Banana peels are a high source of Calcium and Potassium. If you love bananas for a midmorning snack, and may have no idea that your perfectly honest banana peels also go in the garbage. But if you use banana peels, you can bring your garden back from the dead. Plants get that nutrient bump they need to grow well from banana peels. Organic banana peel fertilizer is also great for promoting healthy soil growth.
What Is Banana Peel Fertilizer?
Banana peel is the Banana outer covering or skin. Banana peels have the highest content of Potassium found naturally. They are ideally suited for use in your garden or indoor plants. But high Potassium content also helps to promote growth, and is a good start if you want to go green or stop using chemical fertilizer.
Here, we take a look at how banana peels can be used as fertilizer. Although, you should also know that plants cannot take in whole banana peels. First they have to be worn out into basic minerals which the plants later can absorb. Natural decomposition takes a long time, but there are other ways to speed up the process and help your plants get the boost they may need really bad.
There are only a few steps to do in order to speed up the decomposition process without taking a lot of your time. It’s also a good idea for gardening. First, with a rough idea of what the hyped up banana peel fertilizer really is, we proceed to learn more in the rest of this article.
How To Use Banana As A Plant Supplement
Knowing that bananas are high in Potassium raises a couple of questions; how to tell if your plant is deficient in Potassium and how to address it. These are general symptoms, although different plants have different symptoms. . Typical Potassium deficiency looks like this:
- Necrosis on the leaf edges
- Dark brown spots on the leaves
- Poor quality fruit
- Tough-textured leaves
- Woody stems in vegetables
- Yellow base leaves
- Dead or underdeveloped roots
- Low yield
Not to be confused with lack of Potassium, some of these symptoms are also usual in plants that have been scorched by the heat of the sun.
Using banana peels in your garden can be done in the following ways:
1) Banana Peel Tea
The fastest way to get nutrients into your plant is to make banana peel tea, a homemade liquid fertilizer. Nevertheless, every now and then plants require a bit of help. Sources of Potassium should be 2-3 tablespoons every other month to encourage stronger root development, healthy fruits and yield, and thicker stems.
To do this banana fertilizer, stick half a pitcher of water in the fridge for at least a week! Next time you eat a banana, add banana peels into a jar of water. This is the easiest banana peel fertilizer. So all you do is wait a week, take the peels off, strain the water, and you have banana peel fertilizer.
You may be tempted to put the fertilizer on right away, but this would be a waste. Banana tea can be concentrated and ultimately, you have to dilute it with water. It should be in a 1:1 part banana tea : 5 parts water, aka 5 ratio proportion. Each plant should get one tablespoon per month around the base. All of this becomes a banana peel fertilizer that potassium loving plants like rosés or tubers will appreciate.
2) Compost Pile
Firstly, a compost pile is the organic matter added into the soil in order to release nutrients inside the soil for the good of the soil. Organic kitchen waste, which is what compost is made up of, is the perfect ingredients for compost. It will contain every nutrient plants need when it’s made properly. Banana peels can be added to the mixture, for instance – banana peels are an excellent source of Potassium.
You want to make sure your compost pit is well balanced. Equal amounts of browns and greens for the right balance is also included. Eggshells and banana peels make for good compost. After turning over the compost every five weeks they will break it down, using natural fungus and bacteria, and provide you with a nutrient rich fertilizer recipe banana peels.
You can scoop some compost out, add water to it, filter it and spray it to the soil after decomposition. The compost can also applied directly to your soil before planting. Compost fertilizer is good for most plants or garden variety plants. Of all of the nutrients that your compost needs, most of them are found in the banana peels.
3) Ground Banana Peel Fertilizer
First you have to dry the banana peels, then you can grind them. That doesn’t mean you have to do it the traditional way, under the sun. But while doing so they decompose too. You don't want that. The quickest and likely best option is to dry them out in the oven with a high temperature. That’s right, we’re talking about baking the banana peels to dry and make black.
This is your indication that they are ready. Then you can grind them anyhow you want. In a mortar with a pestle, a coffee grinder, or on your kitchen counter with something heavy. As long as it does the job. Once you’ve got your banana peel crushed, you can sprinkle it all over plants.
But you must always be careful. Don’t put banana peel fertilizer or any fertilizer next to your plant roots. The application should be as close to the plant as possible, side dressing, but not on the plant. Legions of U.S. agriculture professionals told her that applying highly potent fertilizer directly to plants can kill over nourished plants.
4) Chopped Banana
It is like throwing your banana peels in the garden casually. If you don’t want to go through the motions of preparing banana peel fertilizer for your garden over and over again, you can feed your plants a little boost with chopped banana peels. Before making banana peels powder available to your garden there are however few things you need to know.
Banana peels take a long time to decompose, first off. It takes so long that it’s possible that you will not see results in your plants for several months. Secondly; Bananas are loaded with Potassium as mentioned earlier. But banana peels must have Nitrogen in order to entirely decompose and put out Potassium. Plants such as legumes do better with the help of nitrogen.
If you are sure, then it would work for you, though. Potatoes etc need to have high potassium content. Potassium assists in the production of a healthy crop. Either way, make sure your plant has banana peels in the soil around it. You can also plant it at least four inches into the soil but far enough away from your plants to help distribute its nutrients into the garden.
5) Banana Peel Fertilizer Spray
Using banana peels as fertilizer can greatly benefit your garden. Banana peel spray is made the same way as banana peel tea. But, just a slight modification improves it. The eggshells and Epsom salts are infused in it. It gives your plants Nitrogen, phosphorus, and calcium nutrients. You don’t need many banana peels for the spray.
This banana peel spray is great for improved developed plants. Once you dry the banana peels in the oven, the peels can then be crushed along with Epsom salts and eggshells. Once you have a powder, add it to water in a spray bottle. After that you can spray on your plants. This is a great way to blanket many plants with one application.
It is a good all purpose fertilizer that your plants will also eat, and will open up the soil for more aeration and more oxygen. Unlike most other fertilizers, banana peel fertilizer will not dry out soil or your plants.
Why Should I Use A Banana Peel Fertilizer?
Banana peel fertilizer is useful for gardens not because of what it contains but what it doesn't. Banana peels have no Nitrogen. Nitrogen occurs naturally in the soil and is useful to plants. But excess nitrogen is not helpful in plants and causes growth of lots of leaves but not of fruits. Potassium, phosphorus and Nitrogen go together.
A plant without Potassium doesn’t do well. It helps plants flower or fruiting, and for example, tomatoes and roses transport nutrients and water between the cells. Plenty of nitrogen pairing up with banana peel with which you plant near your plants. Decomposing matter needs Nitrogen, and so this happened.
On a lighter note, Potassium acts as a shield against diseases in plants. Plants with adequate Potassium are better off fighting against root rots and fungi issues than plants with no Potassium. Potassium bearing plants also bounce back from a drought, where as non Potassium bearing plants do not.
Finally, did you know a single banana peel is revolting to pests? Yes, it is. As an example, aphids are a pest of tomato leaves that hate the smell and taste of banana. At all costs, they avoid bananas. That’s a natural deterrent. You will soon find yourself turning to a few spritzes of banana peel tea in order to control your pests. Bananas also smell heavenly and your garden will too after a few treatments.
Advantages Of Using Banana Peel Fertilizer
Using banana fertilizer is also vital but it’s equally important to treat your crop while still using banana fertilizer. This is all down to preference. Before using banana fertilizer in your garden, it’s good to know what you’re getting into. And, of course, you shouldn’t expect magic, because it’s a pretty lengthy process for a long time.
There are a few reasons why using banana peel as a fertilizer for your crops of garden variety plants are good for your garden. They include:
A) Increased Shelf-Life
When done correctly, banana peel tea should be good for six months. Second, this is longer than most chemical and organic fertilizers. Plus it’s 100% safe for your plants. Then it is the trial and failure period until you get the proportions right, and when you do, you don't have to worry.
B) Doesn’t Attract Insects
As we have mentioned before, a banana is a great bug stopper. Bugs don’t like the smell of bananas, the smell we all know and love. Spritz a mixture of banana fertilizer on the leaves and all over the garden and bugs will leave your garden alone. Besides, your plants will not draw any fungus and will be healthy.
C) Easy To Use And Store
Because you are making this whole fertilizer entirely from the internet, so it’s pretty easy to put together. Simple and works great in your back yard! You also don't need much to make it work: water and banana peels that you were probably about to toss. Just keep it refrigerated and stored in a closed (air tight) jar, and you'll use it some time.
D) Light And Aerating
Banana plant food is a great mix with the soil. This is because the combination of it's light weight and ability to blend seamlessly with the soil raises Potassium uptake in your plants. And also increase water retention in the soil. Potassium acts also as an agent of water retention in the soil, as it does participate in the process of water uptake. The soil oxygen is also circulated freely.
E) Fast Preparation
The good news is that banana plant food, especially in liquid form, is easy to make, taking a week. You can have the perfect nutrient rich fertilizer within a week. Besides, preparing isn't complicated and instructions given in an article like this aren't hard to understand and follow. Besides banana peels, you can add some other organic stuff you may have.
Bottom Line
If you choose to go the banana food way, you already have a pesticide and chemical fertilizer free garden. There are so many methods on how you can break down banana peels for use in your home garden so you should get the one that will work for your garden and save you time and money. The best time to apply banana food to your plants is early morning when there is maximum absorption of food.