Brewing Up A Tea Of Sea Kelp For Your Plants' Potassium Needs

You may be saying to yourself "Sea kelp! Where the heck am I going to find that?!" The thought of going for a swim in the cold pacific doesn't sound too great simply to be dragging in all the sea kelp you can get your hands on, fortunately it's a lot easier to find than that. Going to your nearest asian market should do the trick, most asian markets will carry all different kinds of brands and bags of this stuff. Usually sold dried, sea kelp looks like (pictured above).

There's two ways to dole out this potassium rich stuff, brew it up as tea or simply crush it and add it straight to the ground. For one reason or other I like to brew up a batch of sea kelp tea, I suppose my subconscious is telling me that liquid source of nutrients for plants get through faster, much like our own bodies, of course I haven't the slightest clue whether this is true. But this is how I do it.

I take three pieces of dried sea kelp and put it in a glass jar and fill it up with boiling water. The sea kelp hydrates and gets rather large so don't be fooled by your small shriveled pieces. Let the brewing sea kelp tea sit for a few hours to a day to fully cool down and when ready you can pour it straight into the ground or load a spray bottle with the home made tea and spritz it on the foliage of your plants.

Potassium in plants help to regulate photosynthesis and the intake of nutrients through-out the plant, it can also help plants through bouts of stress. Usually potassium deficient plants produce thin skinned, small fruit and the plant itself can exhibit a thin and weak appearance. What's more, sea kelp also contains iron (plus other minerals and vitamins!) which is needed for plants' chlorophyll production, iron-deficient plants' exhibit the production of new leaves that are yellow when they should be green.