Save The Seed: A Small Step towards Sustainability
Following up on our series on Zero-Waste Lifestyle, this blog talks about creating treasure from the kitchen trash. Remember! Refuse, Reduce and Reuse before Recycling. ‘Save The Seed’ is one such way that could lead to maximum utilization and zero waste. Designed for the urban gardener, the seeds from your chopped vegetables and waste from your kitchen can help you deck up your terrace garden. Read on to see how to do it:
Don’t throw the seed
While cooking vegetables like pumpkin, squash nuts or other big seeded vegetables, don’t throw the seeds away. Rather save, clean and dry those seeds. You can follow the same process for fruit seeds too.
Germination
These seeds are now ready to be germinated. There are two ways to do Germination:
- Without soil: Take few layers of tissue paper, damp them, keep the seeds inside and place it in an air-tight plastic.
- With soil: Use your broken egg shells, clean them put some soil in and sow your seeds. The eggshells have lots of nutrition that can help in healthier germination. You can also use egg trays as seed starters.
Healthy Saplings
Once the seeds have germinated, and first leaves have grown, you can transfer these small seedlings into your plastic kitchen containers that would have otherwise gone into trash. These containers prove to be a good alternative to planters, thereby reducing the need to buy new planters.
Replant into ground/ bigger pots/ share
Once these seedlings grow into healthy saplings or even small plants, you can re-pot these into bigger pots or ground to let them grow into a fruiting plant. These saplings are responsible gifting options and can promote sustainable habits.
Composting/ Plant Nutrients
Other than seeds, kitchen waste can be used for home composting. While onion and banana peels supplement the much needed Potassium and Nitrogen for plants, crushed eggshells can supplement Calcium and is a good bone-meal alternative to plants.
