Mint Tea fertilizer

[Dodge]

Hello!

I know that you can use comfrey tea, and even normal 'builders' tea as a plant fertilizer.

Can anyone think of a reason why I shouldnt use Peppermint Tea?

It must contain nitrogen and other goodness?

[Potman]

I would suugest testing on a small area first to make sure that it isn't too strong. I used some very strong comfrey tea on some pots and the tomatoe plants in them turned yellow, which wasn't the desired effect!

[David Hare-Scott]

Must it? Because it smells so nice? I doubt there is any significant mineral content. Think of it this way, there is little nutrition in whole leaves and your tea is only extracting a small amount of what is there. I could be wrong and I haven't seen any analysis that would settle it one way or the other.

David

[David Hare-Scott]

Must it? Because it smells so nice? I doubt there is any significant mineral content. Think of it this way, there is little nutrition in whole leaves and your tea is only extracting a small amount of what is there. I could be wrong and I haven't seen any analysis that would settle it one way or the other.

David

[Billy]

Maybe "USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference"

Enter "Mentha spicata", and select "spices and herbs" from "Food Groups".

[David Hare-Scott]

I could play with this all day! Peppermint comes up under Mentha x piperita but they don't have comfrey. Compare to spinach and kale it seems leafy greens have some potassium (about half of 1%) and not much else in the way of minerals useful for plants that is soluble. Nitrogen is not mentioned as such but it will be mainly bound in the proteins and so not extracted in a tea. I can think of much easier and more effective ways to get some potash into my soil, keeping in mind that whatever you get out of your tea came out of the soil in the first place.

D

[Kay Lancaster]

Mint hay or "mint compost" is the stuff that's left after the oils are harvested. Runs about 2.0-0.8-2.8 (NPK). Mint tea would be much, much less concentrated than that. So it sounds like a very expensive way to add minimal soil nutrients.

Mint oils are terpene derivatives... no NPK.

Kay

[Dodge]

Thanks all.

The only reason I ask is that I have a codiaeum on my desk at work, and I keep forgetting to bring in a little fertilzier from home, but I do have mint tea at work.

However it appears other than making it smell nice, it wont really achieve much else.

I'll just to have put a knot in my hankie so i remember.

[Chris Thompson]

Dodge wrote in news:Dodge.8dfdab7 @gardenbanter.co.uk:

How about cost?

Chris

[Billy]

At least it would help cover the smell of the fertilizer. Although, we spent 2 weeks on a dairy farm in Brittany, and at first I was appalled by the smell, but by the time we left, I didn't notice it at all. (Bourg-Blanc, the Le Hir family).

[David Hare-Scott]

For your next holiday you should room next to a chicken shed, try to be there when they clean it out.

D

[Billy]

Would that be worse that being next to the U.S. Congress, which never gets cleaned out?

[songbird]

Billy wrote: ...

dude, that's a pork farm.

songbird

[songbird]

Billy wrote: ...

i grew up near a dairy farm, properly managed it does not smell that bad, compared to a CAFO, chicken shed or badly run pig farm a well run dairy is heaven.

my brothers worked there at times helping out, they'd come home smelling rather ripe, Ma would make them take their clothes off outside and hose them down before washing them. i used to go help milk and liked to talk to the guy who owned/ran the place. it is still going as a dairy farm even now all these years later but i don't know who is running it. many many stories, playing in the barn hayloft, barn cats, calfing, raising a calf, ornery cows and the ones that loved you if you brought them a carrot or apple, the smell of sileage, the sound of milking, ... etc.

songbird

[kate]

Nice hijack.

Mint is good as an activator. Add it to comfrey etc and get better effect. Accelerated effect.

No cites, my studied opinion. (And who knows what I've studied.)

[David Hare-Scott]

To a kid with a hammer everything is a nail .....

D

[FarmI]

I grew up on a poultry farm but our chooks were all free ranged, being let out first thing in the morning and locked up again at night. There was never, ever any bad smell associated with the chooks. We had one bak of cages (a total of 10 cages) where chooks that were poorly were placed so the other chooks couldn't pick on them and they stayed there in peace till they either recoved or died.

Once a year each house was dug out and sawdust laid down. We used to ahve a market gardener come and hand dig out the houses and he'd pay me to hold the bags for him while he shovelle dint he flooring. He said ti was THE best thing for the veggies he grew. He always offered to pay for the stuff but we thought we were getting a good deal by ahving him clean out the houses so the new flooring sould be added and he thought he was getting a good deal by getting free fertiliser.

Ahhh memories. I spent a lot of time on our cousins dairy farm. It was just as you described except that one of my fondest memories is sitting in the blood plum tree eating the fruit and chucking the stones at the chooks who had no idea where the strange missiles were coming from.

[Billy]

Point taken, paranoid, or not. But to a humanist, all lives are worth saving (all life).

[Billy]

I hope I didn't inconvenience you too much. To the loons, or the sane (your call) these are very dangerous times.

Comfry and yarrow as compost activators. There may be more.

[kate]

Yes, and we wouldn't want a gardening newsgroup to be nurturing and a place of peace.

I'm sure there are. It's not like plants are on this earth for no reason.