I fed my tomatoes to boost fruiting with 90p kitchen essential

Gardening: Homebase shares tips to help grow tomatoes

Compared to many plants, tomatoes require a lot of nutrition to grow healthy and produce fruit throughout the season.

There are lots of ways to feed tomatoes, including granule feeds or liquid, depending on what you prefer.

If you would rather not use these types of fertilisers all the time however, coffee granules are a great, natural way to create a good soil for the plants to thrive in.

While this should only be done in moderation, the coffee can provide lots of nutrients for the plant including nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium as well as micronutrients like boron and calcium.

Coffee granules are also acidic, making them the ideal pH range for tomatoes which will help them thrive.

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It can also help to keep pests away including squirrels who hate the scent of the drink as well as make it hard for slugs to travel.

After researching a few different methods and looking through my kitchen cupboards to see if I already had anything I could use, I pulled out coffee grounds from the back of my cupboard.

What’s more, plants including tulips and roses can actually benefit from being fertilised with coffee grounds as they contain nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.

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To feed my tomatoes, I quickly sprinkled some coffee onto the soil before patting it to be absorbed.

Any cheap coffee grounds will work the same, but I used what I had in the cupboard, which was Nescafe’s Gold Blend, which cost me £3.65.

After sprinkling all of my plants which will like coffee, I only used a quarter of the coffee grounds, meaning each time I sprinkle them onto the soil, it will cost around 90p.

This is much cheaper than buying pre-made food, and is great to use in moderation, which is key.

Other ways coffee can be used in the garden includes compost. When mixed with leaves or sawdust, compost made with coffee can help to fight off tomato fungal diseases.

It can also be used as a mulch, or as a liquid fertiliser when mixed with lots of water to make it weak.

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