Saturday, March 10, 2012

High Demand on Kitchen Scraps

      Between recycling and composting, we have drastically reduced the amount of waste we produce as a family.  We've also increased the number of waste containers we have in our kitchen.  First it was just regular recycling, special plastics, a compost bucket on the counter, and our regular trash can.  Then we started giving some of the kitchen scraps to the chickens - which is probably why they've grown so monstrous, as some of you mentioned recently. 

       So then, in addition to the compost bucket on the counter, we also had a chicken scraps bucket.
       Then we started re-growing veggies from some of our scraps.  Remember that?  Then we had the two buckets on the counter and the windowsill lined with little cups of kitchen scraps.

       Well, I recently read a blog about making your own veggie broth out of kitchen scraps.  What an excellent idea!  Especially when we go through at least 2 - usually 3 - containers of veggie broth a week.  But there is one thing stopping me:

       Another bucket!  And having to prioritize my kitchen scraps!  Regrow? Boil for broth? Chickens? Compost? Of course, the stuff used for broth can still go to the chickens and compost afterward.  But seriously, it's a little silly to have to put that much thought into kitchen scraps!

      The first solution has been moving the compost into the back yard where the chickens can get to it.  So now all the scraps go there, and the chickens can take what they want and the rest just stays in the pile.  And deciding what to regrow is easy: if it will regrow, we regrow it. 

      So I guess my pan now is just to start diverting things from the compost into the freezer to become broth.  To make in all my spare time.  HA!

       In our house, kitchen scraps have become a high demand commodity, and I absolutely love it that way.

All but one of these plants was re-grown from kitchen scraps.

3 comments:

Diandra said...

I was going to make some kind of veggie broth-like seasoning this week, from vegetables scraps chopped and mixed with salt... and I would love to have a compost, if I had a place for it. Supposedly there are smell-free options (we are living in a flat, fourth floor, small balcony), I may look into this one (if I can convince the BF).

Kyria @ Travel Spot said...

That's awesome. I am all for composting or feeding the chickens or making broth! We don't make broth, but we do compost and recycle and it really amazes me how little actual trash we generate. Most of it is recyclable or compostable! Bravo for doing your part!

Karen M. Peterson said...

I think this is so great. I wish more people made these kinds of efforts. If I had a house and yard, I'd definitely be composting and regrowing things.