Homemade Fertilizer Made from… Banana Peels and Water!

If you’ve been gardening for any length of time, I’ll bet you’re already well acquainted with the importance of fertilizer. Plants are just like any other living thing in that they need food, specifically the right kinds of nutrients in the right ratios.

You can reach for over-the-counter fertilizer if you want to, but a better, cheaper, and easier bet for most hard-working homesteaders is to make your own using various organic materials. Like banana peels, for instance!

As simple as it sounds, you can use nothing but banana peels and water to make a highly nutritious and potassium-packed liquid fertilizer, commonly called tea, that will help your plants grow and produce like never before.

You can, of course, just ground them and skip the water, but that’s for another recipe…

Nevertheless, it requires very little actual effort. I’ll tell you everything you need to know below.

Are Banana Peels Really Good for Plants?

Yes, they really are! Banana peels, like all organic matter, will eventually break down and release their constituent elements and compounds into the soil, which can then serve to feed plants.

Luckily for us, banana peels are extremely rich in several essential nutrients that plants must have in order to grow and develop.

Namely, banana peels are extremely rich in potassium, which garden plants need to develop strong and broad root networks, cope with stress, and also produce beautiful blooms and large, nutritious, and tasty fruits and veggies…

Potassium is also critically important for helping plants manage their moisture levels.

Other than this, banana peels have varying amounts of phosphorus, calcium, and magnesium, along with other trace elements..

Because of this, you’d be wise to make use of all banana peels for fertilizer in your garden or for your container plants whenever you can!

Banana “Tea” Works Better Than Letting the Peels Decompose in the Ground

This might not be your first time hearing about banana peels and how good they are for your plants.

You might have seen or heard about people recommend that you just throw the banana peels out into the garden around your plants and let nature run its course, or maybe bury them just under the soil.

You can do that, but I think it’s a bad idea: for starters, the peels take a lot longer to decompose than you might think. This means they’re just sitting there, rotting, and not giving your plants the nutrients they need if they’re already struggling.

Furthermore, while fully decomposed biomatter is indeed great fertilizer, it is also terribly nasty while the process of decomposition is underway. Leaving banana peels lying around is going to attract lots of pests, and not ones that you want hanging around!

Although it might be attractive because this approach could save you even more time and effort, it really is false economy as far as your plants are concerned.

Besides, the method I’m about to teach you is so simple, so effortless, there’s no excuse for not using it instead!

What You’ll Need

You need very little in terms of materials and equipment to make use of this fertilizer recipe. Gather the following, and then we will get started.

Banana Peels: You’ll need banana peels if you want to make banana peel tea, obviously! And you don’t need very many; four or five peels are all it takes to make a batch of liquid fertilizer, anywhere from a half gallon to 2 gallons depending on how strong you want it.

Anytime you are eating bananas or cooking with them, save those peels, and you can get them steeping right away.

Water: Just water. Tap water works fine, although I know some folks swear by using distilled water or other highly pure stuff supposedly because the chemicals in our water supply are bad for our plants.

You can use whatever kind of water you want, but I would remind readers that if you water your garden with stuff out of the hose and your plants do okay, there’s no need to use anything else.

Mason Jar, Large: A large mason jar for holding the peels and the water while the tea is steeping is required. Bigger is better here so you can make more fertilizer in a single batch.

The smallest I recommend is a half gallon, or two-quart jar, but if you have or want to spring for a one-gallon jar, that will work wonderfully.

Cheesecloth: Any kind of cheesecloth you have will work as long as it easily lets air move through it. Lacking cheesecloth, use any other kind of coarse cloth that will promote airflow.

Old rags, thin swatches cut from a t-shirt, gauze, or anything else can do. What you don’t want to do is tightly close up the jar while you are making the fertilizer!

Rubber Band / Twine: Use either of these for securing the cloth around the mouth of the jar.

Strainer: A strainer will help you quickly and easily catch the solids once your banana peel tea is done steeping. Not strictly necessary, but it can help prevent a mess depending on what method you are using to apply it later.

Ziploc Freezer Bag, Large (optional): If you want to collect a big batch of banana peels prior to steeping, keep them from getting slimy and stinky by storing them in a Ziploc bag and popping them in the freezer.

Large Bucket, Sprayer, or Watering Can: You can apply this liquid fertilizer however you want using your favorite method. A bucket, spray bottle, garden sprayer, watering can, anything works fine.

I said you didn’t need very much! In the next section, I’ll be walking you through the process step by step, and believe me: it’s a cinch!

Making Your Banana Peel and Water Fertilizer, Step by Step

Step 1: Gather banana peels. When you’re ready to get started, grab your banana peels. Again, four or five will make a good batch. If you’ve been keeping them in the freezer while you collect them, pull them out and lay them on a cutting board to thaw for around 45 minutes.

Step 2: Place peels in mason jar, cover with water. Place the banana peels in the Mason jar before covering them with lukewarm water all the way up to the neck.

If the peels were frozen, make sure they’re fully thawed and pliable before you submerge them. Note that you don’t need to cut up the peels, but you can if it makes it easier for them to fit in the jar.

Step 3: Place cloth over neck of jar, secure with rubber band or twine. Take your cheesecloth, gauze, or anything else you are using for this recipe and place it over the neck of the jar, making sure to draw it taut so that it does not sag and get wet. Once that’s done, use your rubber band or twine to tie off the excess and keep it in place.

It’s critical that air be able to reach the solution inside the jar so that the nutrients will be properly leached out of the peels and into the water! Do not close the jar with a lid at this time!

Step 4: Wait. Set your jar aside in a place where it won’t freeze and give it at least 5 days, preferably for a week or a little longer. This ensures it will be good and nutritious for your plants.

A couple of days isn’t long enough, but on the other hand, it is possible to go too long; give it no more than 9 days prior to application.

Step 5: Strain jar contents. Grab your strainer and whatever other container is going to hold your finished fertilizer solution.

Pour the contents of the Mason jar through the strainer, which will catch the banana peels and the other solids floating around in there while allowing the liquid to pass through into the other container.

You can discard the peels or repurpose them at this point. See the following sections for more.

Step 6: Dilute if desired. If you have a lot of fertilizing to do or you just want a weaker solution, dilute the banana tea with plain water.

A good ratio is three or four parts of water to every one part of liquid fertilizer. If you started by making a half gallon of fertilizer and dilute it with four parts of water, you’ll have about two and a half gallons total to use.

Step 7: Ready to apply! Your tea fertilizer is finished and ready to use right away on your thirsty, hungry plants.

As I promised above, it really doesn’t get any easier than this as long as you have just a little bit of patience.

However, there is more you’ll want to know before you apply, especially if you are a beginner. Make sure you check out the following sections for tips, guidelines, and more.

Helpful Tips for Application

Pour Around the Roots, Not on the Foliage

Pour your fertilizer over the roots of the plant, not directly over it. It won’t do much good going directly on flowers, buds, leaves, and vines, but it could potentially cause harm. Get low and apply your fertilizer where it will do the most good.

If you are applying to bare soil prior to planting in an effort to raise soil potassium levels, water evenly then re-check your soil in a week, applying more if needed.

Think Twice Before Applying on Indoor Plants

If there’s one drawback to using this tea fertilizer, it‘s probably the fact that it is a magnet for flies, especially fruit flies and gnats.

Although it’s gentle enough to be a good choice for giving house plants a boost of nutrition, you probably don’t want annoying little buggers homing in on them and then hanging out in your home.

If you already have fly problems inside, keep this stuff for outdoor or garden use only.

Straight Banana Peel Tea Might Be Too Strong for Delicate Plants

One thing to keep in mind is that this liquid fertilizer, while natural and safe, is also fairly acidic when undiluted.

Lots of plants will tolerate it just fine, but some won’t, especially those that are sensitive by nature or that will quickly suffer if they get too much potassium.

Cucumbers can easily fall victim to excess potassium, and also prefer neutral soil as a rule. Spinach is another common veggie that can easily turn bitter and gross if it gets too much potassium because that will inhibit the uptake of magnesium, calcium, and other nutrients.

As a rule, it’s usually a good idea to dilute and then apply, adding more later if necessary.

Don’t Forget to Account for Nitrogen Needs

It’s all too easy to forget that potassium, despite its paramount importance, is just one of three primary nutrients that all plants need. One of the most important, if not the very most important, is nitrogen.

Our banana peel tea, as good as it is, has very little nitrogen, so you can’t depend on it to supply this essential stuff to your plants. Make sure you have plans for that and fertilize accordingly when needed.

What to Do With the “Used” Banana Peels

Wondering what you should do with the leftover banana peels after you prepared your batch of fertilizer?

Again, it might be tempting to throw them out into the garden or bury them to add even more fertilizer, but I would caution you against this.

A better bet, and what I do, is to take out the peels when the fertilizer is ready and put them directly into my compost bin. They will still supply some potassium and other nutrients to the finished mixture, and the soak in water will speed up decomposition once they are in there.

It’s a win-win, and the perfect way to maximize resources and minimize waste!