Although plants can grow fine with just the bare necessities they
can often produce much better growth and yield if they are fed
with compost or fertilizer which provides them with additional
nutrients and vitamins. This is especially important for herbs like
basil which need to sustain rapid leaf growth. However, oftentimes
many people don't want to waste money on expensive fertilizers
that require much work to apply. This is why many people use
compost instead, compost is anything from rotten banana peels to
leftover salad. Compost works when bacteria and microorganisms
break down the organic material into nutrient-rich soil. But this
process takes months to occur. Fortunately, you can supply your
plant with nutrients by supplying it with organic matter directly. To
test this, I decided to use coffee grounds and tangerine juice.
Coffee grounds are a phenomenal source of nitrogen,
phosphorus, and potassium. Nitrogen is a major component of
chlorophyll, which helps with photosynthesis, and amino acids
which are the building blocks of proteins. Phosphorus is important
for sprouts mainly as it helps to develop the buds in which new
leaves form, it also helps with cytokinesis in plants. The final
benefit of coffee grounds is potassium which regulates nutrients.
Unfortunately, like all fertilizers and composts, there are some
cons. One downside is that coffee grounds are acidic which can
damage the physical features of your plants as well as the soil.
Coffee grounds can also attract mold when wet. Finally, coffee
grounds contain salts which can build up in the soil and become
toxic. The control solution will just be plain water on a normal
watering schedule so we won't include any information about that.
For the final solution, I will be using a citrus concoction. Using
citrus is risky because of two major drawbacks. The first is the
ascorbic acid content. Ascorbic acid, most commonly known as
vitamin C is vital to plants but only in small quantities. Even for us
humans one orange a day is enough for our entire daily vitamin C
intake. Increasing the ascorbic content can block the plants from
absorbing other nutrients and in some cases stunt their growth, let
alone kill them. The second disadvantage of using citrus is its
high sugar content. Sugar in the soil and around the plant can
attract insects that will eat the plant. It can also block the plant
from absorbing water. However, there are benefits to using citrus
such as faster germination, easier transportation of nutrients,
increased enzyme activity, and weed killer. Additionally, to battle
the disadvantages of using citrus juice, I will be using tangerines,
which have a lower acid and sugar content. I will also further
dilute the tangerine juice in a 1:10 ratio.
All in all, there are benefits and drawbacks to both solutions and
experimenting with both will provide an easy and accessible
solution to enriching your plant.