Submitted by Doreen Coyne, a member of the Richmond Hill Garden & Horticultural Society
This article discusses how banana peels can help your plants grow.
Banana peels are a relatively good source of potassium, as well as some other micronutrients such as calcium. But the value of these nutrients is often exaggerated. Some recommend soaking banana peels in water for several days to make a nutrient-rich tea for usage on plants. But it won’t be as strong or effective as you might hope. Even drying out banana peels and turning them into a powder doesn’t make a great soil additive.
The best thing you can do with banana peels is to add them to your compost heap, where they will—like other compost ingredients—rot down to release their nutrients into the final, crumbly compost.
When adding banana peels, make sure to remove any labels. And to speed things up, cut them up into smaller pieces. Banana peels are a good addition to the compost heap because they do rot down fairly quickly typically in a matter of weeks.
