UK households are being encouraged to stop throwing away eggshells and banana skins, as these common kitchen scraps can help gardens thrive. In the summer, adding food scraps directly to soil can be beneficial, as warm weather accelerates the breakdown of organic matter, feeding plants during hot, dry conditions. After months of scorching heatwaves, keeping garden soil healthy is crucial for many gardeners and homeowners.
Benefits of Kitchen Scraps
Millions of households are binning everyday food waste that can actually help flowers and plants grow. Instead of buying expensive fertilisers, keeping leftovers like coffee grounds, banana skins, eggshells, and vegetable peelings can boost soil health and encourage stronger growth. These scraps provide essential nutrients such as nitrogen, potassium, and calcium, and also nourish beneficial insects and worms.
Jane Fairlie, a gardening specialist from Doff Pelsis, partnered with Redrow to help homeowners create thriving front gardens. She explains: "Coffee grounds, banana skins, vegetable peelings and eggshells can all be placed around established plants to help encourage soil microbes to break down the skins and peelings, releasing essential nutrients."
Specific Benefits
- Coffee grounds: Add nitrogen to the soil and feed earthworms.
- Banana skins: Give plants a boost of potassium and phosphorus for strong roots.
- Eggshells: Break down slowly to give plants vital calcium.
- Vegetable peelings: Add rich organic matter as they break down.
How to Use Scraps Safely
However, just throwing scraps onto the soil can lead to bad smells, attract pests, and cause scraps to dry out in the heat. To use kitchen scraps safely in summer, bury them or handle them correctly. Before adding to garden beds, put them in a compost pile. Crush eggshells into a fine powder to speed decomposition, cut up banana peels and dry them before burying near roots, and mix coffee grounds thoroughly into the soil to prevent a hard crust.
You can create a hole or trench around eight to 12 inches deep, place scraps inside, and cover completely with soil. Alternatively, ferment scraps in a sealed indoor bin, then bury the pre-compost directly into garden beds. Another option is to blend fruit and vegetable scraps with water and pour the mixture onto the base of plants for quick absorption.
Important Considerations
When scraps haven't been composted yet, they can consume nitrogen while decomposing, so bury them about a foot away from roots of active plants. Coffee grounds, banana peels, eggshells, and vegetable scraps gradually enhance soil health, but they aren't an instant solution for plants stressed by a heatwave. After a heatwave, plants need careful watering and shade, while fresh kitchen waste must be broken down by microbes before nutrients are available.
