Folks pay good money for fish emulsion fertilizers. Myself included and for good reason. Plants thrive on it. Yet here I stand at the kitchen sink, preparing to throw my stinky shrimp boil garbage away, and then buy someone else’s. As I am cheap, this kinda makes me go hmmmmm.
Shrimp peels and heads contain calcium, Nitrogen, Potassium, and Phosphorus, all of which are a dream come true for your garden fare. I haven’t tended to compost anything except what my mom used to call “live garbage.” You know, coffee grounds, old lettuce, shriveled carrots, etc. I’ve avoided adding non-veg material due to attracting vermin and smelling to high heaven, but I know that’s how it works in the natural world. It’s true recycling that actually works.
I want to use ALL my kitchen waste. Easy for me, though. I’ve got a huge yard. I can tote smelly things far away. What about someone who lives in a small yard or even no yard at all? Composting should be for everybody, from the true farmer all the way to the high-rise apartment dweller.
To avoid odor and pest attraction, Rinkesh Kukreja, the creater of the award-winning Comserve Energy Future blog, suggests a couple of ways to handle it.
To compost them the traditional way, you’ll want to place them down in the middle of the compost heap and ensure lots of additional matter is placed on top.
But for those without a large compost pile to lean on, boil, dry, and then crush them into a powder before applying them to the garden or potted plants. The nutrients will break down and feed more quickly with this method. This sounds great, but I want to give it a try.
I boiled all the peels and heads in water for an hour or so, then drained the liquid and spread them out to dry.
Once dry, the brittle, papery peels were easily crushed into powder, and it wasn’t a smelly process at all. I used my blender, but a food processor would do just as well.
I plan to treat my tomatoes to this lovely powder. I’ll let you know if we see good results in a future post.