I’m pretty sure that I’ve been open about our patio composting before. As a container-gardening apartment dweller, it boils my buns to buy dirt, and I hate throwing away compost-able materials. We’ve been composting since winter now and it’s going well, but I’ve recently decided to take it a step further.

Now I keep my “compost bucket” on the counter (which gets emptied out every night) and another “pre-compost” bucket in the freezer. This is where I toss onion skins, potato peels, tomato cores and peels, etc. Once the bucket has filled, I dump it into a stockpot and boil it down to stock (I did this today in the same water that had just boiled whole-wheat pasta in for pasta salad). It smelled amazing. The kids kept asking when we were having soup. I explained it was for freezing to eat in the winter—it doesn’t seem like a good idea to eat soup when it’s 101 degrees outside.

I fetched out the scraps (cores of bell peppers, stems of tomatoes, onion skins, etc.) and put those into the “compost” bucket. Since the scraps are boiled, they’ll be easier for the worms to digest and won’t attract bugs to the compost nearly as much as fresh scraps.

I froze the stock in ice cube trays and turned the cubes into a freezer bag so that I can add them as needed (a few into pot-pie, or a few into some mashed potatoes for flavor or a whole bag for soup).

I’ve done this before—and I always keep meat juices—but I’ve gotten complacent about my veggie scraps. Now that it serves the dual purpose of stock for us and better food for the worm bin, it’s that much more attractive. Also, I had to develop a system for myself—keeping the scraps in the freezer until I have a “bucketful” is working!

This post is part of a series I’ve entitled “Frugal August” and is inspired by (though not copied from) the book The Complete Tightwad Gazetteby Amy Dacyczyn. My tips are meant to build on hers, but generally are not duplications.

IMAGE CREDIT: The Daily Green