The Honest Garden From Kitchen Scraps To Garden Gold

By Joe Bond

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There’s something pretty special about taking something we would normally throw away and turning it into something useful.  

Long before The Honest Garden was growing fruit and vegetables out in Forrest Beach, I was teaching children in Sydney about the importance of looking after our environment.

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I loved nothing more than getting children outside and involved in the garden. We had recycling programs, composting, a kitchen-to-garden food cycle, vegetable patches and even a little weekly mini vegetable stall. The children would collect food scraps, learn about what could be composted and watch as their waste slowly transformed into something that could feed the garden.

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There was something wonderful about seeing the excitement on their faces when they realised that the food scraps they had once thrown in the bin could actually help grow more food.

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Compost is simply organic material that has broken down over time.

With the right balance of materials, moisture and air, these ingredients slowly break down and become a dark, crumbly material that can be added back into the garden.

The trick is to have a balance of what we call “greens” and “browns”.

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Greens, such as fresh food scraps and grass clippings, provide nitrogen. Browns, such as dry leaves and cardboard, provide carbon. Together, they help create the right conditions for the composting process.

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If your compost starts to smell or becomes soggy, try adding more dry leaves, shredded cardboard or other brown materials. Turning the compost helps introduce air and keeps things moving.

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A good compost pile should be damp, like a wrung-out sponge, but not soaking wet.

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Happy composting, everyone!

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