Many people that I have spoken to over the years have not suggested Foliar feeding or spraying the leaves of the plant because of concerns of damaging the plant, adding mildew problems, and adding the inappropriate type of nutrients for the state of life that the plant is in. They mentioned that it really does not make a difference and just adding water to the already amended soil base is enough to grow any plant. I deiced to review it because it was suggested on YouTube as a way to control pests on leaves.

As it turns out foliar feeding is standard way of delivering various nutrients to plants at different stages of the life cycle. Even during the germination and spouting process the nutrients have brought out more dark green colors and have made the plants more vigorous. While I have not tested all of the different types of nutrients used for crop manipulation, I have tested a general tea used from other plants like garlic, cinnamon, cloves, and many other types of nutrients. At times I have added an organic dish soap if there are bird droppings on a leaf that need to be removed. Different types of plants will add a different nutrients so take note of what you are adding to your feed:

"Fertilization strategies can influence flowering, fruit set, fruit size, the amount of vegetative growth, and other plant characteristics. By carefully choosing the components of a foliar or sidedress fertilizer, the grower can "nudge" a crop toward earlier, heavier fruit set, or discourage fruiting—an advantage when producing greens or a forage crop. This concept is fairly well recognized in the conventional agricultural community. Many citrus growers, for example, are known to foliar feed with fertilizer blends dominated by potassium and nitrate—vegetative-growth-enhancing nutrients—to increase fruit size after the crop is well set. Generally speaking, fertilizer blends dominated by potassium, nitrate nitrogen, calcium, and chlorine tend to promote vegetative growth and fruit size. Blends dominated by ammonium nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur, and manganese encourage the setting of fruit and seed." ~George Kuepper

In this video you can see an example of a tea. I used a few ground sticks of cured cinnamon, chopped fresh garlic from the kitchen garden, cured cloves, kelp**, some Epsom salt, and an organic apple cider vinegar. I brought a couple gallons of filtered water to a boil, added the ingredients, and let it steep until the next morning. After it was cool, I poured the mix in a tea strainer, and then into a spray bottle. Then I tested various times of spraying and the morning time just before or at sunrise seemed to be accepted by the plants the most. When spraying I administered 1 to 2 pulls per side of leaf (both top and bottom).


Backyard DIY Foliar Feeding With Organic Compounds
Foliar Feed For Pest Control




Even though I have not been able to prove that it adds nutrients or vigor to the plant, the leaves do become greener, and the pests like spider mites are gone. I would suggest this tea to anyone that has problems with the quality of leafs on tomato plants and other plants that seem to be having a pest problem.

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