My Garden

Banana Skins

Last post 19-11-2009 1:05 PM by miranda. 14 replies.

• 27/12/2005 03:39 PM
  Fushia Location: Joined on: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 107	Reply | Contact I have been putting Banana skins under my roses for years also in the compost bin.( On the Gardeners World programme many years ago this was recommended) If this is folk lore then it works because I have had great sucess with my Roses and have even won ''Best Roses'' for the past 3 years Banana skins have Potassium(sp?) which is good for the roses.Fushia Fushia

• 28/12/2005 11:22 AM

  In reply to

  Digger Location: Northern UK Joined on: 18 Jul 2005 Posts: 4,743

  Reply | Contact Hi Fushia, I have used the banana skins for my roses as you recommended to me in the summer and i had nice flowers i will use them this spring and hopefully have good results.I have used bananas to ripen tomatoes in a drawer it works well apparently the bananas release a gas when they ripen which accelerates the ripening of other fruit in the vicinity and for this reason you should keep them out of the fruit bowl so that your other fruit does not over ripen and spoil,have a good new year Fushia bye for now my friend. digger

• 23/02/2006 03:48 PM	In reply to
  headfullofbees Location: Cheadle Hulme Joined on: 13 Feb 2006 Posts: 114	Reply | Contact What absolute gems of information in both of these posts!

• 08/09/2006 05:09 PM	In reply to
  hyacinth Location: Joined on: 29 Jun 2006 Posts: 15	Reply | Contact So do I just put the banana skins on the ground under the roses? What is it supposed to do? Boost the flowers or something more? I don't want show blooms, just something pretty and stronger roses without blood, fish and bone (which my local plant nursery woman refuses to sell to me because I'm a veggie and she doesn't want to be responsible for me going to hell :D)

• 19/10/2006 12:52 PM	In reply to
  Isabel Sinha Location: Joined on: 19 Oct 2006 Posts: 5	Reply | Contact They are high in potassium, so they promote flowering. Also, I suppose if you use enough of them they will act as an mulch, conserving moisture levels and decomposing to be fed on by micro-organisms that will make nutrients available to the plant... etc., etc.!

• 17/01/2007 08:17 AM	In reply to
  bogweevil Location: Joined on: 02 Mar 2004 Posts: 2,043	Reply | Contact Alas, analysis of the potassium content of bananas reveals that the content is so low that a whole wheelbarrowwload would be needed to make a difference. Sorry Bogweevil Beware the bat-eared bogweevil

• 01/04/2007 07:55 PM

  In reply to

  Bog Myrtle Location: Southern Turkey Joined on: 07 Feb 2007 Posts: 346

  Reply | Contact No Boggie, a medium banana has about 450 mg of potassium, which is not a low potassium content. You don't need tons of the stuff to keep roses happy, bear in mind that levels of nutrients are measured in parts per million, so chucking your banana skins under the feet of your roses might well increase the potassium level enough to make a difference. Whatever the reason, we always throw any banana skins we have under our rose arches, plus of course we give them well-rotted manure, and NO chemical fertilisers whatsoever. And they are always magnificent!

• 04/04/2007 09:13 AM

  In reply to

  bogweevil Location: Joined on: 02 Mar 2004 Posts: 2,043

  Reply | Contact Therefore the usual dose of 20g every square metre of Sulphate of Potash (Potassium sulphate), that is 10g of potassium per square metre, is equivalent to 22 bananas every square metre - messy. Your manure will contain in the region of 0.5 percent potassium, so if you apply 10 kilos of muck every square metre then you are applying 50g of potassium. Your muck is doing the business, the banana skins are relatively unimportant. You would need 110 bananas to equal your manure. However, manure has 0.5 percent nitrogen and 0.25 percent phosphorus. In my view roses respond especially well to nitrogen and the nitrogen is probably the key factor in the good rose growth you have observed. Manure also contains a useful amount of magnesium, an element that roses need more than some other plants. I hope this helps. Boggy [Edited on 05/04/2007] Beware the bat-eared bogweevil

• 26/04/2009 11:38 PM	In reply to
  min3chars Location: Carlisle Joined on: 26 Apr 2009 Posts: 6	Reply | Contact If it's the nitrogen then maybe putting sweet peas among your roses will do some good, as they, along with other peas and beans, fix nitrogen in the soil. That or put your roses in with your runner beans!!!

• 27/04/2009 09:05 AM

  In reply to

  bogweevil Location: Joined on: 02 Mar 2004 Posts: 2,043

  Reply | Contact Alas, neither sweet peas or runner beans are great fixers of nitrogen compared to broad beans and garden peas.  But even with these most nitrogen they fix is in the foliage, stems and seed pods with little transfer from the living roots to nearby plants.  Later when the plants die the roots will rot and release nitrogen but not much as most will have to be recycled via the compost bin before it is available to crops.   Boggy Beware the bat-eared bogweevil

• 27/04/2009 12:45 PM	In reply to
  min3chars Location: Carlisle Joined on: 26 Apr 2009 Posts: 6	Reply | Contact I was being slightly tongue in cheek there, and it's not as straight forward as, plant this bean, get this nitrogen. What in the world of vegetation is straightforward? That's the joy of it.

• 18/11/2009 02:00 PM

  In reply to

  bogweevil Location: Joined on: 02 Mar 2004 Posts: 2,043

  Reply | Contact I recently found this link on banana skins and potassium: http://jds.fass.org/cgi/reprint/32/11/969.pdf  Here banana skins were analysed for potassium and the potassium level was 5.72 of the dry matter, banana skins being 83.8 percent water. This means that the potassium content of fresh banana skins is 0.9%  compared with the 0.4% potassium  content of an average sample of manure and 40% percent potassium in sulphate of potash. The skin accounts for 36 percent by weight of whole bananas and the skin of a medium banana weighs  66g and contains 0.6g of potassium: http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/cgi-bin/list_nut_edit.pl Therefore, for roses, to match an average application of 10kg per square metre of manure you would need 67 banana skins. Or if you ate two bananas a day for year you would have enough to treat 11 square metres for potassium.   Boggy       Beware the bat-eared bogweevil

• 18/11/2009 02:24 PM	In reply to
  sue1002 Location: Ipswich, Suffolk Joined on: 06 Sep 2005 Posts: 5,200	Reply | Contact  You weren't that far off then Boggy, when you mentioned before that a barrowload would be needed to make a difference sue1002

• 18/11/2009 02:35 PM	In reply to
  BB Location: Hereford Joined on: 12 May 2009 Posts: 573	Reply | Contact I think that the barrowload of banana's should be fed to an elephant. Put what comes out the other end on the roses. BB

• 19/11/2009 01:05 PM	In reply to
  miranda Location: Oxfordshire Joined on: 17 Nov 2004 Posts: 2,977	Reply | Contact Nice one, Boggy. Thanks for taking the time to do the sums and put it down for us. I really enjoy that sort of information but seldom work it out for myself.