After putting such love, time and effort into growing your edibles it would be such a shame to see them go to waste. Yet so much of our food gets thrown away. According to the ABC’s War on Waste program, the average Australian family throws out over $3,500 worth of food each year. Now, if you’ve been growing your own food then that cost will be less, but it is still a tragic waste. Even worse is the fact that this ends up in land fill where, rather than breaking down to feed the soil and plants, they become anaerobic and let off greenhouse gasses.
Thinking carefully about what we reduce, reuse and recycle will enable you to save money whilst caring for our environment. It can also produce some great supplies for the plants and animals in your backyard. Many of those scraps are prefect treats for worms, chickens and other backyard animals. The rest can be used to make fertiliser – saving you costs and putting some of the nutrients you harvested from the garden right back into it.
For some great ideas on how to do this check out this video of a workshop we ran during the 2020 Virtual Trail on reducing household waste and see how one family uses this approach to help their edible garden thrive.
For more workshops like this one and the opportunity to see a range of edible gardens across Sydney, make sure to come along to our next trail or follow us on social media.
