Mike Lyle wrote:
Rusty Hinge wrote:
wrote:
In article ,
Rusty Hinge wrote:
John L wrote:
My wife likes to save all tea left in the pot and give it to the
houseplants. Is it really any good for them?
I get the feeling that they're slowly building up tea in the pots.
(and I'd rather just throw it away and keep the place a bit
tidier!)
Too much tea may leave uncomposted residues in the soil and
encourage moulds and fungi.
Yes, but they won't do much harm to living plants.
Maybe. However, the dissolved tea solids might deplete the available
nitrogen.
But tealeaves themselves are high in N. Does it stay in the leaf, or
dissolve into the liquor? I've never thought about the chemistry of a
cuppa before.
Before (much of?) the nitrogen is released, the leaves have to compost
down. While they're doing that, they deplete available nitrogen, I'd
treat regular applications of tealeaves as green compost with attitude.
The baggy bit of a teabag is some kind of cellulose, and presumably
/would/ be a nitrogen robber.
The celllar structure of leaves is largely cellulose, strangely enough...
--
Rusty