Brewing from high-quality tea leaves, or the so-called sleeping tea, actively garden and indoor plants. About whether this fertilizer can really be beneficial, agricultural professionals are actively arguing even today. However, proper use of the leaves can have a beneficial effect on many types of plants.

Conventional brewing methods, even multiple ones, cannot completely wash out all the substances that make them useful from the leaves of the tea bush. In large quantities, they retain tannin compounds, especially useful in gardening. At the same time, carefully dried raw materials are able to gradually release microelements into the soil or plant roots for a long time.

On a note!

Only tea brewed without the addition of sugar, honey or spices can be used for such purposes. Otherwise, midges will start in the ground, the site will attract entire colonies of ants.

The effect of tea on plants

Welding is useful with tannins, which:

• make it more resistant to disease and cold;
• regulate the acid-base balance of the soil;
• prevent root rot.

Dry leaves contain:

• potassium;
• calcium;
• magnesium;
• iron.

Boron, aluminum, manganese are found in small quantities. All of them contribute to the active formation and strengthening of roots, leaves, buds and inflorescences. As a result, the plant becomes stronger, gives a much larger yield in the presence of other favorable factors. Large-leaf tea, namely it is recommended to use it, when added to the soil, it will make it looser, lighter, softer, will help natural ventilation, which is also very useful for most crops.

What plants to use

Organic fertilizer in the form of tea leaves or compost from them will have a good effect on vegetable crops, berry bushes, aromatic herbs. All plants that need strong green shoots, active photosynthesis and the formation of a large number of fruit ovaries will respond positively to top dressing.

Fertilizer is not used for root crops, crops that grow well in dense and heavy soil. Top dressing is also undesirable for crops that can “fat”, that is, actively grow above-ground foliage and stems to the detriment of the fruits or the underground part, which is harvested as a crop.

As you know, of all types of tea, the greatest benefit lies precisely in large-leaf tea. Therefore, it should be preferred when using tea leaves as a fertilizer. A solid sheet without mechanical damage retains the maximum number of components. So, for example, a dry leaf plate contains about 7% of the total mass of various minerals, among which, in descending order:

1. Potassium. It is in tea brewing most of all compared to other elements. For plants, it is required in large quantities during the period of fruit ripening, but the composition of the fertilizer is such that its use for any period will not lead to an overabundance of the component.
2. Calcium comes in second. It is essential for carbohydrate and protein metabolism.
3. Magnesium is an integral part of chlorophyll, therefore, with its deficiency, photosynthesis worsens.
4. Aluminum is not the most useful element for flora, because. it provokes a deterioration in the accumulation of carbohydrates, which is directly related to yield. The use of sleeping tea eliminates its accumulation in the soil and the negative impact on plants.
5. Manganese is an active participant in redox reactions. It is necessary for the normal development of the root system, the growth of the vegetative mass as a whole.
6. Sodium is responsible for the transport of sugars.
7. Iron, which is part of the respiratory enzymes.

In addition to these mineral elements, there are others in tea, but their amount is so small that they will not have a strong effect on plants. It should be borne in mind that almost half of all substances are in a water-soluble form, therefore, dried tea leaves, when used for fertilizer, will contain minimal dosages, i.e. it is a micronutrient.

Features of the use of tea

In addition to mineral elements, tea brewing contains other components that directly or indirectly affect plants, which must be taken into account when feeding. In addition, there are several rules, the observance of which will avoid mistakes.

• Tannins of leaf plates tend to acidify the soil. In open ground, this will not be very noticeable, but such fertilizer should be used with caution on potted crops.
• Mixing the sleeping tea (organics) with the soil facilitates its structure, better water and air permeability. This applies more to open ground, since the presence of a large amount of tea leaves in a bowl can be harmful due to the tannin-catechin complex.
• One of the indicators of the quality of tea is the absence of artificial colors. This parameter is also important for plants, because. the content of such components inhibits their development.
• For fertilizing potted flowers, it is not recommended to use wet tea leaves, because. this will create favorable conditions for the development of pathogenic microflora and midges. It is better to dry it and collect it in a separate container, followed by infusion.
• It is excluded to water the plants with sweet tea, sugar adversely affects the development of the root system, it may die.

Application of fertilizer from tea leaves

Tea brewing is a good organic fertilizer with a certain supply of micro and macro elements. There are several ways to convey its benefits to plants:

1. In open ground, for example, tea leaves can be applied immediately after initial use without drying. In this case, the growth phase of the culture can be ignored. In this case, it will simultaneously perform the function of mulch, which, as it decomposes during irrigation, gradually releases batteries. It is recommended to add wood ash to enrich the material. At the end of the season, after harvesting, the accumulated layer can be dug up with the ground. Remember that there is no sugar in tea, otherwise you will have to fight ants afterwards.
2. In the off-season, it is better to dry the tea leaves and then use it in a dry form for sowing tillage. The fertilizer is dug up with the soil, the consumption rate is approximately 0.5 kg / m2. When planting seedlings, the application is carried out under each plant directly into the holes.
3. Dry tea leaves perfectly protect indoor plants from excessive evaporation of moisture, especially during the heating season, when the air is too dry. If the soil in which you plant houseplants is saline, mixing the tea leaves with the substrate will bring the pH closer to neutral.
4. Adding to compost. Tea will not have a big effect on the composition of the compost heap, but the tannins contained in it will acidify the biomass, which will provoke an acceleration of the process of overheating. This method can be useful if you need faster maturation of the fertilizer.
5. Root top dressing infusion. To do this, pour 3 liters of boiling water into 1 cup of dried tea leaves, let it brew and cool. Such a solution contributes to the rapid provision of plants with nutrients. The flow rate is the same as for normal watering. A low concentration of micro and macro elements will not harm crops. Such top dressing is suitable for both open and protected ground.

Of all the stale teas, it is one of the lowest concentrated and safest for growing crops. Its use does not preclude top dressing with other agrochemicals, tk. in its pure form, it will not be able to fully satisfy the need for nutrition. But as an addition, tea brewing is one of the best options for gardeners and gardeners.

Do not throw away the used tea leaves immediately after drinking tea, it can come in handy. Welding clean leather furniture, collect dust, eliminate unpleasant odors in the kitchen. For a long time, dormant tea has been used as a fertilizer.

Large-leaved tea is able to transfer the maximum amount of microelements in its composition to the root system of the plant. These include potassium, manganese, calcium, iron and aluminum. Processed tea is suitable as a top dressing for both indoor flowers and outdoor plants.

Article plan

The use of sleeping tea in the garden

Tea brewing is a versatile product for the garden. First of all, in the country, tea is used as a fertilizer. To do this, the used tea leaves are added dropwise with a shovel into the topsoil. Over time, this substance will begin to decompose, gradually saturating the earth with nitrogen. In a similar way, tea leaves are applied to fertilize perennials, bushes and even garden trees.

Dried tea in the ground is best brought in with spring digging. You can collect used tea leaves during the winter period. To dry it evenly, it is poured out in a thin layer on a sieve or sieve. After thorough drying, tea is put into any convenient container and stored until spring. Plastic utensils work best.

To feed the seedlings planted in the beds, it is necessary to add tea to the planting hole at the rate of 500 g per square meter. In addition, other mineral fertilizers should be added to the hole based on the quality of the soil.

In addition to saturation with useful substances, tea leaves also cope with other tasks in the summer cottage.

1. It is able to soften clay soil, increase the moisture permeability of sandstones.
2. Sleeping tea, applied as a fertilizer, perfectly neutralizes alkaline soil.
3. If you add used tea leaves to a fresh compost heap, it will speed up the processing of compost.
4. Sleeping tea is also perfect as mulch. A layer of welding a few centimeters thick protects the earth from cracking in a drought, prevents the appearance of weeds. It repels rodents and rabbits that can spoil the roots with its smell.

You can use tea as a fertilizer in the form of infusion. To do this, a glass of used tea leaves is poured with three liters of boiling water. Plants are shed with a cooled infusion like ordinary water. This dressing is very fond of cucumbers, tomatoes and beans.

Many summer residents use tea bags instead. The original tablets are pressed peat, drawn into a thin mesh. It is believed that wet peat is an ideal environment for seed germination. Tea bags are not inferior to tablets in quality.

It is necessary to carefully cut off the place of gluing the package and the thread with scissors. Then you should straighten the bag so that the tea leaves do not crumble. It acts as a top dressing and drainage. The free cavity of the package is filled with nutrient soil.

Improvised tablets are tightly placed one to one in a plastic container. They are spilled with water, planted in each bag one seed. The container is covered with a lid. Seeds germinate in the shortest time. After the appearance of the first leaves, seedlings can dive. There is no need to remove the seedlings from the bags: they will decompose very quickly in the open field.

Welding is the lowest concentrated and safest organic fertilizer available. In addition to tea, other useful substances must be added to the ground, since it will not fully satisfy the need for nutrition. Tea is considered an additional fertilizer for the garden.

The use of tea leaves for indoor plants

Even novice flower growers have probably heard that tea is used as a fertilizer for plants. In order to deliver nutrients to the root system, you need to periodically shed the plant with the remnants of a drunken drink. It is best to take a weak solution without sugar. They respond well to such regular watering:

• cacti,
• ferns,
• hibiscus,
• spathiphyllum and anthurium.

Welding improves the quality of the soil in the pot, its breathability. To prepare the soil, you need to mix three parts of the earth and one part of tea leaves. This composition is perfect for plants with fragile roots: clivia, begonias, violets, peperomia.

Tea bags are used as drainage. Sleeping and dried tea leaves are placed on the bottom of the pot in several layers. This is a great alternative to expanded clay: the soil will not spill out through the holes.

Thus, they support the full development of ampelous and balcony plants. Tea drainage keeps moisture in the pot. Thanks to this, you can reduce the amount of watering, leave home for a few days without worrying about the plants. The presence of tea leaves in a flower container will also reduce the amount of evaporated moisture during the heating season.

Bromeliad plants are very responsive to the presence of tea leaves in the ground. They actively develop only in light, loose, well-permeable by oxygen and water soil.

How to prepare tea for plants

The use of sleeping tea as a fertilizer can be heard everywhere, although opinions are divided on this issue. Let's try to understand the current situation.

Beginner gardeners and gardeners are often advised by experienced neighbors to pay attention to sleeping tea. There is an opinion that flowers, vegetables, and berries can grow several times larger if, from spring to late autumn, it is applied to the soil.

In part-time farms, tea is used as mulch and sprinkled under various plants. However, for this, during the winter period, it is necessary to collect a sufficient amount of used tea leaves, and this is the biggest difficulty.

Recall that mulching is the surface covering of the soil with a layer of mulch to improve its properties, while using organic fertilizers and a variety of materials. widespread in most countries of the world.

Mulch fights weeds: a 5-centimeter layer reduces their growth by several times. Weeds do not receive enough light under the material and die.

When mulching, the evaporation of moisture from the soil is reduced, and its top layer remains loose. In heat and drought, mulch protects plants from death: it does not allow the topsoil to overheat. Mulching is also used in autumn to protect the soil from weathering and freezing. Mulching is one of the most effective ways to keep plants healthy.

As an organic mulch, in addition to sleeping tea, hay, straw, leaves, bark, decomposed compost, as well as paper and cardboard are used. Inorganic mulch is also used: stone, gravel, sand. We do not recommend using rubber and plastic, as it is almost impossible to check their chemical composition. Recently, non-woven materials have also been used.

However, it must be remembered that sleeping tea as a mulch attracts insects, worms and birds that use it as food.

Of course, it is necessary to add sleeping tea when planting street flowers, laying it on the bottom of the pot, on the drainage. Rotting tea leaves give plants additional nutrition. Rose bushes also like top dressing from sleeping tea, including diluted with water. Ferns, however, it is extremely necessary. The only thing to remember tea leaves used as fertilizer should NOT be sweetened. Sweet tea leaves will be a bait for ants and various insects that do not benefit plants.

Drinking tea has many beneficial properties. So, for example, in the tea leaf there are tannins that are necessary for the full development of plants. These substances are acidic in nature and have a remarkable property of reducing the ability to rot. Using it for its intended purpose, you will undoubtedly be satisfied with the results.

The benefits of sleeping tea as a fertilizer are also evidenced by the fact that it makes the earth, especially clay, lighter. Added to the sand, it, like plant residue, enriches the soil. In addition, plant waste holds moisture well in the sand. The advantage of sleeping tea is the neutralization of alkaline soil. The downside is the creation of favorable conditions for the catastrophic reproduction of soil flies, although this applies mainly to potted crops.

However, many gardeners and gardeners consider the tea to be drunk as a neutral substance that does not bring any benefit or harm. And they believe that sleeping tea cannot be called a fertilizer in the full sense. This is just an additive, a soil filler, its baking powder.

Use tea leaves as a fertilizer as an infusion (1 cup of dry used tea leaves per 3 liters of boiling water). Gladiolus, tomatoes, beans, cucumbers respond well to dry sleeping tea - add to the wells immediately before planting. Before sowing seeds with tea, fertilize the soil at the rate of 500 g per 1 sq.m.

So, sleeping tea causes controversy among gardeners. We have given all the pros and cons and encourage you to experiment, observe and share with us the results of your own experiences.

What folk remedies are not used by gardeners, summer residents and flower growers to increase soil fertility and to improve the growth and development of plants.

Use ash, eggshell, yeast, succinic acid, banana peel and other products.

But today we will talk with you about how used tea and tea leaves are used as fertilizer.

Considering that this product is simply thrown away after use, the use of dormant tea as a fertilizer is very beneficial.

Opinions about the benefits and effectiveness of this tool sometimes differ, there are both supporters and opponents of this use of tea brewing. Therefore, it is important to understand this issue in detail.

Before understanding whether it can be useful for plants, it is necessary to analyze its chemical composition.

So, the chemical composition of welding includes the following elements:

• Potassium - in the tea leaf it contains 17.9 mg / g. This element is especially necessary for plants, along with nitrogen and phosphorus. With a lack of this element, the leaves sag, their color becomes more intense and acquires a bluish tint.
• Calcium - its content in tea leaves is 4.7 mg / g. The element is an indispensable participant in the metabolic processes in plants. Stone fruit crops are especially in need of this element, and this calcium is also important for the development of the root system of plants.
• Magnesium (2.2 mg/g) is an indispensable participant in photosynthesis. With a lack of magnesium in the soil, the leaves begin to turn yellow from the edges.
• Iron in tea leaves contains 0.2 mg/g. The lack of this element in the soil threatens plant chlorosis, although this disease can be caused not so much by the absence of this element as by its presence in forms inaccessible to plants.

They are present in tea leaves in small quantities that do not affect the development of plants and other elements.

Of the trace elements found in tea leaves, aluminum, manganese, sulfur, boron, barium and others.

It should be taken into account that already in the used tea leaves the content of useful mineral substances may be less than declared.

Sleeping tea brew, as a fertilizer, serves as organic matter, the introduction of which always has a positive effect on the soil.

How to use correctly

It is preferable to use leftovers from large-leaf or medium-leaf tea. Artificial dyes are sometimes added to tea bags, which can adversely affect plants.

It is also undesirable to use teas with various flavors and other inclusions for this purpose, all this can inhibit the growth and development of crops.

Of course, in everything you need to know the measure. In large quantities, tea leaves applied under house potted plants cause mold in the soil and promote the breeding of sciarids - small black flies.

Therefore, tea leaves, as a fertilizer for flowers, must be dried before use. For open ground, it is also possible to apply a wet substance.

In addition, tea leaves contain tannins, which can increase the acidity of the soil. Therefore, for domestic potted plants, such fertilizer should be used with caution, observing the condition of the flowers.

When using sleeping tea and tea leaves to fertilize the soil in the garden, the acidification effect is almost imperceptible.

• A good result is the simultaneous introduction of wood ash and tea leaves. The soil is enriched simultaneously with calcium, potassium, phosphorus. Wood ash neutralizes the acidic properties of tea leaves.
• It is necessary to water the plants with sweet tea very carefully, given that its concentration for watering should not exceed the proportion of 10:1000, or 1st. a spoonful of sugar per liter of water or tea. It is better to supplement such top dressing with Baikal EM1 or Vostok EM1 biological products, otherwise root rot and mold may develop, and ants may also appear in open ground.

But there are plants that react very positively to soil acidification. For example, flowers - azalea, viola, panicled hydrangea, lupine, bergenia and many others.

From vegetables - sorrel, pumpkin, carrots, radishes, cucumbers ... For them, feeding with tea leaves will only benefit.

During the winter, tea leaves are collected, immediately dried and stored until spring in any container, for example, in a bucket.

In the spring, before digging the soil, dry tea leaves are poured out in a thin layer, and dug up. Or, in the same way, tea leaves accumulated over the summer can be applied for the main autumn processing. This technique will enrich the soil with potassium, calcium and magnesium, as well as improve soil structure.

The approximate application rate per square meter is half a kilogram.

• You can carry out root feeding of plants with infusion of sleeping tea. To do this, one glass of used tea leaves is poured with three liters of hot boiled water and insisted for several hours. Water the plants with this solution under the root as with ordinary water.

What does fertilization help with?

Welding is used as top dressing with complex potash fertilizers, with an additional content of calcium, magnesium and iron.

It serves as an excellent soil disintegrator, improves the structure of heavy soils, due to the introduction of tea leaves and sleeping tea, the soil passes water and air better.

It is better to use dried used tea leaves, it acts like a mulch layer, which, in the process of decomposition, will enrich the soil with useful nutrients.

It will perfectly help to retain moisture in the pots of indoor plants during the heating season in winter, with dry air. A good effect is obtained from the use of tea leaves as a drainage component when transplanting indoor plants.

It can be added to the compost heap, it will help accelerate the overheating of the mass, and is an excellent component for future compost.

The use of tea leaves can serve as an excellent fertilizer for plants, contributes to the enrichment of the soil with nutrients, improves its structure and, if used correctly, normalizes the acid balance.

But it is worth noting that it cannot be used on all soils in a row, and literally applied under all plants. Just as one drug cannot be a panacea for all diseases.

Therefore, using any fertilizer, it is necessary to focus on the needs of plants and take into account the composition of the soil and its structure.