tea bags

grannyjo

I'm collecting all my veg peelings etc for compost and have about 20 T bags a day which I carefully empty from their plastic sachets. The resulting pile of fine brown stuff leads me to wonder if it could be mixed with some kind of nutrient and used for seed compost. Has anyone ever tried it. The compost I make in a compost bin always seems to coarse for seeds and I believe that peat for instance that we all used to use, has vrtually no nutrients anyway and has to have it added.- anyone been creative ?

sobie

Don't use teabags for seedlings their too acidic.

Tea bags can be added to your compost heap though (without the bag which will take years to decompose and may contain plastic).

Seed composts do not contain nutrients because added nutrients can "burn" young seedlings. All seeds contain all the nutrients they need to shoot. Once your seedlings have developed true leaves then pop them up into a more nutrient rich soil.

grannyjo

thanks I did not realise they were acidic- jo

Raksha

The tea plant comes from the camelia family. They can make a good top dressing for acid loving plants

forgotmyname

I dump them in the composter, They make up a small portion so not an issue acidity wise.

But i dont split the bags or anything. They soon rot down and vanish.

Dump them in and pile stuff on top.

djohn2002uk

forgotmyname wrote: »

But i dont split the bags or anything. They soon rot down and vanish.

Not all tea bags rot by any means. Most now contain plastic as mentioned above and wont rot for years and years as I found to my cost.
A report published by Which? Gardening reveals that teabags produced by top tea manufacturers such as Tetley, PG Tips, Twinnings, Clipper and Typhoo are only between 70-80% biodegradable. As a result, gardeners are finding the net part of teabags - caused by the inclusion of heat-resistant polypropylene - left on their compost heaps.

LadyDee

I've started to save my teabags to use in the bottom of hanging baskets as I understand they help to retain water. How can I stop them going mouldy before I use them?

Del_Astra

I suspect you would need to dry the tea bags first, then keep them dry to prevent the mould.

LadyDee

Del_Astra wrote: »

I suspect you would need to dry the tea bags first, then keep them dry to prevent the mould.[/QUOTE

I can't believe I didn't consider drying them - of course!:o

Thank you!