Many of you have probably heard that potato peeling can be used as an organic fertilizer for summer plantings. This is true because they contain starch, potassium, and other valuable mineral constituents. This method of fertilizer is absolutely harmless, economical, helps protect the garden from Colorado beetles (as well as their larvae), slugs, wireworms. How to use potato peelings as a fertilizer, for which plants they are suitable as top dressing - we will consider below.
How to prepare fertilizer from cleanings?
A lot of us love potatoes, in most families it is considered the most popular, most often used vegetable food. After peeling potatoes, always peel. And the highest content of valuable components is in it and in the layer, which is located under the skin. Raw potato waste contains a lot of macronutrients, micronutrients, as well as an impressive list of vitamins. If you use them rationally, do not throw them in the bin, then all the useful elements will give their properties to the soil, plants in your garden.
Residents of private houses are much easier to determine a place for organic fertilizers, they have a plot of land allotted for a garden garden. In this case, you can immediately send the potato peel to the compost.
If the visit to the country house is seasonal, there is also a way out - the peel can be dried or frozen. When the temperature is below freezing, potato peelings can be laid out on an unheated balcony (on suitable surfaces). They will be frozen and thus stored. New “servings” of cleanings can be easily taken out onto the balcony as needed. As soon as the early spring arrives, you have to visit the cottage and take them there, because in the heat this product decays, spreads an unpleasant smell, and nobody needs it.
Drying the potato peel is a more troublesome way to save, but more reliable, convenient. It can be dried on a hot battery or in the oven - so it will be better stored. If you make additional efforts, after heat treatment, grind the peels in a meat grinder, and then dry them again in the oven, you will get a ready-made ideal raw material for fertilizer.
With the onset of spring, frozen or dried peelings of potatoes are placed in a large container (for example, a barrel), filled with very hot water, left to soak for 2-3 days. This nutrient mixture should be stirred periodically. Thus, potato peelings are used as a fertilizer rich in starch, salts, minerals, and vitamins.
How to apply fertilizer from potato peel?
The resulting gruel is simply ideal for increasing soil fertility when planting seedlings of cucumbers, cabbage, melons, gourds, bushes. At the bottom of the holes and beds, a small amount of the obtained potato infusion with gruel is previously poured, and then plants are planted. This fertilizer acts as an organic top dressing, due to which onions, zucchini, cucumbers, pumpkins, all varieties of cabbage are well developed, actively grow. You can add this top dressing (by watering the bushes under the roots) every 10-14 days, for this the infusion is pre-filtered through a sieve.
Potato peel infusion is the best fertilizer for currants and similar berry crops. Thanks to this infusion, it becomes large, sweet. It is especially good to add top dressing at the stage of ovary emergence, during the ripening of berries, before harvesting.
However, there are some limitations - tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, eggplant, other solanaceous crops should not be fertilized with this method, since this fertilizer simply will not work on them. In some cases, it can even harm these plants, because they are prone to common diseases (black scab, late blight).
If you still want to feed the tomatoes with this organic composition, then use only those cleanings that have previously been in the oven. The raw material passed through the hot processing no longer contains phytophthora, if you pour boiling water over it before applying it to the soil or simply dig it near the plants, nothing bad will happen.
It is good to use potato peeling to fertilize fruit trees and berry bushes. To do this, they are buried in the area of the trunk circle. It is best to carry out this procedure in the spring.
You can also use potato peeling, beneficial properties contained in them not only as fertilizers. With their help, you can scare away pests and keep your crop.
Options for the "external" application of potato peel:
- You can spread it between the beds, as well as in places of accumulation of slugs - they are attracted to the smell, they willingly slip into it. After that, it can be easily collected and destroyed.
- If you pour a lot of piles of peeling between the rows of potatoes, this will attract the Colorado beetles, their larvae. After the pests crawl into heaps, they are collected together with peels and burned, previously doused with kerosene.
- Also, potato peelings will help to significantly reduce the number of wireworms, only here you have to additionally donate several potato tubers. Cleansing and cutting tubers into several parts are dug up in different places of the site, and after 3-4 days they are removed from the ground along with gluttonous pests. Subsequently, the wireworm along with the bait is likewise destroyed by burning.
Potato peeling and currant
According to many positive reviews from summer residents, feeding currants with cleanings gives an excellent result. This berry shrub “loves” starch and glucose, namely the peel of the tubers is richest in these elements. Dry potato peels can be buried under currant bushes in spring and summer. They decompose in the earth, giving it during the process all the useful components. You can also pour cleanings with boiling water, after the infusion has cooled down, you can water the bushes.
To currant berries in size closer to the fruits of cherry, feel free to "treat" the bushes with infusion of potato peelings.
With the onset of autumn, remove fallen leaves under the currant, loosen the soil, dig dry skins in a circle, and then cover the ground with dry grass. The result of the efforts subsequently will pleasantly surprise you.
You can use cleaning not only for currants, but also gooseberries, raspberries, strawberries. This fertilizer is very suitable for garden flowers, indoor plants (strained infusion).
This simple free top dressing helps to increase soil fertility, is safe, non-toxic. It is an effective alternative to chemicals, and this is a significant plus. Do not rush to throw away a product rich in useful elements, especially since it is easy, quick to dry, and well stored in cloth bags. Use potato peelings as a fertilizer, for which plants they can be used, and for which it is impossible - we tried to specify in this article.
Bountiful harvest to you!