Some Councils are looking at introducing green bins for their residents. These bins will serve the purpose the same way your current recycle ones do – separating items that can be reused in some fashion rather than it going into the landfill. In this case, green waste.
That might be fine and dandy if you live in an inner suburb in a major metropolis. If you live in a house that has a big garden or like me, you have a hobby farm – then why pay to have this valuable stuff to be taken away? You can use it all yourself – and I do mean all!
On my farm I get five main kinds of green waste:
- Kitchen scraps: Fruit peels, old bread, vegetables my children once again refused to eat at dinner.
- Garden waste: Plant and bush pruning’s, mowed grass clippings.
- Wood waste: Fallen branches, tree pruning’s.
- Weeds: Milk thistle etc from garden beds, bindi-eye and so forth on bare ground.
- Animal Waste: Not their actual waste, more used straw from bedding.
Well all of this can be reused and put to use on your property, so much so that it will can reduce your costs in other areas such as buying compost or animal feed. Here are the various ways I use all of the above in a Permaculture fashion.
Use 1: Compost
Every good gardener should have some compost heaps. I will be doing an in-depth look at composting on my blog soon but until then here is a rough guide to what you can and can’t put of your green waste in there.
Yes to:
- Fruit peelings
- Vegetable peelings
- Grass clippings
- Egg shells
- Small twigs
- Soiled straw animal bedding (including all poop, feathers and hair)
No to:
- Citric fruit (oranges, lemons etc – put them at the base of your trees)
- Weeds
- Grass with root systems
Use 2: Animal tucker
Different animals will like different foods and what you can reuse depends on the animals you have. If you own omnivores like pigs you can give them most anything. Sadly I don’t but here are the animals I do have and what green waste I give them
- Chickens: My chickens will happily gnaw down on kitchen waste that hasn’t fully been used up. This means things like corn cobs with some kernals still on them, watermelon rinds with some fruit left, half eaten stone fruit and any and all bread scraps.
- Ducks: My ducks love leafy food so wilted spinach leaves, old silverbeet plants, browning lettuce and so on go to them to fill their tums.
- Goats: Goats aren’t omnivores but when it comes to plants they are close. To my goats go things like grass (not mowed, it can knot in their stomachs), leafy tree branch pruning’s, most weeds (prickly is fine – ones with actual prickles such as bindi eye and three-corner jacks no) and clippings from bushes such as roses.
Use 3: Firewood
Those big trees you cut down? Chop’em up! Those big branches you cut down? Strip the smaller stuff off them and cut into the sizes you need. Come next winter you wont by buying a single bag of kindling because you will have all you need! Of course, if you own a woodchipper (which sadly I don’t) you can always turn your wood into mulch.
Step 4: Bonfire
All other green waste that you can’t use in the previous three ways put on your bonfire pit. Whats that you say? Burning them is bad?! It releases smoke into the atmosphere? Well it’s a trade off. Yes you are releasing a bit of smoke but its smoke from plants, not harsh chemical smoke. And instead of all that otherwise unusable green waste going into landfill you are burning it off and getting something great in return – ash! Ash is awesome stuff! All compost heaps love a bit of ash! You can brush ash onto your plants to get rid of small bugs and onto your chooks to get rid of mites. And all that leftover ash can go around the bases of your trees – they will love you for it!
So don’t let your green waste go to waste. It’s just too useful in too many ways. Do yourself and the environment a favor. It’s truly a case of – if done correctly – everyone wins!
