobic composting has a big carbon and nitrogen footprint. And with all the detritivores feasting on it as well that don't stick around, is it any wonder that compost piles shrink so much? Much of the inputs are being released into the atmosphere and consumed by detritivores. Plus having a big container of swamp water is a good way to quickly charge biochar. So anaerobic composting is a great and simple way to capture all the inputs of a compost bin.
Yeah the closed system is what I appreciate here. Its not air tight, but closed enough that it should retain more of the compounds released by decomposition.
TOTAL hogwash. You need to do some research regarding anaerobic sludge that this guy is brewing. It is flat out harmful to humans.
Again, some research, there's a ton of it out there.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0956053X2100547X
www.epa.gov/anaerobic-digestion/basic-information-about-anaerobic-digestion-ad
mechanical.uonbi.ac.ke/sites/default/files/cae/engineering/mechanical/Lecture%2024-Anaerobic%20and%20Aerobic%20Digestion%20(many%20slides).pdf
@Ms. Farmgirl Do some research. You sound like you don't have much experience. I have used this technique for years with no issues of plant health or my health. My garden loves it. It works!
@@ms.farmgirl think of it this way. This is no different than the digestion in animals. The barrel is the stomach and intestines. Does it stink? yes, would I eat or drink it? no, Do I foliar feed with it? Not leafy greens but everything else. This is green manure just like any other herbivore, full of nutrients that plants love. Btw this is not the same as municipal sewer sludge that is used to make products like milorganite and other “Bio solid” products that have chemicals, pharmaceuticals and God knows what else. Scott is dropping some wisdom to help people close the loop, reduce your carbon footprint, save some money ( fish emulsion and chem ferts are expensive) and grow some organic (this can be defined as vegan fertilizer) food. Do any of these things interest you?
I like this type of fertilizer. Free and natural. I use banana plants after they have produced a bunch of bananas. After 2 weeks in the barrel with rainwater; the potassium and phosphorus content is very high.
Suggestion if it tapers cut it a few inches down and then cut another cut about an inch and slide the top inside instead of over then you’re only using 1 barrel 😁 the rim should prevent it from slipping in
Got a few of the 30 gallon barrels that look like yours but my local feed & seed was out of the 55 gallon barrels with lids. I'll be getting a couple to keep near the compost bins to make Dave's fetid swamp water in. I use the 30 gallon barrels as radiators to keep my citrus from freezing.
Hold up there William! What's this you're doing with the 30 gallon barrels as radiators? Could you elaborate for me?
@@2A4BDGV Fill a 30 gallon plastic barrel with water. As it heats up in the daylight from direct sun exposure, it will then radiate that heat all night. i place my barrels on the North side of my young citrus and then cover them during extreme cold events, barrel and all.
@@williamvillar7134 wow, great idea, thanks so much!
Can I put chicken poop in the swamp water?
I've been doing this for years, just never knew it had a name lol. I have an enormous amount of comfrey and I take the leaves and put them in the bottom of a dry bucket and put a brick on top and just let the comfrey leaves rot and create their own comfrey sludge. It's like a paste rather than a liquid and omg it can be smelled down to the end of the cul-de-sac. It takes me a year to get a bucket full of liquid but when it's ready it's worth more than gold. Of course I can just add some comfrey leaves to rainwater and make comfrey tea, but the thick comfrey sludge from just the decomposing leaves is even more powerful. I never knew it needed to sit before using and I've always put it on my plants without diluting it and I've never burned or killed any plants. I like your thinking do what you think you got to do. Yep there's a lot of right ways to do things 👍
I made a tea bag for mine .I use a pump. Move bag to side and pump doesn't get glogged up.When liquid gone you can pull bag out and empty dregs to dry for ground cover
Thanks for the post. I started two 5 gallon buckets using grass clippings and rainwater this summer. I stirred it occasionally and by late November I wasn't sure how to use it. My compost pile had a lot of chopped leaves so I worked them into the compost. After watching this, I have a better understanding of proper applications.
I look forward to using it in a better fashion this year. Thanks again.
Oh man,I wish I had seen this two days ago. We have had so much rain here in CA. I left 2 buckets full of weeds out in the rain, just dumped them out into my composite pile yesterday and man o man did it stink. I’m going to look for two of these barrels and do the same thing. Thanks for the great tips
Can you use grass clippings
maybe place a drip hose attached to your barrel and open the valve and let it automatically feed/fertilize? and perhaps append a rain barrel and open both valves and let em mix?
I grow a few lines of Comfrey especially for making this brew.
The plants are attractive and flowers attract Bees and such, Comfrey spreads and establishes a good weed barrier to reduce infestation into Gardens etc. and I chop and drop into sealable Plastic containers that are easy to maneuver around the garden.
The result stinks to High Heaven but is a plant growing powerhouse.
Between seasons I empty the gunk out of the containers into my Gardens or compost piles, dig it in and let it rot down until I replant.
Comfrey grows like crazy all through the year [but tapers off in Winter] so there is always a heap of raw material to use for brewing.
After establishing itself it will hang in there for years and is hard to remove so be careful where you plant it.
Thank you for making me feel that I have been doing Okay! I've been doing this for a few years now because I live in a tiny unit with not much room to garden! Instead of a compost pile, I found it easier to do the WEED TEA! Everything for free! I got the bucket from empty buckets I found in Grocery stores, I use water from washing the veggies!! Thank you again! Now I feel encouraged! Before people used to complain about the foul odour!!
Check out Randy Smith's comment above about adding "charcoal" to his "fetid water'. Not the charcoal you buy, but have a little "stick campfire and roast a hot dog or marshmallows" and use that "charcoal" that remains and it should take some of the smell out. 🤔However, on the other hand, fish emulsion stinks good too!
@@dfsheep1 Ok let me chime in. The charcoal you are referring to is called bio-char, only add bio char to your brew if you are going to let it sit for an extended period of time. The reason for this is bio char is like a sponge and needs to be "innoculated" by absorbing nutrients slowly or it will absorb them from your gardens soil when added. Once you've inocculated the stuff though, it will hold and feed your gardens roots with nutrients for many years. Just make sure you mix it into the soil, not spread on the surface.
I do in a small way small container I put rotting food but the smell wow but it didn’t kill my plants
I have been planning my swamp delivery system for this year. I got a new water softener and kept the old plastic brine tank. At the bottom it has a shelf that the salt sits on top of. The shelf has holes all over it. The shelf sits up above the bottom, by about 4 inches. That will work nicely to keep the bottom of the can plant debri free. It is probably 25 or 30 gallon trashcan size with a good lid. My plan is to add a hose bib and faucet handle so that I can attach a hose and water directly from my can. It is easy to add water to my can and dilute it in the can just before use. That will make room to add more water and add more plant or household scraps to my can. I also have something I bought and used last year from Home Depot that I can fill with the swampy water then screw onto my watering hose that dilutes it as you water. I also got lazy and found it is easy to dump a bunch in the garden rows then water it in diluting in the garden. And I got even lazier and tipped my entire can of swamp water into my densely planted stand of corn. It really doesn't matter to worry about the dilution too much. It stinks to high heaven but it is fantastic fertilizer.
This stuff is great for corn.
I do worm composting and the liquid given off is amazing also. Tons of good stuff but no bad smell. I like this method and will be looking into doing this after the holidays.
You could keep it open with a fish pump keeping it bubbling and put a old sheet over tied off, it reduces the stench and keeps it activated
You are right it does stink bad! but it works. I make a bucket with stinging nettles, another one with comfrey and another with just general run of the mill weeds. I do put a shot of old maple syrup in each bucket to help the fermentation process. You could use molasses also.
Your video offers an alternate avenue to take advantage of a problem I'm experiencing-silver maple seeds. I have long thought what a waste and a nuisance. Last year I bagged 5 lawn and leaf bagsful that went to the city waste management. There has got to be a lot of good nutrients I could capture with your swamp water method. Thanks
Thank you so much Scott! You’re an answer to prayer!
I like the way you think and create solutions or recognize them.
I have kept all my trimmings for a few years and recycled it someway in my tiny yard.
Gardening in pots.
I have been wondering what we would do if there was no access to fertilizer and sent out a prayer.
Here’s the perfect practical answer
that contributes to sustainability and
carries a life cycle process full circle!!🎉🎉🎉
Love it🎉🙏
Xcellent presentation !
We always used our night urine on our potted , now even planted trees. Daily, trying to spread the "goodness" and the plants thrive ! For a long time our urine was their only fertilizer ! When i need pee outdoors, my husband shouts " under the apple tree"
...and your plants don't get 'pissed off' at the uric acid they must be receiving? Can I take a leak on my potatoes growing in a tub, then?
@@marktwain368 never had negativ effect, no they love their "vitamin" drink (urine contains) nitrogen
@@marktwain368 I pee in a cup and then pour it on my watering can and then fill with water to dilute the pee. I read 1 part pee to 20 parts water is a good mix.
I dump all the left over drinks in ours like pop , juice , milk , tea, beer . We have 6 kids so we tend to have a lot of left over drinks . It does smell really good if you like that kinda smell lol . I have been soaking our bio char in that goodness the past few months . Thanks for sharing !
Oh yes great advise. Thanks so much. All the critical gardeners who have staff to do everything for them. We are hands on gardeners here.. Compliments of the season. Lilian
Hello Sir, Love your channel and Dave's too. To get nutrients of any kind to your living plant nature and only nature can create organic plant food. You need first bacteria and fungi to eat the organic material, store it in their bodies and then nematode's and protozoa mush eat those two types and when they poop it out then and only then it is plant nutrients are available. There is a lot of thing that can go wrong it this method. I would be glad to have a phone conversation with you on this matter. Life needs air. Have a very Merry Christmas and to all your loved ones.
On the white barrels like that I just cut the molded on lid off, right below the bottom side of the lid where it is narrowest. Then turn the lid over and it sits on the barrel just fine because the lid rim on top is wider in circumference than the narrow circumference under the lid. I use the same kind for rain barrels.
I used alfalfa pellets this year as a side dressing. Everything grew lush!
Is that what I feed my rabbits
@@marymartin3900 what’s in alfalfa pellets? Nitrogen, I’m guessing??
I grow alfalfa & cut it & use it with the dry seaweed. Everything grows lush…
Do you just toss it in your garden?
@@2A4BDGV Yes. I sprinkle it around my strawberries. And a handful around everything planted.
we are fortunate to have a pool, we cant use a cover in the winter the weight of leaves from ours and neighbors trees pull the cover down and the bricks, blocks and wood into the pool so we stopped using a cover and every year drain and clear it out. Several years ago I started to use the 'swamp water on my garden' have to come up with a barrel to store it in love the idea of using that black water through the growing season. Good video
I usually dump in some fish emulsion, trace minerals, and kelp fertilizer into my swamp water. However I store mine in with my bio-char. Then I can grab whichever I need at the time, and I know my char is charged.
FANTASTIC, THANKS SO MUCH FOR THIS SIMPLE WAY TO GIVE MY GARDEN ALL IT NEEDS TO GROW WELL!!!
Scott, so happy for you and the way your channel has grown. I subbed when you were well under 50k and look at ya now! I echo what you say about this method of fertilizing; nasty but great! And I love the way you debunk all the fancy techniques that may sound good but are a ton of trouble, and maybe not even necessary. Great stuff! Jim in FL
Lol, I was here well before ya. We spotted a good guy immediately didn't we ;)
Yes. I do container gardening, i have one hole in the container and when i water plant i catch the water and pour it back into my plants. Stinks like sewage but plants grow.
Hello Scott ! I had in mind to do that exact the same in my garden . I was a little affraid to acciding my soil. Vut now i see you do it . I gonna do it top . Thanks for the advice . Jp
Burning my garden before spring has made a huge difference I'll have to try this in addition. Thank you 😊
I've been using this method with a bucket also. I throw in mimosa leaves and grass clippings, random weeds. Hopefully soon ill have a barrel to make more concentrated David's swamp water
Great vid!
You could put your big barrel under the down spout and catch more water. 😊👍🏼
Kudos for calling out those who say anaerobes are "bad." Some are, most aren't. Korean Natural Farming is all based on anaerobic supplementation, and it works too. I think what happens is that when adding 'swamp water' to the garden, the obligate anaerobes (i.e., biology that REQUIRES very low oxygen to thrive) will die off in the aerobic regions of soil and provide food for the biology that thrives in aerobic soils. Their consumption releases the nutrients plants require. The vast majority of swamp water microbes are facultative anaerobes (i.e., they tolerate low oxygen conditions) and will either die in the soil (and become food) or permeate into the deeper layers of soil (having less oxygen than the surface), and set up house- grow, metabolize, and feed the deeper roots. So it all makes sense to me. A fact most folks don't realize is that soil microbes are the dominant life form on planet Earth: and since most, by far, of the planet is anaerobic, the diversity and number of anaerobes far exceeds aerobic microbes. So my adding such things as swamp water to the garden, we are adding to the biodiversity of the soil, and that's always a good thing. Now, where can I get cheap 55-gallon drums?
Thanks for this, you explained it better than I can. I found my drums at a local vendor. Google it and I think you should turn some up.
I haven’t used “Khemicals” in my garden for a few years. Worm farming has improved my grows!
I have some of those blue barrels. I was looking at them the other day and thinking about useing them for the weed. Thanks Scoot for confirming my plan. :)
Thanks for the tips sir. I am also using liquid fertilizers ( organic ) in my small garden. I use banana peel tea and grass clipping tea.
Great no nonsense information! Hi from Brisbane Australia
Such an awesome and resourceful and cheap idea!! Thanks so so much for sharing !!
Enjoyed this vid. My first compost turned out like swamp water and I threw it into a large hole beside my cedar trees. I was thinking it was to stinky and dangerous for my garden. Later that season I put raspberries beside that location and they really grew great. Free is usually best and I prefer to to lay out my weeds and use them as mulch or compost them normally. Good old chop and drop seems to be the easiest as long as you do not mind a bit of a messy garden.
The problem with chop and drop weeds, is that the weed seeds are being spread around.
@@beccagee5905 Hello I take the mature flowers off if there is any and that easily handles the seed issue.
Swamp water has worked well for me for a while now. Glad to see you trying this!
Nice work!
This is great idea this year (2022) with the shortage of fertilizer. Thanks
Your dog is looking to get these minerals and nutrients too. I would let him have some as they know exactly what they need. And i agree with you..centuries ago they had no aerators..they did what was available and they lived. LOL
i have a huge barrell. so far this year it has been mostly the marigolds from our garden. i have been putting it on the tropical plants in the green house and they are all pushing new growth. Also applying to our onions and other veggies in the garden is helping
Scott, I am presently brewing my first ever barrel of Dave's swamp water. Come spring when this 6b zone will be ready for me to use it. I intend on sticking a 2-inch pipe into the barrel, attach the blow side my shop vac to it and twice a day put air into the aerobic juice. I don't know if after a few days the bacteria will change to anaerobic or not, but I should know by the elimination of the smell (or not). Merry Christmas Ray Delbury Sussex County NJ
Love the use of the blow feature on your shop vacuum. Brilliant.
Thank you for this video. I have tried to make it and got some pretty stinky. I actually did not have any idea how long to make it brew. Now I have a more clear picture. I need a bigger container and I need to pack more in the container. I need to leave it to brew longer too!
I use an old home brew container with a tap at the bottom. Also over here in the UK we have nettles which are high in nitrogen (I think). I add seaweed and the result that smells like a dog's gas blaster going full titty is just great for the veg.
Free fertilizer is the best fertilizer!
I have several 5-gallon buckets full of rainwater right now. I think it’s time for a new garden experiment!
After seeing Dave's swamp water video several months ago I started my own in a 5 gallon bucket. At the time mine was made up of water from my small fish pond and a mix of weeds and rhubarb leaves. It was late summer in Indiana and the warm days quickly put the "fetid" in my swamp water mix.You weren't kidding when you said it stinks like sewage! When things began to cool off some I made up a batch of homemade charcoal in my fire pit and added about a half gallon of the busted up charcoal to the mix and stirred the mixture up every couple of days. Within a week or so the smell was gone. Not sure how well the swamp water will work when it comes to charging the charcoal and turning it into true biochar but it certainly seems to be doing a great job of absorbing the noxious odors. Thanks for sharing your thoughts showing your process!
Love it! Thank you!
Could you say how you make homemade charcoal?
@@carolyngreen5458 burn branches. No quite to ash. Cool it down-hose. Get shovel chop it. There u go.
@@FloridaGirl- thank you💗
@@carolyngreen5458 you have to burn it in low oxygen conditions , but not long enough to turn it into charcoal.
@@carolyngreen5458 I recommend watching a few videos. There are lots of different ways to do it
Fetid is a good word, stinky is another. I about gagged when I opened up a 5 gallon bucket about 4 years ago but I use this method constantly. It is great fertilizer, I still gag a bit but I make this in 5 gallon buckets because I dont want too much of it around my small yard. You are not wrong, this is great gold tea for the plants.
Great video BG! I’ve been doing it with my stinging nettle leaves. This is my first year trying it. It’s amazing what it’s doing to my brassicas. It’s stinks 😷. But it’s great. I’ll be trying your method soon. I have tons of weeds. Thank you 😊
Cool im going to try it myself
Does the smell dissipate? How often do you fertilize with the brew?
Awesome I try to reuse as much as I can. This I will start tomorrow, thanks for the tip! God bless you!
Great video. Two comments and a statement or two: don’t use city water for ANYTHING! Start the swamp water with 100% rainwater. And collect a clean bucket of rainwater. When you start using your tea, dilute it with pure rainwater only.
Another place to get buckets is by using trash cans. New or used.
Another source of Vegetation is Bermuda grass clippings! Or any grass…
Another idea is to add is a water spout near the top get your concentrated fertilizer. Adding a mesh filter will stop the solid matter.
Last: maybe pumping a cubic inch of pure oxygen into the bottom of this bucket, slowly each week will speed up the process! And add a single pill of one a day vitamin, chopped up and liquified, into the drum in the beginning will add trace nutrients. What do you think?
Good idea for expired vitamins. It is all recycled.
AwesomeSauce!
I've had a nasty tote in the corner of my garden with rancid nasty water for years and it works wonderfully
Weeds, especially taprooted ones are great bioaccumulators. I started my first swamp water project last summer using only comfrey leaves, 4-5gal buckets worth. By the fall I started to use a little, and will probably get most of it in my beds before plant out giving it enough time to cycle in. The coming year, I'll be trying as you suggest -what ever weed I happen upon, especially poke, thistle, aster, grass, and general garden waste. Some are replying about pairing it with biochar. Sounds like a winner. Thanks, Scott.
And you probably could benefit from having a second tub with aeration to stop and kill the anaerobic bacteria and start an aerobic breakdown of the fiber in the plants. Always good to use the full bacterial process.
I inadvertently made swam water over the winter as I just threw kitchen scraps into a tub off my deck (it was too cold to put into the compost bin).
It was really gross, but dumped it by a fruit tree and composted the solids.
Now that I have two of those blue containers, I’m going to make a permanent swamp soup. Thank you for showing me how to cut the blue containers, I had no idea how I was going to do that. 🙏
In Germany, we do this too, using stinging nettles exclusively. They're a very common weed here and are supposed to be super rich in various nutrients. I was thinking the other day, maybe you could use other weeds as well😉
My dog Riley does the same thing when the water hose turns on! He is ready to play! Lol
Thanks for the video I’ve learned a lot I didn’t realize that it was very valuable …I accidentally started doing that and just decided to dilute it down when I water my garden from a container..I didn’t know it was that beneficial …I will keep my brew going…I really like your concrete blocks around your garden I like that set up😌
After several years of experimentation, I have discovered that anaerobic compost will stop smelling strongly after about 2 years .. so I now have 6 30 gallon barrels cooking, making 2 fresh ones every year. I guess 'smelling strongly' is relative .. maybe I should say that it doesn't smell quite as bad as it does in the first month or two of the process 😁
My 5 gallon bucket is no longer as nasty as it was when it was brewing. It has been 2+ years for mine too, so I think you are on to something.
I did a large comfrey bucket and left it for a year. I was absolutely dreading the smell of it when I opened the lid but to my surprise it smelt of nothing really! Will do that all the time now..... If it still stinks, leave it longer :)
@@fordtelly6573 But is the juice still as beneficial as the smelly stuff?
@@TheRainHarvester
Great question, and probably nobody knows, but if it’s all soluble, where would the good stuff have gone? Experiment with a nutrient-free seed starting mix in pots. That seems like a good science project for a curious gardener. My attention span is too short.
@@fordtelly6573 add banana peels 🙂🍅
We started making David's fetid swamp water last year. It is awesome. Then we can use the solid matter for mulch to make room to add more garden waste. I'm glad I subbed to your channel. Thank you!
Will have to try this next year. I usually throw the weeds/uprooted plants in the compost pile but was looking for a concentrated version for fertilizing.
Plus it would eliminate the risk of any seeds from weeds, not killed through composting, germinating in the garden.
Brother you taught simply what I was thinking how to do it. Thanks and God bless your sharing.
Interesting. I've only made compost tea from comfrey and greens. I certainly have lots of weeds that I can make this version though.
I agree I use the same. Good stuff organic. Happy gardening you too
Dave a great teacher …I incorporated his process a while back and believe my plants feel pretty good after they get a drink of that quite pungent fragrant emulsion ….free with no waste …a win win …thank you for sharing
I am going to try this. We have lots of vines that grow all around the yard and I have tried cutting them down and throwing them in the trash but they just keep coming back so I will not have to go any where to get my organic material. I may go around and pick up some fresh cow patties to get a start of good anaerobic bacteria.
I've been thinking about doing something like this. I know what you mean about the negative feedback. I think negativism is worse than it's ever been. I bet if a video about putting ice cream on warm cobbler was posted there would be comments made about how those two mixed together like that would make something bad. 🙄It's inevitable. Good video.👍