How to improve your soil with 5 common kitchen ingredients.

KI have written a post about how to make compost here

Not everyone has room in their garden for a compost bin so here are 5 common kitchen waste products that you can use to improve your soil and enjoy healthy plants.

Add Eggshells to your soil.

1. Egg shells

• • Dry the eggshells in a bowl on a sunny window sill. Once they are dry they crush really easily.
  • Crushed eggshells add extra drainage and calcium to your soil. I find they also prevent rot in tomato plants.
  • Work the crushed shell into the soil or add crushed shell to the base of plants to help deter snails and slugs. They don’t like the feel of the crushed shell so should avoid your young seedlings or plants. See my post about deterring these pests organically

here

Add banana skins to your garden for improved drainage.

2. Banana skins

• Adding cut up banana skins to your soil will help improve drainage as they encourage worms. They rot down quickly leaving lovely crumbly soil.
• Banana skins add calcium, magnesium, sulphur, phosphorus, potassium and sodium to your soil which are needed for healthy plant growth.

3. Epsom Salts

• Magnesium is incredibly low in many people’s diets and has been declining in our vegetables since the 1950’s. Magnesium is needed for enzyme reactions and is a basic requirement in maintaining healthy body functions. Adding Epsom salts to our soil where we grow vegetables will help this.
• Add Epsom salts to the base of your vegetables; especially cabbages, broccoli, lettuce and peppers.
• Add to your tomatoes for healthy fruits.
• If your plant leaves are curly, it may be due to a magnesium deficiency so give Epsom salts a try.  Epsom salts can be added to the watering can too but make sure to water the base of your plants not their leaves.

Coffee Grounds are great for Acid loving plants.

3. Coffee Grounds

• I empty my coffee pods of their coffee grounds and add this to my compost bin. You can also add coffee grounds straight to the soil as a general fertiliser adding Nitrogen.
• Coffee grounds are particularly good for acid loving plants such as Rhododendrons, Azaleas,  heathers and blueberries.
• Coffee Grounds work very well as a mulch around plants. Earthworms love them but slugs don’t tend to.

5. Tea Bags

• Snip open dried tea bags and use their contents in your garden.
• Use them in the same way as coffee grounds to improve soil.
• Pop them into your watering can and water the plants with your tea water.

There we have it! I hope you have found these tips useful.

https://www.adelightsomelife.com/2017/08/home-garden-thursday-87.html