Kitchen scraps for the garden: use lemon or orange peel in many useful ways!

Whether you eat the wedges of an orange or tangerine, or if you want to squeeze out a lemon or lime to get the juice to season your cooking, (or for whatever need we have for citrus fruit in the kitchen), it is likely that we usually throw away their peels. However, these are organic waste products that we can use in many useful ways, at no cost and, above all, they are an environmentally friendly helping to do a host of chores, both at home and in the garden.

Below, we show some uses that could be useful in the care of the plants in your green areas, and in a completely eco-sustainable way:

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• Insect repellent: If you notice ants or gnats in the home or near the pantry, arrange bits of peel in their path and around the entrance to areas you want to protect. If the situation is not too bad, the smell of these fruits acts as a natural repellent.
• To add acid to the soil in the garden: some plants such as rhododendrons and azaleas love acidic soil, and you can use the peels as a natural corrector for the acidity of an alkaline heavy soil. You will need to dry the citrus peels out and then pulverize them into powder: this is what you will add to the soil. It is a natural remedy that you can perhaps repeat a couple of times a year, until you see positive results.

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• Ant repellant spray: cut the peels into small pieces and put them in a glass jar, then fill it to the brim with water. Keep everything in a dark and cool place for 3 or 5 days. With a sieve, strain the liquid to remove the peels, and put the liquid back into the same jar. At this point, add a teaspoon of molasses /syryp to the extract (there are those who use honey instead) and a drop of dish washing liquid. Close the jar and shake it up well: then pour (or spray, after having transferred into a spray bottle) on the access points that the ants use - or directly on them.
• As a container to germinate seeds: if you can cut the peel off in order to obtain a hemispherical shape, you can use it with some soil as a mini seedbed to germinate your seeds ... maybe the seeds from the plant you have used obtained the peel from itself!

Great job!