Banana peels are environmentally friendly, biodegradable natural fertilizers that can be used in the garden to make your plants healthy.
Take a look at these 12 tips for using them!
Why Use Banana Peels In The Garden?
Banana peels and skin are a beneficial resource for your yard. They provide potassium, phosphorus, calcium, and magnesium in addition to other nutrients that will help grow healthy plants!
1. Brew Some Banana Peel Tea
You can create a natural liquid organic fertilizer full of potassium, phosphorus and nitrogen using just banana peels. This combination will feed your plants AND help them resist diseases by making them stronger!
Brew Nourishing Banana Peel Fertilizer Tea
Simply fill a large jar (2 quarts) about three quarters of the way with water. Set it in your fridge, and whenever you eat a delicious banana, cut the peel into small pieces to put into this solution!
Keep your jar of banana water in the refrigerator for a week, then use it to water plants. This “compost tea” will give them healthy doses of minerals and help their growth!
2. Don’t Throw Away The Soaked Peels!
You can use soaked banana peels as a fertilizer. First, make a slurry of the bananas with water in your blender and then surround plants or put them directly into soil to give it an extra boost!
3. Pest Control
Banana peels are a great way to get rid of pests and add nutrients at the same time. You can mix your banana peel tea in with soil or spray it on plants for an even more intense scent that will keep away aphids!
4. Add To Compost
Banana peels are an excellent addition to your compost pile. If you want them broken down quicker, grind up the peel or chop it into small pieces before adding; if not there is no need for that and they can simply sit on top as-is!
5. Amend Your Soil
When preparing your flower and vegetable beds for winter, use banana peels as an amendment to help keep them healthy. Chop up the skins so they are small enough and bury them deep in the soil.
Banana peels are a great way to get in on the action and improve your garden’s health. The skins contain beneficial microbes, which will work hard through winter with you!
6. Plant A Banana Peel
A banana peel can be used to give seeds an extra boost of energy. Just make sure you bury the strip in order for it all come together and not fall apart before any roots develop!
Cover with light, rich soil and water. As they germinate you’ll care for your seeds as usual to make sure they are healthy! When roots have formed carefully move them into an area where the decomposing bananas peel will provide nutrients that can greatly assist in their growth process.
7. Make A Calcium Rich Fertilizer Spray
To create an excellent, spray-on liquid fertilizer combine the following in your blender or food processor: three crushed dried ground up egg shells, four bananas peels, one tablespoon of Epsom salt.
Then add one quart water for a full strength concoction! Blend it on high, and use sprayer to apply as a fertilizer. This will do wonders on any garden beds that need some extra love this season.
8. Trap Insects
Banana peels are the perfect place to catch pesky flies. Just slice up an unripe banana, cover with vinegar and seal tight – voila!
Flies will flock in droves thanks their curious appetites for fruit that has been preserved this way. Once they enter this liquid they will drown in it.
9. Ferment Your Banana Peels
To create a fermented banana peel slurry, place the skins into water and add weights to keep them submerged. Cover tightly using cloth or rubber banding to keep it in place.
Place the jar in a room with soft lighting and leave it there for about one week. At that point, you will need to drain all of the remaining pulp from inside but save the water to use it as fertilizer instead!
10. Feed Your Blueberries Banana Vinegar!
Acid loving plants will enjoy a treat of banana vinegar, made from the fermented bananas peels. To make this nourishing amendment, start by fermenting the banana peels as described above.
Leave the banana water in jars for four to six weeks and mix it with vinegar, then use as liquid fertilizer.
11. Feed Your “Air Plants” Like Staghorns
With their epiphytic roots, ferns don’t need soil to grow. They get all the nutrients they need from breathing in air around them! So, when you fertilize using a foliar spray-on fertilizer it’s easy for your plant to soak up what is needed without any trouble at all!
12. Set Your Air Plant On A Banana Peel
Set a whole banana peel as the plant’s base. Cover it with moss and set your Fern over it so that when nutrients are released from beneath, they will be absorbed by this natural way to add organic material!