Banana water for plants, does it help as a fertilizer?

Banana water for plants is being recommended by many gardeners. Let’s see how you make it and how it performs. We test it on tomato and indoor plants.

Banana water for plants is not only a cheap fertilizer but makes for a way to recycle your waste. This argument has been presented by various gardeners. This month we check how much water does this argument hold. We test it on Tomato and indoor plants.

Bananas are very common, you eat them often and the peel goes to the bin. If they can be used to make some nice banana water for plants, it could benefit not just the plant but avoid buying expensive fertilizers. I usually use the NPK that I import from Germany and have found it works really well.

So this month, I will see if the K portion (potassium) which is a micronutrient, can be substituted from the banana water, for my garden plants. It goes without saying that the N (nitrogen) and P (phosphorus) will be missing and I will try to see later if onion peels can supply enough Phosphorus. Maybe We can then arrive at a good alternative to the regular fertilizer.

What is Banana peel water fertilizer?

Banana peel water fertilizer can be made by boiling banana peels. Although you could use other methods to make fertilizer with rich compost that can include other organic kitchen waste. Banana peel water is fast to make and provides (hopefully) a healthy dose of potassium to your plants. This micronutrient helps your plants in growth and maturity. This is because Potassium helps in developing immunity to pests and climatic factors.

What are the Benefits of Banana skin water?

If the banana skin water contains the minerals and micronutrients that people claim, here are the benefits they will have on your plants. We present total nutritional value (for human consumption) of a whole banan in a tabular format:

Nutritional information of 1 whole banana of 100gms (not banana peel water)

Mineral or Nutrient	Quantity mg/g*	Benefits
Sodium (Na)	24.3	Metabolic functions, chlorophyll production, better leaves, and flowers. Fruit growth.
Potassium (K)	78.1	Water absorption, movement of nutrients, and regulates photosynthesis.
Manganese (Mn)	76.2	Rooth growth and resistance to diseases
Iron (Fe)	0.6	Synthesis of green chlorophyll.
Calcium (Ca)	19.2	Cell multiplication and growth
Protein	1.3	none
Magnesium (Mg)	31.9	Better photosynthesis, greener leaves, brighter flowers.

The main role of potassium is to provide the ionic environment for metabolic processes in the cytosol, and as such functions as a regulator of various processes including growth regulation.Plants require potassium ions (K+) for protein synthesis and for the opening and closing of stomata, which is regulated by proton pumps to make surrounding guard cells either turgid or flaccid.

Wikipedia: Role of potassium.

How to make Banana peel water?

You can easily make banana skin water fertilizer. Just take some banana peels and boil them. You can also soak them for a day which will also drain the minerals into the water. It’s a good idea to either break the peels or blend them coarsely and then strain the water.

Here is the method to make banana skin water from boiling.

1. Break the peels down or coarse blend them
2. Put water in a pain, boil it.
3. Add the banana peels
4. Keep boiling for quarter of an hour.
5. Put off the stove and let it cool.
6. Strain the water into a container or garden can.
7. It’s ready to use, rememeber not to use it hot.

You can also soak the skins in water for a day or so (24-36 hours) and this will also get you the same benefits. You can also blend the banana peels and use those for soaking.

Here is the method to make banana skin water from blending or pulverizing.

1. Put some banana seeds in the blender
2. Blend them coarsely
3. Add them in water
4. Let it sit for a day
5. Strain the water
6. Use it for your plants

Testing our banana peel water against commercial fertilizer and regular soil mix we made here.

Let us test the banana skin water against plain soil and NPK fertilizers. For this purpose we have fertilized the following plants, we give observations in a month for how they fared. Till such time, this section will be kept empty

• Tomato plant in regular soil
• Tomato plant in banana water
• Tomato plant with NPK
• Flowering plant with Regular soil
• Flowering plant with banana water
• Flowering plant with NPK

We will show the results once this study is complete in 15 days, in the table below

Results:

Tomato plant in regular soil Length: 14CM Leaves and stem: Average
Tomato plant in banana water Length: 14.5CM Leaves and stem: Above Average
Tomato plant with NPK Length: 19CM Leaves and stem: Healthy and green (NPK used in moderation, checked to be below 7ph)
Flowering plant (glydula) with Regular soil Length: 22CM Flower: Below average in color and texture
Flowering plant with banana water Length: 23CM Flower: Average in color and texture
Flowering plant with NPK Length: 31CM Flower: Attractive colors and texture

So We will conclude, once we have the data. If watering your plants with this banana peel water is any good? yes, but not as impressive as people claim. as expected, NPK has performed the best as it has a good balance of all three (N, P, and K). This does not mean you go overboard with NPK, keep a close watch on PH levels and avoid excessive fertilization. You can also use vermi-compost and natural leaf fertilizer along with light use of NPK.

Till next time!