Food Waste Reduction Challenge 2010

Thanks to Crunchy Chicken, I have a new incentive to better manage our food waste. This has been something that has always bothered me anyway. Having chickens to eat our leftovers has provided some relief from guilt, but even that is not the only solution. Although I would recommend getting chickens for this very reason. They are amazing little composters!

What does this have to do with gardening? Well, having grown our own food I realize the amount of money and work needed to get it from the garden to my table. If I factor in all of the elements that it takes to get food that I buy from a farm to a grocery store, and then my husband's wages to buy the food to feed us blows my mind. There has to be better management of our resources starting with ME. Our grandparents and great-grandparents were experts at this and its time to start looking back at their amazing skills.

Wasting anything seems to go against everything I work so hard for out in the garden and managing my animals. I try to make the most of all of our resources, using one's waste to fill a need in another area. i.e rabbit/chicken manure for garden, garden scraps for chickens/rabbits. It's a system where everyone benefits and it is a more sustainable one also.

For our food management, I started years ago to monitor our level of eating leftovers from a meal. We are not a family to have a different meal every evening. If there is still quite a bit of something in the refrigerator, we try to use it up before moving on to the next meal. It may not be the most EXCITING way to eat, but it is practical.

Here is some of the food we struggle the most with on wasting:

fresh produce (especially spinach, celery, lettuce)
sour cream
salsa (store bought)
cornbread
beans (cooked and in fridge)
rice
potato chips
bread (when it gets down to that last few pieces)
orange juice

I'm sure I could think of a few more if I really try. There are certain meals that I notice we eat better for leftovers than others, so I try to incorporate more of those meals into our weekly plan.


I cookbook I have that helps is:


It gives you ideas on what to do with common things you have to use up. My brain seems to shut off when I stare blankly into the refrigerator or pantry trying to come up with ideas on how to use up certain foods, so I can use all of the help I can get. This cookbook does just that. There are online recipe sites that you can plug in your ingredients and come up with something too. Try AllRecipes.com for some ideas.

Mudding in My New Wagon

Yippee, I got a brand new wagon and I'm really excited about it! After last week's muddy excursion of cleaning out the animal areas, I decided that it was time to give my back a break. We have been looking for something in our price range to haul mulch, brush, manure etc around. Pushing a wheelbarrow several trips across almost 2 acres sometimes makes me want to pass out when I go inside. Not that I dislike physical work, but if I can work smarter and not harder I will do it!

A couple of features we were looking for in particular were:

1) An interchangeable handle that could be pulled by hand or turned to attach to the back of our riding lawn mower. Have you seen the prices of the carts made for that? Wow! Some of them only have 2 wheels also.



2) We wanted one to have the ability to dump the contents easily. There is a lever on the front that pulls out and is fairly easy to lift it even when full. (I tried it out today with a full load of rabbit manure)

3) A solid shell just makes sense when trying to hall mulch and fine material. That is one feature about the other garden wagons I didn't like... metal mesh walls and floors.

4) Four large over-sized tires sure makes it easier to pull when you have so much mud to deal with now. My boots were sinking, but my wagon held its own on the way out to the vegetable garden.

We found this wagon at Lowe's.

See the mud we have now? And Spring hasn't even sprung!

How to Make a Self-Watering Container

I am always on the lookout for practical and frugal gardening ideas. I stumbled upon a few ideas that have gotten my garden creative juices flowing and I hope they will you too. I have three that I think are wonderful ideas to try. Here goes...

The video and directions for this self-watering container are well written and recorded. This made my imagination run wild over the possibilities of how I could apply it in other containers I already have here.

One thing I can tell you about gardening in Texas. One season you are fighting flood-like conditions and the next, drought. Summers here are hot and dry making it necessary to water your plants in containers once or twice per day. Now you can see why I jumped all over this idea when I found it!

I do have one reservation though and I need to do some research on it. The vinyl tile with what seems to be a glued surface on the back. I am concerned about chemicals leaching into the water, especially when our temps hit 100+ here. It may be perfectly safe, but I always err on the side of caution. I'm sure I can easily find a substitute for this when I think about it in depth. I just need to put on my thinking cap. Any ideas?

How to Make a Self Watering Container

Here is another do-it-yourself self-watering container. This one is based off of the design of an Earthbox(TM). I LOVE using totes for so many things, that this just seemed to be a natural pick for me also. The link I am including will direct you to a .pdf file website. (thus the download of it when you click on it) The pictures and instructions are well written, so you should be able to follow them easily.

I do have a concern about this one also if you live in a hot climate. Although most of us have PVC for water pipes, there has been concern that PVC may have the potential to leak harmful chemicals into the water. So, do the research yourself and do what you are comfortable with when building this. Of course PLASTIC itself has raised a lot of concern in recent years about how it affects our health. So, that said, I still think that all of these plans are worth trying even if you modify them to your standards of safety.

Here's the link to make your own: Self-Watering Tote

I really like the professional look of the next self-watering container. It is huge also! I believe the container is a 30+ gallon tote. This is a great size to grow tall vining plants such as tomatoes. The size of the base will help in keeping the plant from toppling over in windy conditions. The video and instructions are very well made also.

Welcome to Tomato Festival's EarthTainer(TM)

Hopefully this will give both of us some garden projects to do while the weather is cold and yucky. I am looking forward to getting started!