Learn how to make Homemade Plant Food for Orchids with ingredients present in your home or kitchen and make them grow healthy and beautiful!
These Homemade Plant Food for Orchids are easy to make and will help you to keep these beauties thriving with beautiful colors!
Check out our article for making DIY orchid potting mix recipes here
Homemade Plant Food for Orchids
1. Water Soluble Fertilizer
This fertilizer is an excellent nitrogen source and can be used as an alternative for regular watering once every month. Have a look below:
Recipe: Pour leftover black coffee or tea into a jug, mix four times water, and 1 teaspoon of apple cider vinegar. Store this solution in an airtight container but don’t refrigerate. It can be stored for 5-7 days. Water your orchids with this solution in place of regular watering once a month and watch them turn lush green with more flowers!
2. Granular Fertilizer
You can apply this nitrogen-rich food once a month in orchids for complete nutrition filled with extra phosphorous and calcium.
Recipe: Mix 2 cups bonemeal, 2 cups cottonseed meal, and 2 cups wood ashes in a bowl. Apply 3 tablespoons of this mix in the orchid mix once every 2-3 months. You can store the remaining mixture in an airtight container.
3. Eggshell Foliar Fertilizer
You can use this on the orchid foliage for giving them a dose rich in nitrogen, potassium, and calcium.
Recipe: Soak the 12 eggshells overnight, and grind them in a grinder or a mortar and pestle. Add this powdered eggshell mix in 1 quart of boiling water in a saucepan. Strain the solution into a clean spray bottle and spray on the orchids once in 10-14 days.
We have a great article on using eggshells in the garden. Check it out here
Other Homemade Fertilizer Recipes
4. Potato or Rice Cooking Water
Both potatoes and rice cooking water has calcium and potassium. Additionally, rice water also contains vitamin B. You can keep the water in a refrigerator after cooking or boiling potatoes and rice.
Before use, take out the water from the refrigerator and allow it to reach room temperature. Use this liquid meal once every 3-4 weeks on your orchids for greener leaves and fuller blooms.
5. Using Epsom Salt
For feeding your orchids with a magnesium-rich diet, mix a teaspoon of Epsom salt in 2 quarts of water. Soak the roots of the orchid in the solution for 10-20 minutes. You can do this once every 3-4 months.
Note: Avoid using scented Epsom salts sold for body wash or spa; instead, use the ones sold in the gardening section of home improvements stores and hardware section.
Here are some excellent uses of Epsom salt in the garden
6. Molasses
Mix two teaspoons of molasses in a gallon of water and use it to water your plants. It will give a much-needed dose of potassium to the orchids. It is commonly used in horticulture and aids in flower blooming.
7. Cow’s Milk
Cow’s milk is excellent to fight fungal diseases, which orchids are prone to. Dilute 1 part of milk to 4 parts of water and use it on your plants once every 2-4 weeks. It is a great source of calcium and nitrogen-building protein that aids in the plant’s overall health.
Pro Tip: Flush the used milk carton with water and use it on your orchids.
I will try today ,after month I will be here again
Is the cow`s milk fertiliuzer to be poured on the roots or sprayed on the leaves?
Most of this is really bad advice. Spraying almost anything on the waxy leaves or orchids, will ensure that you have spots on the leaves – but it isn’t going to take any significant nutrients in through leaves. It will just get nutrient run-off at the roots (where nutrients belong) the next time it gets watered. Bonemeal has no place in potted plants. It’s useless, as it won’t break down in a period of time that’s useful to the plant. In soil (the earth, not a container) there is a huge biomass, with sufficient surface area for the amount of biological colonization that facilitates this type of organic decomposition. This is even more true with eggshells, whose calcium isn’t readily available to plants. It needs to be unlocked through a neutralization process. Molasses, milk, epsom salt? Come on… You don’t just willy-nilly add things that you don’t know if you need, or not. Finally, Potassium is not a mobile nutrient. It is stored in the xylem from the time the plant begins growing, and only gets used when the plant flowers. You don’t need to dose potassium to orchids! Almost all of this is old wive’s tales. People do these silly things, because it worked for someone, somewhere, and now, “that’s how we’ve always done it”. The number one factor for growing orchids, beyond all argument – is the environment that you provide. Given that, the additional resources that they require, is almost zero. I am a year round, outdoor orchid grower. I give my orchids absolutely nothing but rainwater. And to think that you can influence growth by these tricks, is patently false. Fertilizing should only be done when absolutely necessary. More of something does not equal “more better”. Plants can only use the amount of nutrients that they absolutely need (because they have a limited number of ion receptors on their roots). If you get an immediate reaction from a fertilizer or some other “trick”, it’s not because that thing influenced the plant – it’s because there was a deficiency that existed, and the plant responded to the correction.
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Most of this is really bad advice. Spraying almost anything on the waxy leaves or orchids, will ensure that you have spots on the leaves – but it isn’t going to take any significant nutrients in through leaves. It will just get nutrient run-off at the roots (where nutrients belong) the next time it gets watered. Bonemeal has no place in potted plants. It’s useless, as it won’t break down in a period of time that’s useful to the plant. In soil (the earth, not a container) there is a huge biomass, with sufficient surface area for the amount of biological colonization that facilitates this type of organic decomposition. This is even more true with eggshells, whose calcium isn’t readily available to plants. It needs to be unlocked through a neutralization process. Molasses, milk, epsom salt? Come on… You don’t just willy-nilly add things that you don’t know if you need, or not. Finally, Potassium is not a mobile nutrient. It is stored in the xylem from the time the plant begins growing, and only gets used when the plant flowers. You don’t need to dose potassium to orchids! Almost all of this is old wive’s tales. People do these silly things, because it worked for someone, somewhere, and now, “that’s how we’ve always done it”. The number one factor for growing orchids, beyond all argument – is the environment that you provide. Given that, the additional resources that they require, is almost zero. I am a year round, outdoor orchid grower. I give my orchids absolutely nothing but rainwater. And to think that you can influence growth by these tricks, is patently false. Fertilizing should only be done when absolutely necessary. More of something does not equal “more better”. Plants can only use the amount of nutrients that they absolutely need (because they have a limited number of ion receptors on their roots). If you get an immediate reaction from a fertilizer or some other “trick”, it’s not because that thing influenced the plant – it’s because there was a deficiency that existed, and the plant responded to the correction.
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Thank you , I am new to orchid growing and was getting over whelmed with the stuff that was coming out.