2 useful Kitchen to Garden tips

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I find it hard to throw out my kitchen scraps into the rubbish bin. Why? Because kitchen scraps are an awesome source of organic matter that can help us build nutrient rich compost for plants at home. Now if you are trying to grow food on a balcony, your garden, in the city or on a degraded piece of land, good compost is essential. Compost will provide the microbes and nutrients your plants need, help regenerate otherwise low quality soil and even manage water absorption in your soil.

Behind the benefits of kitchen scraps for your compost heap is the alarming rise of waste making way from our homes to the landfills. Knowing what I know today about composting. I struggle with throwing kitchen waste out and allowing it to heap and become useless in our landfills.

And so I find myself using most of my kitchen waste to make compost for my balcony food garden. Here is a list of scraps from my kitchen that goes into the compost bin instead of the rubbish bin:

• Fruit and vegetable peels and scraps,
• Stale bread and rice,
• Grated coconut,
• Egg shells,
• Tea leaves and coffee grounds,
• and other non cooked plant based kitchen waste.

If you have not started composting you can find some pointers from my piece on composting on my balcony here. Composting is a science, a simple one and there are numerous how to guides online so I will not get into the details in this piece. But a good variety of materials in your compost pile generally means you will have the different nutrients required by your plants (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, microbes) and that is why your kitchen scraps make good compost material.

Here is a picture of my compost cooking on my balcony.

2. Kitchen blended pest repellant

I learnt about this method from Theeban Gunasekaran. I was thrilled. As he was telling me about this I remembered I already had this mix in my fridge. And I am sure many South Asian and South East Asian kitchens may have this natural solution ready in their fridge or pantry:

A ginger, garlic, onion, chilli blend.

Every couple of weeks or so I make a big blend of the above paste for curries, sambals and marinades. This saves me loads of time when I cook during the week. Essential for any of us keeping a hectic schedule and wanting to still have home cooked meals most nights. I keep the paste in an air tight container with a layer of cooking oil on top of it to keep any oxidation from happening.

I now also use this paste to repel pests from my balcony garden. It worked in getting rid of the milibugs that attacked my Mulberry plant. I usual add 1 tablespoon of this concoction to 500ml of water and a couple of tablespoons of non-harsh dish washer liquid and spray the plant. Try paying more attention behind the leaves that is where the pests tend to hang out.

Surely there are many more kitchen to garden remedies and I will be trying and on the look out for them. Try the suggested ideas above and tell me what you think.