It’s tea time in the garden. But this tea is for your garden, not for you.

Let’s begin with a general tonic. Mmmm ... how about some manure tea? Compost tea might serve as well.

Make either one with a giant tea bag: a burlap sack filled with compost or manure. Tie the bag shut with string, then drop it into a bucket or barrel of water to steep for a day or two. By then the water should have darkened to ... what else but a tea-brown color? If the tea looks too strong – that is, too dark – just dilute it before use.

Just about any plant might like this brew periodically poured about its roots. For a quicker pick-me-up – just the thing for a plant that looks peaked – spray the tea right on the leaves.

What this tea offers plants is a whole range of nutrients, as well as some natural hormones and other growth factors.

An equally valuable tea, according to some gardeners, can be brewed from stinging nettles. Nettles generally grow wild in rich, sunny soils. Find a patch and, with gloved hands (or else you’ll get stung), cut a pile of stems and then cover them in a bucket with water. Let this mix sit for a few days. It is going to ferment, and begin to look and smell rank. No matter: This tea isn’t for you. Plants allegedly love it.

So much for general tonics. Other garden teas are brewed up for more specific effect.

Tea for plant diseases

Diseases threatening? Nothing like a spritz of horsetail tea to keep them at bay. You’ll often find horsetail growing along old railroad beds. Just boil an ounce and a half of this wild plant in a gallon of water, strain, cool and spray.

Or make a tea from chive leaves. Some say this tea is effective against all sorts of mildews because chives themselves are not prone to these diseases, although that reasoning seems shaky.

Horsetail is high is silica, which has been shown to protect plants against diseases, so there’s more reason to believe that that tea could actually do something for a plant.

Tea against insect pests

Insects threatening? Gardeners have come up with all sorts of brews to put on plant leaves to ward off winged and crawling attackers.

There’s a general brew decocted from garlic, hot pepper, mustard, mint and anything else you can think of that either smells or tastes very strong. Who knows? Maybe it works. Tomato leaf tea reputedly confuses aphids’ sense of taste, but I think a strong spray of plain water is an easier way to get rid of this pest.

One tea that definitely does work against insects, by killing them, is that made from tobacco. An older British gardening book suggests brewing your own from cigarette butts, but you could just buy the stuff, sold commercially as Black Leaf 40. Think twice before you start mixing up or spraying it, though, because it is very poisonous.

Be careful with plant teas

For that matter, most of the teas that you would give your plants are not ones you should be drinking. Most either taste bad or are toxic to people, so don’t leave unused portions lying around.

There is one tea you could enjoy with your plants, and that is chamomile tea. How soothing to sit in the garden and sip a cup of this golden brew. For the plants, chamomile tea might do more than just soothe. It reputedly thwarts diseases generally and, most specifically, damping off, a fungal disease that attacks potted seedlings at the soil line.