Banana peels: the best ally for your plants

Banana peels contain nutrients that are essential for the health of potted plants. For example, as they decompose, banana peels add potassium, as well as small amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus, and magnesium to the soil, similar to a slow-release fertilizer. This is how banana peels can be complete fertilizers for your plants.Thus, bananas, which are well known for their potassium content with many benefits for the human body, also contain it in their peels, which provide essential nutrients to plants as the peels begin to decompose. There are several ways to use banana peels for potted plants. The easiest way is to simply place the peels on the soil about 5 centimeters from the plant's stem. But you can also start fertilizing new plants by placing banana peels at the bottom of the pot as you add the plant to the pot.Additionally, cutting the peels into 1-inch pieces makes it easier to mix with the potting soil. If you're already composting, add banana peels to the mix to increase the potassium content. On the other hand, blending the peels with water creates an excellent liquid fertilizer to pour into the pots.Benefits of banana peels for plantsSince banana peels are rich in potassium, this mineral helps promote the overall vigor of the plant, develop resistance to pests and diseases, develop fruits, regulate around 50 enzymes in a plant, create turgidity, that is, the strength of the plant (or the uprightness of the stems and the thickness of the cell walls).All of this is extremely important for plants like staghorn or elk ferns, which literally hang from tree trunks in nature, and vertical vegetables like scallions, leeks, and fruit crops.For their part, they also provide phosphorus, which heavily influences fruiting and flowering, is essential for good root and shoot growth, helps with pollination, and is very important in seed germination and viability.Finally, banana peels also contain calcium, the most important soil mineral, which is the ingredient of cell walls that deals with root development and growing stem tips, as well as helping to open the soil to allow more oxygen.With such important roles to play, these macronutrients are vital for the health and well-being of plants. However, plants also need many other nutrients, which you can obtain from a balanced organic slow-release fertilizer with vital trace elements in the form of fine powder or granules that dissolve quickly and become available to the plants. This means they can be absorbed by microbes in the soil and fine root hairs of the plants.These organic fertilizers can be sprayed directly onto the soil, lightly dug in, or sprinkled in the foliage basin among plants like ferns.