N-P-K Values Of common UK Garden Weeds for home made liquid fertilizer

adamdyjak8754Tdg2NxM · April 2023

What Are The Different N-P-K Values Of Many Different common UK Garden Weeds

I think Stinging nettles NPK are 5.6-0.7-3.7 and Comfrey NPK = 1.8-0.5-5.3 This is for making my own Liquid feed. Can people list as many different UK weeds as possible please.

Fairygirl · April 2023

Can't give you the NPK proportions of any other weeds, but nettles are more useful for foliage as opposed to fruit or flower, because they tend to have more nitrogen, whereas comfrey is pretty good for both - many people use it for tomatoes, for example, as the potassium level is decent.
You need higher levels of potassium [K] for flowering and fruiting plants. I think most weeds tend to be nitrogen based though.

Jenny_Aster · April 2023

Banana skins are pretty good for potassium... just throwing it in there

I never waste banana skins, sometime I just bury them under the surface by a plant.

BenCotto · April 2023

The NPK of banana skins is 0.1. 0.1. 2.3.

All those gushing posts on social media about grandad putting banana skins in the planting hole for roses are somewhat fanciful.

I believe a beetroot mulch has more potassium.

punkdoc · April 2023

But surely a straight banana would be better than one of those bent EU things.

Jenny_Aster · April 2023

BenCotto said:

The NPK of banana skins is 0.1. 0.1. 2.3.

All those gushing posts on social media about grandad putting banana skins in the planting hole for roses are somewhat fanciful.

I believe a beetroot mulch has more potassium.

Going on personal experience, it was a cardiologist who asked my OH to stop eating his one banana a day because of the high potassium content while the strength of OH's heart medication was determined. Strangely enough he wasn't asked to stop eating beetroot or any other food. Now my brain is led to wonder how many runners in today's marathon will be grabbing a beetroot during, or at the end of their race?

Looking through the lenses of the Google oracle, it does appear that for every 'dissenter' there're dozens more who appear to swear that banana skins are a tonic for their plants. So if it's not the potassium, then what is it then? Could it be the manganese or the copper in bananas?

My little red wrigglers appear to love the skins, I usually place the skins in a corner of their wormery, there's always a seemingly higher population of worms in the banana quarter. So could it be that the presence of a banana skin at the base of say a rose or a tomato plant draws in worm activity which benefits the plant?

As far as I can glean at a quick glance, there has been no scientific study conducted on the benefits bananas gift to plant life, only witnesses who testify such things that placing a banana at the bottom of a plant pot containing a tomato plant appears to stop bottom end rot.

For me this is part of the fun of gardening, it's perhaps something from nothing, the magic ingredient that just might work, nothing heavy or 'scientific', it's an innocent and innocuous deed. It's an idea that cost nothing and that might just benefit our plants.

Jenny_Aster · April 2023

punkdoc said:

But surely a straight banana would be better than one of those bent EU things.

Couldn't tell you @punkdoc, I understand my bananas come from either Costa Rica, Ecuador or Colombia.

N-P-K Values Of common UK Garden Weeds for home made liquid fertilizer

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