We Buried Common Kitchen Scraps in the Garden and THIS Happened 🤯

What growing experiment should we try next?

An interesting experiment would be to do a second generation in those same holes with the now broken down dirt and see which does the best.

My grandmother each year would hoe a trough between the planted rows of her garden and each day put the kitchen waste in the row and cover it up. She would start at one end of the row and work her way to the other end of the row, hoeing as many rows as she needed each year, even during off seasons. The following year she would plant the seeds and plants in the isles where she had buried the kitchen waste the previous year. Where she had planted the garden the previous year she would there hoe her troughs in which she would bury the present years kitchen waste. She never used commercial fertilizers, and she never had a compost pile. She had no problem with insects, and her garden produced greatly. This was part of my grandmother’s Pennsylvania German ways that she taught me.

My brother regularly fished in the Pacific Ocean when we were teens in the 70’s (big fish 😳) After he cleaned them Dad buried the rest in Mom’s garden. You would not believe how productive that garden was 😊 She ended up winning a contest and appeared with her harvest in the local paper.

Just for info sake : my Grandparents had HUGE gardens my whole life, as long as they had their home together out in there City of Linden MI. It was known that the Veg. & Fruits: garden & trees, were basically my Grandfather's fare, with help from my Grandmother. The Flower gardens were only for my Grandmother to tend to. They equally managed the whole of their yard together. Neither the yard or the gardens.. ever had any form of Treatments. There were no weed killers or bug killers or commercial fertilizers ever used. My Grandpa tilled and cultivated the grounds throughout the season. When planting, he would initially before placing the plants or seeds ( seeds he kept from his produce - year after year ) put in his Compost MIX. That mix was everything chopped up and small. He had ; greens from the grass mowing, some leaves from their fruit trees, all the garden by product ( vines, leaves ,.. ) that showed no signs of spoilage or infestation of bugs, fruits and vegetables scraps, egg shells, coffee grounds AND Fish ( chopped up - from a WHOLE FISH ). The fish used were fresh, small and came right out of the lake from their back yard. They were Sun Fish and Blue Fish. Everything was chopped up small. All mixed in/together with tended to Compost of the same. They had the most Beautiful Gardens for years. Strawberrys, Raspberries, Purple Concord Grapes, 5 types, at least, of Tomatoes, Corn, many types of Peppers, Onions, Potatoes, Green Snap Beans, Eggplant..etc. for the vegetables. The trees were Black Walnut, Pear, and Apple ( Delicious) . Never have I seen more Fantastic gardens. Not a weed in sight !! Being with my Grandparents gave great fun and experiences. In my early years (8yrs. -- ) I started my own gardens with the knowledge I acquired from them. I had wonderful success with Vegetables gardens but no luck with flowers. I was successful with Shrubs and Trees. I guess I had my Grandfather's Green Thumb. He was a pure, ( so I was told by him and the family ) Full-Breed Indian. My mother was the one who handled growing flowers and definitely had the touch. Fish and Egg/Shells definitely work, but must be chopped up small. He used local, Small bred fish. I hope this helps. Best of luck in your business. I Love your tomatoes.... May GOD Bless you and the whole ( all employees ) of your business. Thank You for the productS AND the really cool video. 😊

My mom used to help get yards ready for Master Garden tours. At one of them she saw the best soil she'd ever seen and assumed the gardener used a lot of compost. When she asked her if that was the case, the gardener said she had never used compost and that the only thing she did to improve her soil was bury kitchen scraps. I've been burying kitchen scraps for years (just barely under the soil to not disturb it too much) and think the important thing is to bury them not at the time of planting but at the end of the season, so that they've broken down when it's time to plant. Sometimes in the fall in rows where I wasn't able to cover crop, I throw kitchen scraps on top of the bed and then cover them with a thin layer of leaves and/or straw.

I would have loved to see you guys taste test a tomato from each plant to see if you could tell a difference in their flavor too. Probably not a lot of difference but it makes me wonder. I think the lack of aphids on the Oxilis was the most interseting detail... a natural way to fight those annoying bugs!

This reminds me of something my grandfather told me about sixty years ago. He said, a plant will grow not because of what you do to it, it grows in spite of what you do to it.

Many years ago my neighbors (a married couple) in a community garden had a method that seemed to result in terrific rich soil and amazing veggie production. They would cut up their kitchen scraps and freeze them until they had enough to bury in a square foot or so of their garden. When they harvested a section, they would dig down several inches, bury the kitchen scraps, cover them back up, then NOT GARDEN THAT SECTION for a couple of months until all of the kitchen scraps had decomposed. One possibility for why Roma and Eggbert did the best is that Roma had nothing buried under it, and Eggbert had mostly broken eggs which would have decomposed very quickly. So the plants' roots weren't competing with the composting materials. All the goodies in the soil went to the plants, not to breaking down the compost materials. If you left those six areas alone for another year then planted out six more tomato plants, you might see different results, because all of the buried materials would have broken down.

After my Italian father harvested his crops in the fall, he would dig a trench of about 12 inches throughout the garden and throughout the winter he would add food scraps and just continue to add food scraps and cover up the trench. By the time he was ready to do his planting in the spring, everything was broken down, and his soil was ready to be planted. Obviously, that is the key to making sure that everything is broken down before you plant in it, otherwise the microbes breaking down those large items are robbing the plant of the nutrients that they need. Great experiment. Thanks for sharing.

A variable that wasn't tested was to make sure you had the same mass of additives to each plant and to emulsify to make sure you have the same surface area. There were WAY more fish heads than anything else and they were HELLA wet. I would happily redesign this experiment with you Kevin. It's literally my job lol

I use dried used coffee grounds, kitchen scraps' compost, and chicken pen cleanings on my gardens. The plants LOVE it. I do this all year-round.

I save my eggshells and break them down to almost a powder and some various sizes and mix it with my compost. I get so much tomatoes that I can eat exclusively from my raised beds for 6 months and still have plenty for my neighbors to help themselves to.

Only problem here is.... I was taught that burying food scraps was an off season thing; you do it at the end of the growing season to prepare the soil for the following spring.

Only Kevin and Jacques can react to broken down fish heads with the same awestruck ferocity of a twitch streamer and not be cringy while still being entertaining and educational 😂

I'd like to see the fish heads ground up for easier breakdown and see of it makes a difference with less surface area.

Basically you over fertilized your tomato plants. My native American ancestors would only use a half to one fish head per tomato or corn plant. Best use of kitchen scraps is to compost them ahead of planting season. Then mix in with your regular compost.

Absolutely fascinating. As an extremely lazy gardener, I feel vindicated after telling countless people on facebook that making all these crazy concoctions and teas and such is just too much work. Just compost the dang weeds. Just compost it all and be done with it.

This is the kind of content that I really love - side by side comparisons to test different methods. Coming from a coastal community with a strong fishing heritage, I can tell you that fish byproducts are definitely used to enrich the soil, but nobody is putting huge heaps of fish under each plant. Fish bones/scraps/entrails etc are dug into beds in the fall after harvest to allow them time to break down before spring planting, and this is done annually so the parts that take longer to break down have multiple season to finish the job.

Angela, in the 1950s and 1960s my dad got me and my two siblings up by 6am 6 days a week when school was out to work in the acre + of garden, or take us to our grandparents farm to work the gardens there! I was in 4-H also! As long as we have life we can be gardening somewhere, somehow, thus keeping connection with nature as we grow even a little food indoors/outdoors! I have found no matter where I am if I step out to do more, such as gardening, then God makes a way and opens doors for me to be able to garden more.