Did you know that kitchen food waste can be turned into fertilizer for plants?
Yes, you heard that correct, you can compost vegetables, fruits, coffee grounds, and other waste.
It is an eco-friendly and effective way to get rid of food waste from the kitchen.
By using kitchen waste, you can turn the smelly garbage into an organic product rich in nutrients that your plants will love.
In this blog post, you will learn about a few tips to make fertilizer for plants from kitchen waste.
Composting Kitchen Waste
Drill some holes around a container and then fill it with a layer of soil. The holes will allow the exchange of air inside the container.
Next, you should collect organic and edible food waste such as fruit and vegetable peels, wasted cooked food, sawdust, and wood ash in a separate small container.
Add the kitchen waste from the small container to a big container with soil at the bottom.
Consider alternating dry waste such as sawdust and dried leaves with wet waste such as vegetable and fruit peels. Cover the container with a sheet of plastic or a plank of wood to retain heat and moisture.
Check the container after a few days. If the pile of compost is too dry, you should sprinkle some water to make it moist. You can also add grass clippings to make the fertilizer more nutrient-rich.
You need to add water to the compost bin regularly to keep it moist. But be careful not to soak the compost too much in the water.
You need to be patient since it takes about six months to turn the compost into fertilizer. Compost fertilizer will be dark with an earthy smell.
Adding compost to the garden will reduce pathogens from the soil that make the plants sick.
Crushed Kitchen Waste
Crushed kitchen food waste can also be used as a fertilizer. You can use a high-quality crushing machine to make fertilizer from the kitchen waste. The machine will crush kitchen waste into small particles.
You can use this method to crush vegetable and fruit peels. After crushing the kitchen waste you can use a granulator to mix the compost.
The granulator will make the small particles moist and hot. You need to use a fertilizer drier to dry the compost. Moreover, a good quality cooler will help reduce heat from the granules.
The drying and cooling process needs to be done right to ensure good quality fertilizer.
Once the drying and cooling process is complete, the next step is to screen the granules. This process involves filter out large granules from the fertilizer.
Types of Fertilizer You Can Prepare with Kitchen Waste
You can prepare different types of fertilizers with your kitchen waste.
Here are the common fertilizer types that can be prepared using kitchen waste.
Compost Juice Fertilizer
Compost juice fertilizer is great for improving the quality of the soil. You can also use this type of fertilizer for promoting growth for fruit plants. You will have to prepare compost to prepare this type of fertilizer.
The kitchen waste is collected and transferred in a container. The fertilizer can be feed directly at the base of your garden plants.
Compost Tea Fertilizer
Compost tea fertilizer is another common type that can be prepared from kitchen waste. You can prepare this type of fertilizer by steeping the compost for three more days.
The fertilizer is best for flowering and vegetable plants.
Epsom Salt Fertilizer
Epsom sale fertilizer can promote soil fertility and improve the water retention ability of the plant.
You can make your Epsom salt fertilizer using kitchen waste. Just add one tablespoon of Epson salt of magnesium sulfate to the compost liquid fertilizer.
Spray the fertilizer directly on the leaves of the plant. The fertilizer has a neutral pH value that is easy on the plants. It is best for promoting the growth of house plants that don’t tolerate fertilizers with high alkaline values.
Epsom salts consist of magnesium that promotes photosynthesis that is the process through which plants convert light into energy.
Using the homemade Epsom salt fertilizer will improve the green color of the plant. Your plant will look more bushy and lush when you use this type of fertilizer.
Now that you know the general method of turning kitchen food into fertilizer, let’s look at some specific kitchen waste that can be turned into fertilizer for the plants.
Eggshells Fertilizer
Eggshells are rich in nitrogen, which is critical for plant growth. You should soak eggshells in water and let them steep for up to four days. Feed the nutrient-rich water to your plants.
The solution is particularly effective against fruit plants that need nutrients just as our body needs proteins for healthy muscle growth.
Banana Peels Fertilizer
Banana peels can also be turned into fertilizer for the plant.
You can prepare a liquid fertilizer using banana peels. The peels contain a high amount of magnesium and potassium that are required by both flowers and fruits.
Required Items
- Bucket with lid
- Water
- Banana Peels
Fertilizer Preparation Method
Place banana peels in a bucket of water. Let the peels ferment in water for up to four days.
After four days, you should strain in a separate container. Fermenting the solution in this way will extract essential nutrients from the solution.
Add the banana peel fertilizer to the garden. Notice the effect of the fertilizer on some plants for a few weeks.
If the plants remain healthy, you should continue to use the fertilizer.
Note that leafy plants don’t grow well with too much potassium. So, you should avoid feeding banana liquid peel solution to the leafy plants.
Also, make sure that you dilute the liquid solution since the concentrated banana peel liquid solution can be harmful to the plants.
Coffee Grounds Fertilizer
You can use coffee ground or remains of coffee to make kitchen fertilizer.
The grounds have benefits for plant growth as they improve the fertility of the soil. Coffee is rich in nitrogen that is essential for the growth of fruit plants.
Required Items
- Coffee Grounds
- Water
- Container with lid
Fertilizer Preparation Method
Fill a bucket with a lid with coffee grounds. The container should be filled to half and covered with water.
Allow the grounds to remain in the water for up to three days. Next, you should strain coffee grounds in another cap and container.
The coffee ground fertilizer can be used to feed garden flowers and vegetables.
The solution can be used to correcting soil containing high PH levels. This will result in the healthy growth of the plants.
Vegetables Waste Fertilizer
Vegetable waste contains nutrients particularly nitrogen that is good for the growth of the plant.
Here is a method to convert vegetable kitchen waste into fertilizer for your plant.
Required Items
- Vegetable waste
- Boiling Pot
- Water
Fertilizer Preparation Method
Put vegetable waste from the kitchen into the pot. Now, add water and put it to boil for up to 15 minutes. You should remove the boiling pot and allow it to cool at room temperature.
Let the liquid fertilizer cool for about five hours before applying it to the fertilizer.
You can spray the fertilizer on the vegetable garden beds. Moreover, you can also apply the fertilizer around the base of the plant.
Wood Ash Fertilizer
If you use firewood to cook food, you can turn wood ash into fertilizer. The ash from the firewood can be turned into a fertilizer, which will ensure plant growth.
Wood ash consists of about 2 percent sodium, phosphorus, and magnesium and 4 percent potassium.
You should use wood ash as a fertilizer on alkaline soil with a pH value above 7.8.
Also, you should not use ash extracted from burning coal to cook food in the kitchen.
Things Required
- Container with lid
- Wood Ash
- Water
Fertilizer Preparation
Fill a container with a lid with water. Collect wood ash in a dustpan and place it in a container.
Cover the container and set aside the solution for about four days. Strain the solution using a strainer in a separate container.
You must apply the fertilizer at the base of your garden plants.
The fertilizer is recommended for correcting soil with low pH values. However, you should not use this fertilizer on leafy green vegetable plants.
Final Remarks about Kitchen Waste Fertilizer
Fertilizers prepared from kitchen waste are more organic. These fertilizers are best for the growth of plants. They contain nutrients that promote the growth of flowers, leaves, and fruits.
You can use your kitchen waste to create organic fertilizer waste for free. Using the methods mentioned above, you can save a lot of money on fertilizer while also doing good for the environment.
The process of converting kitchen waste into fertilizer is not that difficult. But you need to know what types of soils benefit – and what gets damaged – from the application of the organic fertilizer.
Some types of plants don’t survive natural organic fertilizer. You should always research before applying a particular fertilizer extracted from kitchen waste to your garden.
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