‘Brilliant’ 19p kitchen scrap to make plants ‘thrive’ – ‘deters rats and cats’

Fertilising the garden is one of the best things gardeners can do for it.

Proper fertilising leads to bigger blooms, more abundant harvests, and overall happier plants. However, good-quality fertiliser can be expensive.

Thankfully, gardeners have shared a kitchen scrap item that can be used to save money and reduce kitchen waste.

Kitchen waste is something everyone deals with, no matter how hard households try to eat everything before it goes bad. This is especially true when it comes to plant products.

To minimise waste, one gardener asked if she could use orange peels in her garden, what cannot be added in gardens, and whether they would benefit her plants.

READ MORE: ‘Cheap’ plants you need that ‘easily live for 50 years’ – no maintenance needed

Taking to the Gardening UK Facebook page, Angela Knight said: “Hi, I have a  few compost questions. Can I put orange peel in the compost bin? I eat loads of oranges but as I never knew if you could I tend to throw the peel away.

“I know you can’t put onions, cooked food and meat in, but is there anything else you shouldn’t put in the compost bin?”

Group members were all for adding orange peels in the garden. Louise Gallagher said: “I always add oranges and onion! Not had any problems.”

Mabel Walker commented: “I put all uncooked veg and fruit peel, onions and orange banana peel, buckets of unwashed seaweed in and shredded paper and cardboard.”

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Brian Corr wrote: “I have always put onions and also orange, lime and lemon peels in and it’s never been an issue for me. It’s helped my plants greatly and has deterred rats and cats from my garden.”

Cats are notorious for making gardens their litter box, but the strong scent of oranges is a fantastic and safe repellent for them.

Emma Kelsall said: “We put it all in our compost. The only thing I avoid is anything cooked.”

Chris Taylor commented: “Orange peel is brilliant to add to compost as it breaks down it releases phosphorus, nitrogen and potassium.

“Every plant needs as much of these nutrients as it can get to thrive. I put the skins of oranges in my compost every day. The family love fresh squeezed orange juice for breakfast.”

One of the best things gardeners can do with orange peels is add them to a compost pile. After two years the peels will start to decompose

They are high in nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus which, once broken down, make fertile soil for the garden.

As there are quite acidic, they are perfect for acid-loving crops such as potatoes, blueberries and azaleas.

Oranges are cheap to buy from local supermarkets as a pack of five retails for 95p at Tesco, Asda and Aldi. This works out as 19p per orange.

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