Hello Friends! In today’s episode, we will
learn about 5 unbelievable uses or benefits
of Onions, Onion Skins and Onion Juice in
gardening. Specially the onion peel fertilizer,
Onion Pesticide and a new secret rooting hormone
recipe to root your plant cuttings quickly
and successfully. All that’s Coming up!
Well, Onion skin and peels are usually thrown
into the bin. But starting today and after
watching this episode till the end, you will
never throw them again!
Onion skin and peels have antioxidant and
antimicrobial properties and contain many
useful substances like sulphur, quercetin,
Potassium, phosphorus, zinc, iron, iodine,
vitamins, pectins, saponins, flavonoids and
so on.
Have you even wondered why tears start flowing
out of your eyes as soon as we start chopping
onions? This is Onion-Chemistry. Before we
start with the 5 uses of onions in gardening,
let’s quickly know the scientific reason
behind this interesting scene:
While chopping onions, cells inside the onion
are broken down and the gas that comes out
forms sulfenic acid. This acid gets mixed
with enzymes and forms a gas called propanethiol
S-oxide. When this gas reaches our eyes, it
gets mixed with our tears and forms sulphuric
acid which causes irritation of the tear glands
and that’s it.
Well, Now let’s list out the benefits of
onions for plants and gardening:
5. COMPOSTING: If you are not using earthworms
for making your compost, You can drop onion
skins and peels a little deeper into the compost
bin and get a nutrient-rich compost in the
final result. But You should avoid adding
them in your worm composting bin, this is
because earthworms hate onions and similar
odorous substances.
4. MULCHING: For Beginners, A mulch is a layer
of material applied to the surface of soil
for benefits like preserving soil moisture,
reducing weed growth and so on. You can use
onion skins for mulching and the dry onion
peels will decompose soon and enrich your
soil with potassium and calcium, which is
so good for your plant growth.
3. ONION PESTICIDE RECIPE: If you do organic
vegetable gardening without using any chemical
pesticides and fertilizer, you will certainly
realise the importance of these organic recipes,
especially if you do not have the universal
organic pesticide like the great neem oil.
Do not worry!, you can make a potent organic
pesticide using onion and other stuff.
- Take a Large Onion and drop it into a kitchen
blender
- 
Add 4 fresh cloves of garlic into this.
- Add 2 teaspoons of Red Chilli Powder.
- Add 1 teaspoon of Cinnamon Powder.
- Blend this into a fine paste by adding some
water.
- Now Add about 2 Cups of Water to this and
mix well and allow it to steep overnight.
- Then in the morning, strain out the liquid
using a nylon cloth or a fine sieve to get
your pesticide concentrate. You can store
this concentrate in refrigerator.
- To Apply as pesticide, Use it in 1:5 dilution
in water. That is to one cup of this pesticide
add 5 cups of water and most importantly do
not forget to add some 10 drops of liquid
detergent soap for the surfactant effect and
to coat the leaves and retain the pesticide
effect for longer time. Use this twice weekly
until all pests are eradicated. This will
successfully kill common pests like aphids,
mealybugs, whiteflies and many others.
2. ONION PEEL FERTILZIER: There are two methods
to make onion peel fertilizer, one is to boil
the onion peels for few hours in water and
the other method is to soak the onion peels
in water for 24 hours. Some do not recommend
boiling.
So, take 2 to 3 handfuls of onion peels and
drop in 1 litre of water and allow it to soak
for 24 hours.
After 24 hours, strain out the liquid and
use it as a liquid fertilizer. You can use
it without dilution or with further dilution
of 1:1 in water if you regularly fertilize
your plants. Use it once in 15 days to see
the effect in about 3 months.
1. ROOTING HORMONE RECIPE: Not really a rooting
hormone, but you can call it a rooting agent.
Onion due to its antimicrobial properties
and when mixed along with other stuff will
certainly improve the results of rooting your
plant cuttings. To prepare this:
- Take ¼ Onion
- Add ½ a Cup of Fresh Aloe vera Juice extracted
from a leaf.
- Add some cinnamon or willow bark into this
– Its better to have it Presoaked in a cup
of water for 24 hours.
- Now Add this cup to the blender and make
a paste or solution.
Then Strain out this liquid to use as as rooting
agent. Just dip the cuttings into this solution
or apply this with your finger and plant the
cuttings. You can watch a detailed episode
on the 10 natural rooting agents you can use
to add into this recipe or experiment this
recipe with more stuff. Check that out from
this end screen link circled right here!
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Happy Gardening!
