Container plants will thrive if you use two common weeds as feed, says Alan Titchmarsh

Gardeners spend almost as much time trying to discourage certain plants from growing as they do cultivating the flowers and vegetables they really want in their plots. Legendary former Gardeners' World presenter Alan Titchmarsh says one or two weeds can be used as a plant feed for your precious blooms

Alan points out that you need to be especially careful about making sure that plants in containers are well-nourished.

On his new YouTube channel, , he explains that while scientifically-formulated plant foods can be found in any garden centre there are "all sorts of much and magic recipes" that you can concoct at home.

"One of them," Alan says, "is nettle tea." It's very effective, he says, but warns that the smell can be "quite pungent."

Comfrey can be a serious nuisance to gardeners, Alan says: "You get this in your garden, you'll have a devil of a job getting rid of it. It's a rampant spreader."

Combined with that other fast-growing garden menace, the stinging nettle, comfrey can be turned into a useful - and very cheap - plant feed.

Alan explains: "The way to do it, chop them all up, get yourself a bucket of water, and then the nettles go into the bucket.

"The more you chop them up, the more of the sap you're releasing. Push them down under the water and really make a good, dense, thick mix of nettles. The more you bash them up, the more sap you will release and the more power you'll give to the nettle tea."

Once your nettle tea is well mashed-down, weigh the pulp down with a brick and keep it aside for three or four weeks before decanting it into bottles. Alan warns that the finished nettle tea doesn't smell too good, saying "as with medicine, the worse it tastes, the more good it's doing you."

He adds that you should dilute the pulpy nettle tea with water to a ratio of about 10 to one. And, he advises, apply it to your plants late in the day to avoid the smell upsetting your neighbours.

Alan adds that, when he worked as an apprentice gardener for Ilkley Council right at the very beginning of his career, he would make up another home-brewed fertiliser that he called "blackjack."

He explains: "We lived just below the moors and we used to gather sheep droppings, put a piece of old hessian sack, drop them into a vat of water and you'd leave that there and dilute that and feed your plants.

"It didn't half pong, though!"

Alan stresses that you should always make sure that the soil in your containers or beds is nice and moist before applying any feed, whether it's home made or shop-bought.