My Tomato Plants Started Slow, but This Natural, DIY Fertilizer Will Boost My Yield – It Uses Just One Ingredient From the Yard
Nettle tea encourages stronger stems, resulting in more tomatoes later on
My tomato plants have been off to a slow start this year, so I've been looking for organic solutions to encourage faster growth. That's when I stumbled across a hack: making nettle tea fertilizer for tomatoes.
It's an old-school gardening trick to fertilize tomatoes with nettle-infused water, which is packed with nutrients, including nitrogen for vegetative growth. Giving your tomatoes nettle tea fertilizer from spring to early summer encourages strong leaves and stems, setting the plant up for healthy flowering and fruit production later on.
It's really best used before flowers appear, at which point you can switch to a specific tomato fertilizer to support fruiting (like this tomato fertilizer on Amazon). The best part is it's really easy to make your own tomato fertilizer with nettle tea, though it does need to be used correctly to be effective. Here's how it works.
Why Use Nettle Tea for Tomatoes?
It's surprisingly effective to make plant fertilizer using weeds, as they're packed with essential plant nutrients. Nettles in particular are a popular choice for giving plants like tomatoes are a boost of nitrogen.
What nitrogen does for plants is aid vegetative, leafy growth. For tomatoes, this means encouraging strong stems and foliage ahead of flowering.
'When tomatoes start to flower, you want the focus to be on fruit production rather than vegetative growth,' explains Drew Swainston, Gardens Content Editor at Homes & Gardens. 'At this point, the best tomato fertilizer is high in potassium, like this potash feed on Amazon.
'So, you should only use nettle tea fertilizer for tomatoes during early growth, up until flowers appear, otherwise it could encourage excessive foliage and reduce your yield,' he adds.
Of course, the benefits of nettle tea fertilizer also extend to the fact it's free to make and eco-friendly, with no chemicals required.
But, you do have to make it carefully and use it correctly to get the desired results – here's what you need to know.
Drew has worked as a writer since 2008 and was also a professional gardener for many years. As a trained horticulturist, he worked in prestigious historic gardens, including Hanbury Hall and the world-famous Hidcote Manor Garden. He also spent time as a specialist kitchen gardener at Soho Farmhouse and Netherby Hall, where he grew vegetables, fruit, herbs, and cut flowers for restaurants. Drew has written for numerous print and online publications and is an allotment holder and garden blogger. He was shortlisted for the Digital Gardening Writer of the Year at the 2025 Garden Media Guild Awards.
How to Make Nettle Tea Fertilizer
There are just a handful of steps to make nettle tea fertilizer for tomatoes:
- Put on thorn-proof gardening gloves (like these floral ones from Walmart) to protect your skin. You can then collect fresh nettles from your garden, picking tender tops. You can use pruning shears as an extra precaution to prevent stinging (like these Fiskars bypass pruning shears from Amazon). You should collect enough to fill a bucket halfway (this can be any size bucket, but a 5-gallon bucket is a good choice – like this one from Lowe's).
- Rinse the nettles to clean off dirt and insects, and then begin chopping them. You can use a kitchen knife or pruning shears to cut them up into smaller pieces. This helps release the nutrients for the fertilizer.
- Then, fill your bucket. The leaves should come up halfway and you can fill the rest of it with water, making sure the leaves are submerged.
- You should then leave it to steep for 2-3 weeks, stirring occasionally. It's best to put a breathable cover on the bucket to stop debris and insects getting in, and to contain the strong smell from fermentation. This mesh garden cover from Amazon works well.
- The tea is ready to use when it is dark and doesn't bubble after being stirred. You should dilute it one cup nettle tea to 10 parts water before applying to your tomato plants every couple of weeks until they flower. Any stronger or more frequent risks root burn from an overload of nutrients.
What to Shop
This granular feed provides tomato plants supply of nutrients over three months. It is suited to other vegetables, too.
This pack of 6 tomato cages provide a support for tomato vines so heavy fruit-laden stems don't snap.
These tomato clips are designed to gently attach vines to plant supports to keep them upright.
These Fiskars gardening snips are the right size to snip off tomato side shoots when tending to your tomato plants.
This Burpee hod is perfect for collecting homegrown crops in the garden. It has a mesh trug to rinse crops easily.
This liquid tomato feed promotes higher yields. It's high in potassium, ideal for supporting flowering and fruiting.
This is just one way to increase your tomato yields. You can also use tomato tapping to ensure every flower is pollinated and turns into fruit, and prune tomato plants to remove side shoots draining energy.
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