Quote:
Originally Posted by supermario
I've seen a post on another forum that states NPK values for kitchen scraps(coffee grinds, egg shells, citrus peels, banana peels, etc) According to that literature, There are huge amounts of potassium in the citrus and banana peels, calcium in egg shells, nitrogen in coffe grinds, etc etc.
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For plant material, the highest percentage of nitrogen found is in Castor Bean Meal and Neem Seed Meal (5%), and the highest percentage of potassium is in Corn Cob and Banana Stalk (50%) -- provided these plants have been fed with significant amounts of these nutrients; i.e., minerals.
Quote:
Originally Posted by supermario
This may be a silly question since I was one of the ones who slept through chemistry....but would it be possible to extract the necessary nutrients and process them into granular form?
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You need to dry them -- a compost pile works great. However, the density (weight per volume) is very low so large quantities are needed per plant to supply a significant amount of nutrients. Note that the coffee grounds you mention are very acidic: the number two plant problem brought into retail nurseries are potted plants killed with coffee grounds.
Also, I would not grow these plants for the purpose of generating nutrients for other plants, because you need to would need to feed them mineral-based fertilizers to obtain the desired percentages! It is far more cost effective and environmentally friendly to feed the target plants with responsible mineral-based fertilizers in the first place.