Are Tea Leaves an Organic Fertilizer?
Tips, Tricks
Using Coffee Grounds in Organic Gardening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifEAqN1bMNU Is Epsom Salt Beneficial in Organic Gardening? https://youtu.be/DaCVoCnzav8 How to Calculate NPK: https://youtu.be/gdcD-G-wBjY Aarons Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Allottedaaron Over the course of the testing garden assumptions series we have taken a look at a number for free and local resources. We have been able to establish that Autumn Leaves help add a wide variety of essential and beneficial elements and comfrey and used coffee grounds add some with a decent NPK. They all have an immediate effect but over time continue to release more providing a steady stream of nutrients to the soil and plants. Today I thought we would test another common waste material may people generate every morning. All over the planet many people start their day with a hot drink to give them a stimulating kick start. Where coffee is popular in North America Tea worldwide is said to rival if not exceed consumptions levels. Tea is essentially steeping a plant to extract flavour into hot water. As a by-product of this process you are often left with used tea leaves.[1] I thought today we would test the claim that used tea leaves can be used as to fertilize your plants. We have completed the sister episode in this series where I took a look at spent coffee grounds and found that their use in the garden is supported. I will put a link at the end of this video. In order to test this assumption we submitted a number of samples to Maxxam analytics for analysis. When the suggestion came through to evaluate tea I was not sure which variety to use. I grow mint to make tea but don’t have much experience past that. So I asked a few friends and Aaron from the UK offered to help. Aaron is an organic gardener whom has recently moved to a new allotment. He was kind enough to provide me with two samples of tea. P&G and Tetlies are the most popular brands of tea in the UK and likely represent commercially available tea the best. In order to investigate I sent in three samples to test the hypothesis that tea leaves provide a source of essential and beneficial nutrients to plants. Sample 1 was of unused tea leaves while the Sample 2 was of used tea leaves. I followed the instructions given to me by a friend of mine from England on steeping time and water temperature to produce the used leaves. Thumbnail credit: http://wiseshopsupplies.com/blog/tag/green-tea-with-lemon/
Comments
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Do you have data to compare regular tea, herbal tea, decaf coffee to regular coffee? It would be interesting to see the results.
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I've been peeing into my compost bin 🚮 the results are awesome! Not joking mind.. I only do it once a fortnight!
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interesting video, thanks for the information!
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Tea works in the same way molasses works on soil...it feeds microbes
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OMG I love you. Thank you for sharing. I've just into gardening in the last 1.5. I made my outdoor Year round Green house.
I also have been growing indoors. I have large bay windows and I turned my China Cabinet into my little Kitchen Greenhouse complete with fluorescent light & a small fan over a glass of Rain water to keep moisture in the air.
Can I use lemon peel or orange peel or juices for my plants that need acidic soil? example: Blue berries? -
Hi. I'm a new subscriber and I love your show! I have kind of a weird question - I see where used coffee grounds and tea leaves can be used for compost and I'm wondering....my husband chews tobacco; can the used chewing tobacco be composted or is the nicotine harmful? I know nicotine in commercial sprays harms bees, but is there enough left in the used product to have a negative impact on the soil or would it be one of those things that neutralizes with decomposition? Or is used chewing tobacco just like any other decaying plant matter? If it's safe or even beneficial, we may as well use it since we have plenty! Thanks for any information you can provide.
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can i also make fig leaves tea for my plants?
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Very interesting. Thank you. It will cotinue to go on my compost pile. I don't remove teh bags though, not sure why you do this as it wil all break down.
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Interesting Stephen. Thanks for taking the time to look into it.
Cheers. -
sooo...is it ok to give my rose plant a cup of tea?
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Did you drink all that tea Stephen? I have travelled a great deal in the USA and Canada, but the lack of English tea and the lovely warm colonial weather put me off living there. Drinking tea, warm beer and complaining about the horrible British weather is in our DNA. :) Have you done a video about spent hops? Mulching and composting this free resource?
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Great information Stephen!
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Great video Stephen very interesting! +Aaron's allotment is a great channel!
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would you mind testing the human urine as par of this series?
I see a lot of people trying this and claiming that it is a good fertilizer. Some people even go further and say that fresh urine is a fast acting fertilizer, that is, it is readily available for the plants!!!!
how true are these claims? -
Guess I'll keep on adding the used leaves to my compost. No harm there!
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Good stuff as usual, Stephen. Thanks for sharing.
One of my latest concerns was finding out that the tea bags now contain plastic. What is your opinion of composting or feeding the bags to worms? I've stopped both. -
Hi there I have a question for you. Is it true that if you spray your tomatoes plants with an aspirin mixture it will trick them into producing a hormone to make the plant healthier and stronger? Thanks.
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Thanks for sharing.
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That was an interesting analysis of English tea.Thanks for sharing the information
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Great and informative video, thank you!
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