8 Uses of tea in your Garden
Given that this site is about gardening and tea, it was only a matter of time before I provided you my list of 8 uses of tea in your garden. Tea is good for drinking yes, but there are many uses of tea in your garden. Tea leaves contain nitrogen and other nutrients that can help fortify your soil. For plants that appreciate slightly acidic soil, tea can slightly lower the pH of the soil as well.
The most obvious use of tea is for plant food. Sprinkle the spent leaves around the plants. The leaves will then provide nutrients to your plants with every watering. As I mentioned before, this can help improve the quality of the soil, in addition to improving the structure of the soil. In a study, plants that were misted with white teas showed significant growth versus other substances used.
Another simple idea for using tea in your garden is composting. Since the spent leaves add nutrients to the soil and can break down, they are an ideal add to your compost. Be sure to compost only the leaves themselves and not the bags or any plastic. Additionally, you can brew a strong tea and pour it over your compost heap once the tea cools off. The nitrogen in the tea can help speed up the composting process and make the compost slightly acidic.
Brewing a weak tea, and using it to water your potted plants once cool is one way to use tea as a fertilizer. Many ferns and other house plants will love the slightly acidic tea, and you are helping to provide some nutrients to your plants as well.
Using weak tea to water your plants also can have another benefit of repelling pests. This can help to deter pests and fungal ailments in addition to providing nutrients. One tea you can use to repel insects is lavender teas. Also black teas are known to produce a strong scent as well that may repel pests.
As mentioned before, tea contains weak acids and is overall slightly acidic. Hydrangeas, certain ferns, and a whole lot of other plants thrive in acidic soil. By dumping spent tea grounds around the base of these plants, you can help ensure the soil stays slightly acidic. Incidentally, by making the soil acidic, you can change the color of Hydrangeas as well. Making turning the soil slightly acidic, hydrangeas will turn from reddish in color to purple or blue.
Soaking your plant seeds in a cool tea before planting is an easy way to help encourage seeds to germinate. The acids in the tea, help to soften seed cases, making it easier for them to sprout. Chamomile tea can be used as it has anti-fungal properties. This will also help prevent fungal diseases.
Teas often contain magnesium. And do you know which plant loves magnesium? Roses. Roses love tea. By dumping spent tea leaves around the base of your roses, you can help to provide magnesium. This helps to encourage growth and blooming as well!
Last but not least, I can’t forget to include simply enjoying your tea in the garden. Having an early brew out in the garden is a mighty fine way of starting out a day. By relaxing a bit before getting started gives the day a much better start. And really….did you expect me to write an article about tea and not mention drinking it?
I am surprised it took me this long to write this article. But using tea leaves and teas in your garden can be very beneficial to your plants. What do you think of this article? Are there any benefits that I missed? Do you have anything to add?
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If you are interested in other gardening articles, feel free to browse my gardening section.