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Why I won't be fertilising plants with milk, despite what Tiktok says

Social media is adamant that you can fertilise your houseplants with milk, but I'll be saving mine for a hot drink, says James Wong

By James Wong

5 June 2024

Fresh milk in jug on green nature background

Ekaterina savyolova/Getty Images

If you are a gardener who has been on any social media platform in the past five years, you will have seen them: extolling the virtues of using milk as a magical ingredient to transform the health of your houseplants. Now, you don’t have to be a botanist like me to think this might not be the best idea. But science is all about trying to stay as objective as possible, so I decided to comb through the evidence to challenge my preconceptions.

Given how many times I have seen this idea circulate online, I have yet…

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