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Banana Peels For Plants? When it comes to gardening, people tend to use various things in a resourceful manner that many other people thought were impossible. Whether it be items used for planting seedlings, transporting to the garden, or other items they use to help with fertilizing their soil. It is amazing what tips and tricks you can learn!
Backyard gardening is an essential aspect of life that many people need to engage in as we realized in 2020 what food insecurity could really do to the average family. By having your own garden, you get to supply your own kitchen with fruits and vegetables you grow yourself instead of hoping that something would be in stock at the local market. Many of us picked up on skills of our grandparents to turn that seed investment into success! Sometimes it seemed that the goofiest tip would lead to incredible results, helping you on your path to a better harvest.
Take, for instance, when you take the skin off the banana, you tend to throw them in the garbage, right? Well, for those looking for a cost-effective and resourceful way to grow healthy plants, you might want to reconsider throwing those away.
How to Use Banana Peels in Your Garden
The banana peel can be converted in so many ways to help your garden, from making liquid fertilizers to making great compost. In general, bananas are healthy foods, thus adding rich vitamins and nutrients in growing your plants is essential to produce high-quality results.
What makes banana peels so desirable to plants?
Most people starting out gardening don't really have a lot of extra money to invest in expensive supplements and fertilizers. To get the best results from your plants, we know we must ensure they get proper care and nutrients. Knowing an effective, yet very budget-friendly way to help them is important!
But what are the elements that makeup a good fertilizer? Potassium is one, and what other plant has the highest level of organic potassium as a banana? Not so many! There is countless research conducted on bananas, and it turns out that they contain an average of 42 percent potassium.
Having this nutrient embedded in your garden will help your plants in the process of moving nutrients and water throughout the different cells in the plant. It is also effective in strengthening your plant stems and aids in the disease-fighting process.
Reports coming out of lots of home gardens detail how important it is to add banana peels for plants. Potassium also helps to retain water in the plants, making them susceptible to weathering drought conditions and increasing the overall protein content in your plants.
Are banana peels good for all plants?
Basically, banana peels are general organic fertilizer that you can add to your plants to give them the extra boost for additional nutrients. Nothing is wrong with that, however, it is said that too much of anything is not always prudent. Potassium, which is high in bananas, is great in helping plants grow, but it can starve the plants of other critical nutrients when it gets too much. If you have delicate plants, you may want to limit the amount you add to them, especially if you add garden fertilizers to the soil.
Another factor you may want to consider when it comes to using banana peels is that they contain nutrients other living creatures love. Aside from the many benefits of banana peels for plants, a major downside is that insects love bananas. When you add them to your garden, you are basically "opening the doors" for all these little critters to come in. In the process of feasting on the banana peel, they may resort to hurting your plants.
When bananas are decaying, they produce a defense hormone that is somewhat similar to that produced by dying bees. This may make your local flying friends aggressive and try to take over your garden if they feel you are trying to invade what they feel is their space - that's not good news! No one likes to be stung!
Some garden plants normally sap elements from the soil in an aggressive way, so you may also want to beware of mixing banana peels with compost you use for your garden. Some companies spray their bananas with certain pesticides that could be containing carcinogens. It could be those chemicals that your plants sap up through their roots, which would suck if you planned to actually eat them.
Which plants like banana peels?
Many plants could do well with some organic nutrients like those found in banana peels! Banana peels are also an advantage for many plants because of what they do NOT have in them: they contain no nitrogen.
Nitrogen is essential for helping plants grow lots of green leaves like lettuce, kale, or cabbage. However, creating all these leaves may reduce the chances of the plant bearing fruit such as peppers, tomatoes, and berry plants. We actually WANT that growth to occur so we have that yumminess to eat.
Banana peels also contain calcium, which effectively helps tomatoes reduce the results of blossom end rot. Searching for an organic way to grow your tomatoes, peppers, and flowers could mean using banana peels as the sodium it contains also helps the flow of water through the plant's cells. Just keep an eye out for any freeloading little critters like we already talked about.
How do you prepare banana peels for fertilizer?
Making banana peel fertilizer is really a lot easier to make than you might think. Interestingly, there are many different ways you can add the peel to your garden, whether the whole peel, crushed and used as mulch, or the peel-infused water to soak the roots. To prepare the peels, you can choose one of the following options:
Making a Puree
Soaking the banana peel in water for up to a week while allowing the nutrients and "good bacteria" to get stronger. If you notice the water has a "cloudy look," that's OK and is a result of the process going smoothly. Ensure you rest something heavy on the peels, so they remain at the bottom of the water.
Once done, remove the peel and blend them, making it into a puree, which you would add to the plant's base. You can use the same water to blend or save that water for other plants and use fresh water to blend.
Making a Peel-infused Tea
This is the process of soaking the banana peels in water for anywhere between 48 hours and up to a week. This will allow nutrients from the peel to infiltrate the water, making it easier for the plants to absorb when you use it. However, when using this option, ensure the water is used to soak the plant's root areas instead of the entire plant as you don't want insects to nibble on those leaves.
To speed the process time, you can boil the peels, let the water cool, and then water your plants.
Making a Mixture
This process is quite similar to the peel-infused tea but you are adding eggshells and Epsom salt to the mixture. The eggshells contribute lots of calcium, which we already mentioned that the plants love, while the Epsom salt adds sodium, which we shared helps transfer water through the plant cells.
Your gardening doesn't have to take a lot of money or resources to get the best results for a decent harvest. Something as simple as using the leftovers from your kitchen to give your plants a boost can work.
With home gardening is on the rise, and people searching for healthy organic options, what better products to use than those you consider safe for yourself.