Gardening with Tea

[PolyhymnianMuse]

I saw something on television the other night talking about what you can do with used tea bags and what really caught my attention was they said used tea bags can be burried in potted plants and they will decompose and feed nutrients to the plant... makes sense.

They also mentioned about old tea water being great for watering plants with. When it comes to this, I'm not really sure. I know tea is pretty lowin caffeine compared to other drinks, but would that effect the plant in any way? Also, I wonder if fluroide in tea would have any effect on its fertilizing qualites...

I already do (heavy) composting with all my used loose leaves and have collected quite a large bin full that is composting nicely, even in the middle of the cold winter here in PA. Basically I'm wondering if anyone knows anything about the benefits/problems of fertilizing with composted tea leaves and watering with old tea, or if there has been anything written up about this subject I can read.

[bi lew chun]

I've been doing some winter composting in PA as well, and my compost pile is chock-full of tea.

Coffee and tea are recommended for composting because they provide nitrogen to the microbes that break down the dry/brown material (decomposition will occur more rapidly).

However, plants that produce caffeine may do so to out-compete surrounding organisms or ward off predators (ha! plant predators), and high concentrations of caffeine in your soil could potentially be toxic to some of the species in your garden. Since they can't move, many plants have probably developed mechanisms for surviving in spite of toxins. I'm not sure what effect caffeine would have on beneficial garden inhabitants. Perhaps jittery earthworms crap more efficiently.

There isn't much out there about caffeine and gardening/composting, but here are a couple of links:

http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/webprojects20 ... ffeine.htm
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/ ... lumn2.htm/

This site has a high rating on Stumble Upon and contains a lot of good composting information:

http://www.howtocompost.org/cat_generalinfo.asp

Edit: Oh yeah, I wouldn't use tea water for house plants, since there's no real way to know how they'd handle caffeine. There are compost teas (that have nothing to do with tea) that are specifically brewed from compost to do beneficial things, but tea water is probably just slow-acting plant poison.

[teasbest]

from The Complete Book of Composting, Rodale, 1971:

Spent tea Leaves: %: Moisture: 86.0, Ash: 3.2, N: 4.41, P2O5: 0.29, K2O: 0.24
(Ash, Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium)

[PolyhymnianMuse]

Wow I was afraid there was going to be a lot less information then even that much. I'll have to do some reading, hopefully my heap of tea leaves and other organic material will be pretty composted by this spring/summer. I've got a lot of ideas in the way of gardening and planting various herbs.

[PolyhymnianMuse]

Wow this actually blew my mind... Quoted from the one article bi lew chun posted

Caffeine-containing plants may be safe from certain insects, vertebrates, bacteria and fungi, but they are preyed on by humans who love the rush it gives them. Not so lucky then, I guess? But there is a hypothesis that plants synthesise psychoactive compounds to target and manipulate humans in particular. In other words, if humans desire the plants, then they will cultivate them. The plants may get processed and eaten up by humans, but because they have been better cared for, they will be able to produce more offspring first. If this hypothesis is true, I think caffeine-producing plants should win whatever the highest international award is for human psychology.

That is an idea that goes far beyond caffeine producing plants! I've never thought of it in the way that plants could be (on some level) having a conscious decision on producing qualities that are specifically attractive to humans...

[tenuki]

read this.

[capheind]

I've had disturbingly good luck using it as fertiliser, and using a bed of moist leaves to start cuttings. The only downside is that the High nitrogen content promotes soil fungus, which is harmless but unsightly.

[Victoria]

I think I may have killed my bonsai this way.
Death by tea.
Sad.

[Shelob]

I think I may have killed my bonsai this way.
Death by tea.
Sad.

Bonsai are very touchy and not normally easy to care for in a home. Many plants sold as bonsai are not meant to be kept inside as conditions alot of times are not conducive to giving them the proper care! And too much water or too less is really a problem! Could have been a combination of not enough light, not enough water and too much tea

[Susana]

Tenuki!

Botany of Desire changed my life a couple of years ago! Best recommendation, seriously!

My plants lOVE tea! Just be sure if you are using tea to dilute it just a bit. There is one plant that my colleague dumps his tea in (without diluting it) and now it is turning yellow!

I have a sneaking sensation he was throwing his pu-erh rinse in it!