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Banana tea. 🍌 ☕ Any other uses for kitchen scraps in a small garden?

JacksGardenJacksGarden Posts: 36
in Tools and techniques
Having only a driveway pot garden I can't compost. But I like to use all waste that I can. 

I crush egg shells in my blender and scatter around my plants. 

I also make banana tea. I cut up old banana skins and soak them for upto a week in a kilner jar. Then I dilute with five parts water. I feed the mix to my courgettes. 🥒

The theory is the potassium helps the fruit grow and set. 

Who knows if it makes a difference really? But it can't be doing any harm. 



♻️🍌☕♻️

Does anyone else do this?

What other ways are there of using kitchen scraps, that don't involve composting? I simply don't have the space! 
Gardener of a driveway pot garden - flowers one side, veg the other and a car in the middle. I am so looking forward to the day we can move into a house with a bigger garden.

Posts

  • LynLyn Posts: 23,190
    Have you thought about a wormer?  There are a few YouTube tutorials for a DIY version. 
    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

  • AthelasAthelas Posts: 946
    edited August 2022
    I empty the contents of used tea bags around my roses — supposed to deter aphids (by making rose sap bitter? heard about it on the roses thread). I don’t see a lot of aphids on my roses now but it could equally be due to ladybirds and other predators…
    Cambridgeshire, UK
  • NollieNollie Posts: 7,529
    I read that the banana peel tea thing was an internet myth and very little to no potassium is released in any form suitable for plant uptake. Composting in a bokashi bin or similar with other uncooked kitchen waste would probably serve you better..
    Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    It is very easy to run a dustbin as a highly efficient composter, if you have room for that.
    On hard surfaces is fine.



  • BenCottoBenCotto Posts: 4,718
    Social media is awash with concoctions involving banana skins, coffee grounds, tea leaves, egg shells etc. You know at once they’re untested fads with very limited scientific underpinning because they’re presented as hacks, not tips. I doubt they do any harm. Equally I doubt they do much good. 

    Try to separate out the gushing repetition of these ideas from posts which examine the scientific bases behind them. And do some experimentation yourself, treating one plant but not the same plant nearby. A wormery, in my view, is a good idea.
    Rutland, England
  • LynLyn Posts: 23,190
    Lyn said:
    Have you thought about a wormer?  There are a few YouTube tutorials for a DIY version. 
    Oops!  Predictive spellings,  should be wormery.
    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

  • JacksGardenJacksGarden Posts: 36
    I don't really have space for a bin for wormery. But I am interested, for when we move. What are the advantages of this?
    Gardener of a driveway pot garden - flowers one side, veg the other and a car in the middle. I am so looking forward to the day we can move into a house with a bigger garden.
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