Peninsular Rose Club

Take Your Roses to Tea

  

Alfalfa Tea, the natural flower booster by Trevor Inkpen
Once you have improved the tilth of your soil with Compost and Manure, and provided a good reserve of the basic nutrients with Complete Organic Fertilizer Mix , you can provide your roses with a "shot" of nutrients for strong growth and good flowering.

Alfalfa tea is a natural and inexpensive fertilizer. Alfalfa pellets and meal are available from garden and feed supply stores in 50 lb. bags. Get together with your neighbors to share the cost (and transportation) of a bag or two. Pellets are easier to handle, but I feel that the meal makes a better fertilizer. Some also say that the higher temperature processing that goes into making pellets lowers the nutrient value of the alfalfa. Epsom salts are also available in bulk. In our area, Buckerfield's, Borden Merchantile and Integrity stock bulk feeds and fertilizers.

Dry alfalfa is a good slow-release source of nitrogen, but since you will be "digesting" it by letting it ferment in water, the resulting tea is a soluable, fast-acting nitrogen source. Also, by making alfalfa (or manure) tea, you don't have to worry about weed seeds sprouting from the fertilizer.

If you don't have time to make alfalfa tea, you can still sprinke alfalfa pellets on the ground in the spring - however the nutrients will take much longer to be released, it doesn't look as attractive, and the pellets can attract rodents. A better solution would be to use Complete Organic mix and add extra alfalfa meal to it, then scratch it into the surface of the soil.

Orchid and rose growers use alfalfa tea as a foliar spray. If you grow delphiniums and irises, they also love alfalfa tea. Some iris growers mulch their beds with alfalfa meal. And an additional benefit for delphiniums is that the Epsom salts in the tea help to ward off slugs and snails. In addition to nitrogen, alfalfa supplies enzymes and trace elements that are not present in chemical nitrogen fertilizers.

Alfalfa ingredients:

  • Triacontanol (growth stimulant)
  • Vitamin A (high concentration)
  • Thiamine
  • Riboflavin
  • Pantothenic Acid
  • Niacin
  • Pyridoxine
  • Choline
  • Bentaine
  • Folic Acid
  • co-enzymes
  • Crude proteins (16 - 25% in dry alfalfa)

Amino acids (% in alfalfa meal).

  • Tryptophan, 0.3 %
  • Aspartic Acid, 2.3%
  • Threonine, 1.0 %
  • Serine, 1.0%
  • Glutamic Acid, 2.7%
  • Proline, 1.2%
  • Glycine, 1.1%
  • Alanine, 1.1%
  • Cystine, 0.2%
  • Valine, 1.0%
  • Methionine, 0.3%
  • Isoleucine, 0.8%
  • Leucine, 1.6%
  • Tyrosine, 0.5%
  • Phenylalanine, 1.0%
  • Histidine, 0.4%
  • Lysine, Total, 1.1%
  • Arginine, 1.1%

Minerals (contained in dry alfalfa)

  • Nitrogen 3.75-5.5 %
  • Potassium .75 - 3.5 %
  • Phosphorus .3 - .7%
  • Calcium 1 - 2 %
  • Magnesium .30 - 1 %
  • Sulphur .2 - .5 %
  • Manganese 30-200 ppm
  • Iron 20-250 ppm
  • Boron 20-80 ppm
  • Copper 5-20 ppm
  • Zinc 20-70 ppm
The Mix:
  • Choose a garbage bin or barrel with no leaks and a tight fitting lid. Position it in an out of the way place - you don't want to have to move it once it's full.
  • For a full size garbage bin (20 gallons) add 16 cups of alfalfa pellets or alfalfa meal (4 cups to every 5 gallons or 22 litres of water)
  • Add 1 - 2 cups of Epsom salts (magnesium sulphate crystals) (or one quarter to half a cup to 5 gallons) Optionally, add two tablespoons of Iron Chelate
  • Fill with water, put on a tight lid to prevent mosquitos from breeding in your "swamp"
  • Let stand for one week until it bubbles with fermentation. Your nose will tell you that it's ready.

Using it:

Apply alfalfa tea once per month in the spring and summer, especially after the first flush of flowers, to encourage repeat blooming. You can reduce or eliminate the Epsom salts in later batches.

Stop applying it in the fall, when you want the plants to start hardening off for the winter, and don't want to encourage soft new growth.

  • Put on some old clothes - you're going to get splashed, and you don't want to be socializing with anyone while wearing the alfalfa tea!
  • Scoop off the liquid with a bucket and apply.
  • Pour a gallon of tea per rose around the base of the plant; more for large climbers, less for potted roses and minis.
  • Soak small potted roses in a bucket of tea for 15 minutes each.
  • When you have scooped off most of the liquid, you will be left with a thick goop of alfalfa in the garbage bin. There are two ways to treat this:
    • Method A: You can add another quarter-cup of epsom salts, fill the garbage can one third of the way up again, and stir the mix briskly so that the alfalfa is suspended in the water. This slurry can be applied to your roses immediately. Choose the roses in the back of your beds for this tea, where the greenish brown puddle of alfalfa slurry won't be too visible.
    • Method B: Add the full dose of Epsom salts, refill to the top with water and let sit for another week. Use the liquid, and then bury the alfalfa dregs into your compost pile (by this time they will be pretty smelly).

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