Kitchen feed promotes beautiful blooms and ‘juicier crops,’ as well as deters ants

Something you have laying around your kitchen may also help your garden. 

There are several products out there that can deter pets, like certain herbs that mice hate. And you can keep slugs away by burying cans of beer in the soil. 

There’s one kitchen ingredient, however, that both deters ants and promotes a healthy garden. 

The item is molasses. The sticky sweetener has been known to work as a fertilser for plants because of some of its nutrients. 

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Molasses is the by-product of when sugarcane, grapes or sugar beets are beaten into sugar, according to Garden Know How. The liquid is full of vitamins and minerals, including calcium, magnesium, iron, and potassium. 

Those nutrients offer a quick source of energy, encouraging the growth of beneficial microorganisms.

Craig Morley, a gardening expert at Budget Seeds, told the GBN that plants can’t process the nutrients in molasses on their own, so they rely on those microorganisms in the soil.

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It also works as a chemical-free insecticide. The highly sugary substance can’t be adequately processed by ants and aphids. After just one bite of a plant fertilised by molasses, the insects will move on to more digestible plants. 

The best way to use molasses in your garden is to add it to organic fertiliser. Add 1 to 3 tablespoons of molasses to every 3.5 litre of fertiliser. 

It can also be diluted with water and sprayed directly on plants, or poured on the soil. 

To get juicer tomatoes, put molasses on the soil before planting the tomato seeds, Morely said.