Are orange peels newsworthy? Read this and decide for yourself!

[CaliforniaPeggy]

A juice company dumped orange peels in a national park. Here's what it looks like now.

The rest at the link:

http://www.upworthy.com/a-juice-company-dumped-orange-peels-in-a-national-park-heres-what-it-looks-like-now

[RKP5637]

1. Wow, interesting! n/t

[logosoco]

2. That was very interesting!

I put my orange peels into the compost (and I eat a lot of oranges!). About every six weeks or so I put the peel from one orange into a jar with vinegar and use that for all my cleaning needs! It does seem to cut down on the vinegar smell!

[forgotmylogin]

22. Ooh, gonna do that.

I just started keeping a spray bottle of vinegar for certain cleaning issues. The foaming in combination with baking soda can eat heavy grease off of a pan. I'm gonna get some oranges and drop the peels in now. That sounds delightful.

[ornotna]

3. Cool story

Thanks CP.

[iluvtennis]

6. +++ agree

[leftstreet]

4. Bizarre!

How interesting

You always find the best stuff. Thanks for posting

[CaliforniaPeggy]

5. Thank you! I found it on Facebook.

I always try to bring stuff over that I suspect most people haven't seen yet.

[askyagerz]

7. I'm using all organic compost in my medical garden

I have rabbits and a worm farm to make the most amazing compost. Plus it really speeds up the break down process.

[WhiteTara]

14. we have rabbits but I can't determine what their great

contribution is to the scheme of things. They're cute, eat grass and hop around. The cats chase them. That's about it here.

[askyagerz]

20. Yep that sounds about right

If you're not a gardener then that's about all they're good for lol

[WhiteTara]

21. I garden. What am I missing?

[askyagerz]

25. Ok rabbit poop 101

You will need to compost it in some form. You can either do this by cutting it directly in your garden or raised beds about a month before you plant. Or you can throw it in with your compost pile or you can feed it directly to your worm farm and collect the castings. It will create some really nice compost that's high in nitrogen. Plus there is a compound in the alfalfa that that's really helps your plants absorb food

[WhiteTara]

29. Oh, You have home rabbits.

I have wild rabbits. I do get rabbit poop from a girl who raises them for 4H, but mine are just Bunny Fou Fous and they hop around at will.

[askyagerz]

32. I have a couple giant Flemish

They poop a lot and are fat and slow so are perfect lol. I also made a screened catcher so it holds the pellets but the urine goes through

[oneshooter]

39. Or you can make "rabbit tea"

A double handfull of droppings mixed in 5 gallons of water. Let set for 48hours in the sun then use a cup or so for each plant.

[askyagerz]

40. Yep forgot that one

Or if you feed it to your worms and then make castings tea. That stuff is like a plant super charger. Hits them with organic goodness really fast

[WePurrsevere]

27. Rabbit manure and gardening...

https://riseandshinerabbitry.com/2012/03/31/the-benefits-and-uses-of-rabbit-manure/

We don't have rabbits ATM but under where their housing was has the fastest growing greenest grass now. :-D

[WhiteTara]

28. Oh, I have wild rabbits.

They poop, but do it in the woods. lol

[WePurrsevere]

31. Well, that might make it a bit more difficult...

to collect the 'bunnie berries' for your garden... lol.

[dembotoz]

34. don't spose you can do the same with cat poop...got a surplus of that...

[eleny]

8. I've turned heavy Colorado clay to friable soil

Because regular composting methods don't work easily here in our arid climate I use an old blender to process vegetable clippings mixed with water. Dig a small hole and pour in the slurry and then cover it back over. Next time dug another hole nearby and repeated the process and on and on. It turned my worst patch of ground to lovely soil where so far we've grown grapes, strawberries, rhubarb and mint.

My mom used to do that in our yard in NYC where there wasn't room for a compost heap.

Thanks for posting, Peggy!

[Blue_true]

12. Very interesting concept.

I have done something similar in the past but I used peat moss. You idea certainly is less expensive.

[eleny]

15. And you know you're successful when the worms move in

[Blue_true]

16. Yep, that is the gold standard. nt

[LeftInTX]

9. Dispels the myth that large quantities of orange peels are bad for the garden!

I knew that small quantities were OK, but heard that large quantities were like walnuts.

Myth busted.

Thank you, California Peggy!

[Plucketeer]

10. We have about 40 different types of citrus trees

After reading this, I'm feeling good about all the peels (from when we juice fruits) and excess fruits that we always spread around on our acreage!

[RandomAccess]

11. Really interesting. But it makes me a little

cranky they couldn't point out that basically, this was compost.

[Blue_true]

13. Yep. When I first saw the article, I thought of how Florida orange farmers sold their

orange waste as cattle feed and pig feed. It makes excellent animal feed. The really heavy pulp was sold as land plaster (compost), before they realized that orange juice drinkers would pay extra for them to leave the pulp in the juice.

[montana_hazeleyes]

17. I really enjoy stories like this.

Thank you for posting them CaliforniaPeggy.

[Glimmer of Hope]

18. I dig it!

[packman]

19. Not what I expected (Ravaged land) -

Nice article. When I was growing up, my grandmother threw almost everything in the garden - coffee grounds, egg shells, stale bread, uneaten veggies- very little went into the garbage can. She grew some big tomatoes and some gigantic watermelons.

[dembotoz]

33. i do coffee grounds...don't know if it does any good but it makes me feel better

[packman]

36. Makes the ground slightly acidic

I worked grounds into the base of my blueberry bushes and had wonderful results - bumper crops and healthy bushes. Also great for hydrangea to get that deep blue color.
BTW - If there is a local coffee shop near you, they will often offer used grounds. Starbucks does this as a customer service.

[dembotoz]

38. live in a condo my garden area is quite small think my keurig makes all the ground it can handle

[spanone]

23. K&R...

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

24. I think about this so much.

Meanwhile, much of the world is awash in nutrient-rich food waste. In the United States, up to half of all produce in the United States is discarded. Most currently ends up in landfills.

Even in our small household, we produce a lot of vegetable waste. We compost. But, most don't. In the trash and to the landfill all their food waste goes.

We live in the woods and compost or otherwise use our fallen leaves in the garden. Most of our neighbors bag them and put them out for the trash truck. Then they go out and buy loads of MiracleGro.

It's so maddeningly wasteful!

[pat_k]

26. That's wonderful!

[Phentex]

30. I'm not on Facebook...

so thanks for posting this. Very interesting!

[CaliforniaPeggy]

37. You're so very welcome, my dear Phentex!

I know a lot of DUers aren't over there, and so that's why I bring these links over here.

[cwydro]

35. K and r! nt