How To Use Green Tea To Help Your Raspberry Bushes Thrive
Does your raspberry bush need a little extra energy? You can give it the nutrients it needs without running to the store and spending money on fertilizer. Instead, save your used tea leaves after brewing a cup of green tea. They contain all the nitrogen a raspberry bush needs to grow to its full potential and produce lots of fruit.
Raspberry bushes need fertilizer as soon as the winter weather is gone. You can find the perfect time for your location by waiting until the last day of frost has passed. Then you should fertilize your plant once a month with green tea leaves until you notice flowers growing. Your raspberry bush won't need the extra nutrients because it stores energy to produce berries.
If you continue adding tea leaves, your plant would grow larger stems and more leaves instead of flowers and raspberries. Although, if you're using compost made with green tea, you can add it to your plant's soil at any time. This is because it has a lower level of nutrients. There are multiple ways to use green tea as fertilizer, but first, you have to brew yourself a glass.
Tea leaves are a great fertilizer
Green tea is an excellent fertilizer because of all the nutrients it contains. It's perfect for plants because it's high in nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium. Without these key ingredients, your raspberry bush won't be able to create the energy it needs to grow. However, you can't use green tea on just any plant. It has tannic acid in it as well, which makes the soil more acidic. Luckily, this is a great ingredient for raspberry bushes because they prefer their soil to be between a pH of 5.5 and 6.5.
Brewed green tea leaves work as a slow-release fertilizer. As they decompose, they release their nutrients into the soil. That way, your raspberry bush will constantly have a small amount of fertilizer to feed from instead of shocking them with one large dose. In fact, too much fertilizer at once will burn your plant's foliage.
The minor downside to taking your used green tea leaves and using them for your raspberry bushes is that they contain caffeine — reviews are mixed on whether it's harmful or beneficial. Although, the quantity is nowhere near if you used coffee grounds as fertilizer. Once you steep your tea, the caffeine level decreases even more from the minimal amount it contained initially, so you don't need to worry.
Mix your used green tea leaves with the soil
Before using green tea leaves for your raspberry bushes, you need to make yourself a cup of tea. Once it's steeped, don't throw the bag or loose leaves in the garbage. Instead, save them and choose one of the many ways to give them to your plants as fertilizer. The simplest way is to put them right into the soil. If your tea comes in a bag, you'll need to cut the leaves out. Then spread them around the base of your raspberry bushes and aerate the dirt so they mix together.
Another way to turn them into fertilizer is by steeping the leftover leaves in water. Let them sit for about a week. You'll know it's ready when the water changes color. Then throw away the bags and pour the tea over your raspberry bushes. This method will water and fertilize your plants at the same time. Lastly, you can choose to throw your used green tea leaves into your compost pile. Just make sure you take them out of the bag if it's not compostable and remove any tags and staples. Plus, adding the tea will speed up how long it takes for your compost to turn into humus.