Broths for plants: a curious trend
Aside from a fun activity that can be done with the family, home gardening raises awareness about environmental stewardship. Regardless of whether you choose to use food extracts or mineral broths, these recommendations will help you to have a healthy and productive garden.
The love of humans for ornamental plants is a millenary relationship. Currently, motivated, perhaps, by a growing trend of using plants as part of home decoration and interior design, there is a new boom in home gardening; proof of this is the increasingly popular practice of preparing " little broths" to take care of plants.
In social networks, it is common to see publications about people who prepare vegetable broths or certain foods to use their nutrients through an infusion that helps plants as a method of prevention or treatment against any phytosanitary condition.
Jaqueline García Hernández, the researcher at the Guaymas Regional Coordination of the Center for Research in Food and Development (CIAD) and expert in environmental sciences, explained that it is not recommended to use food infusions in plants, since boiling them loses the nutrients that could benefit the plant and would only be adding liquid with a low nutritional value. However, he pointed out, food extracts such as chili, garlic, and pepper can be used as pest repellents.
Food extracts
The academic shared the following recipe that serves as a multi-pest repellent: mix one hundred grams of ground garlic, thirty grams of ground pepper, and one hundred grams of ground habanero chili; subsequently, it is necessary to stir the combination of these powders in two liters of water and one hundred milliliters of alcohol. One hundred milliliters of this concentrate can be diluted in six liters of water to spray the foliage of our plants once a week, in case of pests.
Mineral broths
In addition to using food extracts to care for our plants, it is also possible to use minerals that help control insects, provide nutrients and improve soil quality. Garcia Hernandez shared the following recipe: mix two kilograms of sulfur, half a kilo of limestone, and half a kilo of ash, which should be mixed in ten liters of water. Subsequently, it will be necessary to boil this mixture for forty-five minutes, stirring constantly. Once we have let the concentrate cool, we can dilute it in a proportion of two hundred milliliters in two liters of water to spray the foliage every two or three weeks for best results.
Both food extracts and mineral broths can be used preventively to improve soil and plant health, or when there is a problem such as pests or poor growth.
Finally, she commented that food waste should be used to make compost, which can be made by mixing one part of organic waste for two parts of cow manure, or if necessary, freshly cut grass; forty grams of yeast powder and the honey of a piloncillo can also be added. This combination should be stirred every three days to achieve an adequate fermentation, which will be ready in thirty days to nourish the soil.
In addition to being a fun, family-friendly activity, home gardening raises environmental awareness. Whether you choose to use food extracts or mineral broths, these recommendations will help you have a healthy and productive garden.
