Composting kitchen scraps saves landfill space while providing plants with valuable nutrients. The cold method requires layering brown and green materials in an aerobic chamber for six to twelve months until complete composting occurs.
Winter weather often leaves landscapes looking grey; add some color with golden plants like Dryopteris wallichiana ‘Jurassic Gold.’ This native fern adds an instant splash of gold sparkle.
Vegetable Scraps
All those carrot tops, onion skins, and wilted herb stems you would normally throw away can actually have a new purpose: homemade veggie broth! Repurposing vegetable scraps makes an economic base for numerous soup and stew recipes; alternatively, you could include other bits such as broccoli stems, shiitake mushroom caps, or asparagus ends to give it even more depth of flavor with minimal effort required to prepare it.
Make the best vegetable broth using slightly past-their-prime vegetable scraps by incorporating bay leaves, whole black peppercorns, and parsley or thyme for extra flavoring. Combine your scraps and simmer them together for 30 minutes to create delicious homemade vegetable stock that you can enjoy now or freeze to use later!
Your homemade vegetable broth can also be used in soups and sauces or added to hearty dishes like risotto. Freeze leftovers in ice cube trays so they’re always on hand when an instant soup boost is needed, or turn leftovers into vegetable chips if that suits you better. Adding the crisp, refreshing taste of fresh vegetables makes a wonderful snack—saving kitchen scraps from landfills!
Composting can be another fantastic way to use your scraps and avoid landfills while simultaneously producing an amazing compost for your garden. Save up your vegetable scraps and combine them with decomposed leaves, paper, or cardboard pieces before turning the pile every week—you will soon have some of the highest-grade compost available on the market!
Fruit Scraps
Food scraps, grass clippings, and leaves provide rich organic matter for soil. Composting reduces waste while enriching the environment with rich nutrients for plant life to thrive. Furthermore, this practice protects healthy soil from pathogens infiltrating it and infecting fresh produce with pathogens that could otherwise contaminate fresh produce.
All pieces of vegetables and fruit, minus seeds that might germinate, should go into your compost bin to be turned into nutrients for garden plants. Keep the pile damp but not soggy while regularly turning it to provide airflow to decomposing bacteria that break down materials more rapidly; poorly ventilated piles allow anaerobic microbes to take over faster.
An effective way of turning kitchen scraps into soil amendment is with a compost bin at home or starting a simple compost heap outdoors in an easily accessible spot. Layer your pile with brown matter such as dry leaves and newspaper clippings (shredded newspapers are ideal), coconut coir (which serves as an organic soil replacement), fruit scraps, vegetables, and coffee grounds while keeping moisture levels even. A layering system will bury and moisten scraps while producing rich vermicompost or “black gold,” which mini compost or “black gold.”
Suppose you need more time to maintain your compost pile. In that case, commercial options for collecting residential kitchen scraps, such as Buncombe County’s yard waste pickup and curbside pickup programs, are available. In some areas, there may also be private subscription services that provide garbage collection, recycling collection, or kitchen scrap collection services. Or, make your worm bin with red wiggler worms so that the scraps become nutrient-rich fertilizer for your gardens!
Coffee Grounds
Coffee is the world’s favorite drink, and if used appropriately, it produces copious amounts of grounds that can enrich soil, feed compost worms, and deter pests.
Coffee grounds contain essential nutrients like nitrogen and potassium that can make an incredible difference for plants and compost. Furthermore, their addition helps improve acidic soil conditions’ texture and water-holding capabilities.
Put coffee grounds in the compost pile, but keep their proportion below 20% of the overall mix. Too many grounds could hinder good microbes from breaking down organic matter in your compost. Their best application might be gardening: sprinkle around plants like indoor and outdoor potted plants as well as fruit trees for increased mineralization in alkaline soil environments, like tomatoes, squash, and eggplants that thrive there.
Coffee grounds can also be used as an effective natural insecticide by creating a diluted solution and spraying it onto plant leaves as an insecticide spray. Coffee grounds contain compounds that repel pests like snails and slugs from your garden plants.
Beyond coffee grounds, other materials that can be added to a compost pile include grass clippings, shredded leaves, paper and cardboard scraps, egg shells, stale bread crusts, and nutshells. However, meat or fish scraps, dairy products, diseased plants, or grease should be avoided, as these can produce unpleasant odors that deter worms from working their magic in the bin. Also, it would be unwise to add washed kitchen scraps as these may contain germs that spoil the compost bin’s effectiveness.
Tea Bags
If you enjoy drinking tea, save the used bags instead of tossing them away as trash. They contain organic matter that provides your plants with essential nourishment to stay healthy, such as nitrogen and tannic acid; both work to form rich soils for your garden’s growth.
As part of your efforts to reduce landfill waste, food scraps can be added to a backyard compost pile or used with an indoor home composting appliance. Some cities offer curbside collection for this waste stream, while many communities provide food scrap bins or community-based food waste recovery programs for more straightforward disposal of scraps.
Apart from creating rich soil, kitchen scraps can also help combat plant disease and pests by deterring their return. You can even make homemade insecticides out of onion and garlic skins to spray on pests like aphids – best done by mixing these scraps with water first to avoid contamination! For the sake of safety, compost your scraps before spraying on pests like aphids! To prevent contamination of our environment and save resources for later, it is advisable to compost your kitchen scraps first to avoid contamination – best done before spraying against their return! To prevent contamination of our planet Earth’s resources, it is recommended that kitchen scraps first go back into our Earth’s ecosystem – creating rich soil.
Growing delicious and nutritious greens and herbs that are good for you, the environment, and your wallet is easy as part of your waste reduction effort. Garlic and onions are excellent options because you can plant their bulbs just below the ground in containers filled with moistened potting soil; within several weeks, these pungent kitchen scraps will sprout and be ready to harvest and add to salads and stir-fries! For optimal health care, use a slow-release fertilizer that promotes root development for continued harvests!
Egg Shells
Egg shells contain calcium carbonate, an essential nutrient for plants and bones. Furthermore, eggshells contain organic matter, such as proteins, which will provide a beneficial amendment once broken down.
Eggshells can be added to a compost bin alongside other waste, such as leaves and kitchen scraps, for an organic fertilizer that will benefit your garden. Unfortunately, rotting eggshells may attract rodents or flies into your compost heap, so for maximum effectiveness, it is wiser to crush them first before incorporating them into the pile.
If you can’t wait for your compost pile to be complete, eggshells are an effective natural plant starter for seeds such as tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, squashes, and beans. Mix some potting soil, seed packet germination instructions, and crushed eggshells with some crushed eggshells before sowing or planting your seeds.
On a related note, do not eat raw eggshells because they may still contain bacteria such as Salmonella, Campylobacter, Clostridium, E. coli, and coliforms that could make you sick. Instead, give the kids an Easter decoration craft project or use them as rainy-day activities!
Using kitchen scraps to grow vegetables, herbs, and flowers at home is an easy and economical way to save money while teaching children about sustainable living. Take these simple steps to transform kitchen waste into seasonal garden gold for fresh flavors from homegrown produce! For even more ideas for repurposing household items, join our free Kids Garden Community and share ideas while sharing experiences, connecting, exploring opportunities, asking questions, and learning with fellow educators and parents just like yourself – sign up now and discover gardening resources, funding sources as well as gardeners just like yourself! Join now and start reaping the fresh flavors of homegrown produce!