When you eat an apple, what do you do with your core?
When your baby only eats half of their food, what do you do with the leftovers?
When the spinach in the back of your fridge is found and slimy, what do you do with it?
If you grew up like me, then you are thinking of animals and compost. Growing up, it was a sin to throw away food. Why throw it away, if it can feed your animals and give you a beautiful garden? Here is the simplest way to do it:
Collecting your trash
Even in an apartment, my wife and I save all of our leftover and rotten food for the chickens or compost pile. Instead of throwing leftover or scrap food in the garbage, we collect it in a container. We’ve learned from experience to make sure the container has a lid because rotting food never smells good and will attract flies in your home. I take out our slop bucket every day or two and throw it in my chicken tractor. The chickens love it and always scamper back to the pen to eat it. It supplements my chicken feed.
A word of caution
To prevent cannibalism, I leave out any bones and chicken. I am sure you agree. I do however, put all their eggshells in the bucket. I crush the eggshells up so they can eat them. This is a great source of calcium for their diet. I have heard a myth that if you feed them their eggshells they will start eating their eggs. I’ve never seen this occur.
Compost pile
Chickens are great composters; they do all the work of mixing up the compost for you. If you are throwing slop to your chickens you might want to leave your chicken tractor stationary to build up the compost.
If you don’t have chickens, make a compost pile. You can easily fence in a little area with chicken wire and tee posts or build some bins out of wood. I have also seen people use barrels that you can put all your scrap in and tumble it easily.
Yard clippings
Your leaves, grass clippings, and plants can also add to your compost. Make sure to leave out the weeds. My parents have about a dozen Poplar trees that leave huge messes of leaves in their yard. Each fall my Dad (and whoever he can recruit) rakes them up and leaves them where he’ll be planting his garden the next spring.
Making the best of your compost
When you’ve made your collection of compost, wet it down a little and mix it up so it will start to burn. The end product should look black. Gardeners often call it black gold because it is gold to your plants. They thrive on it.
No regrets!
You will never look at your garbage the same again! Give yourself a beautiful garden and some well fed chickens instead of filling up your dumpster. You won’t regret it.
Authored by Steven Cooper Google
