Enhance your garden with organic fertilizer - made in the Vita-Mix 5000!


Why pay for expensive chemical fertilizers and pesticides when you can use your Vita-Mix 5000
to compost kitchen leftovers into effective organic soil conditioners.

How To Puree Kitchen Leftovers In The Vita-Mix Super 5000

For Use As Organic Fertilizer And Soil Conditioner. Pouring pureed kitchen "trimmings" into the soil is a form of slow composting. It is generally agreed that “cold” (slow) composting produces more microorganisms in the soil and retains more nutrients compared to “hot” (fast) composting. “Hot” composting kills weed seeds and “cold” composting allows them to flourish, but leftovers “cold” composted the Vita-Mix Super 5000 way don’t have any weed seeds at all. Of course, more microorganisms in the soil make nutrients more plentifully available to the plant’s root system. Fruits and vegetables also provide more trace elements to the soil than regular compost.

A Word Of Caution

Reserve and keep separate a second wet blade container to recycle leftovers, or make pesticides and cold compost
for your garden. Do not use the same container for preparing food for human consumption.

Question: What can I puree in my Vita-Mix Super 5000?
Answer: Any of your food leftovers – pancakes, egg shells, potato peels, vegetables, orange peels, stale bread, coffee grounds. A family of 3 adults was found to generate about 5 pounds of usable table scraps each week. Though some garbage disposals say not to grind certain things – cut up banana peelings, celery stalks, pineapple tops, cantaloupe and watermelon rinds – all these things can be pureed in your Vita-Mix Super 5000.

The specially engineered blade tips rotate at 240 m.p.h. – that’s faster than disposal blades. This means that the Vita-Mix Super 5000 smashes leftovers into millions of tiny little pieces in just seconds! Periodically go through your vegetable bin and process in the Vita-Mix Super 5000 all the food you would normally throw out – wilted vegetables, stale bread, etc. These can all be pureed in the Vita-Mix Super 5000 and turned into organic fertilizer and soil conditioner. In short, scrape all your leftovers into the Vita-Mix Super 5000 wet blade container and process.

Question: What are the specific instructions I must follow to convert leftovers into organic fertilizer...or food
for earth worms?
Answer: Loosely fill the 64 ounce Vita-Mix Super 5000 container to the 6-cup mark with leftovers such as egg shells, vegetables, orange peels, stale bread, coffee grounds, etc. Next, add enough water to completely cover the ingredients (also to the 6-cup mark). Finally, add 1/4 cup of cottonseed meal (CSM) per 6 cups of liquefied compost. The addition of CSM helps to ensure the proper carbon-to-nitrogen ratio. Secure 2-part lid. Select VARIABLE speed #1. Turn machine on and quickly increase speed to #10; then to HIGH. Run machine for 20 seconds or until smooth.

Question: How do I effectively use the pureed leftovers in my soil?
Answer: Simply pour the pureed leftovers on top of the soil around your fruits, flowers and vegetables. This “organic soup” will break down into usable form faster if you wait a day until the puree has had time to seep into the soil. Then take a rake or a hoe and gently till the organic nutrients into the soil; one to two inches deep is sufficient. By waiting, the soil will be easier to cultivate and you won’t be creating tiny clods by working in wet ground. Depending on your geographic location, you may also want to cover the liquid compost with a double layer of peat moss mulch and burlap. This will prevent the liquid compost from drying out and forming cracks. This problem is particularly prevalent in the extremely hot and dry southwest. Note: If you are feeding the pureed kitchen scraps to earth worms, there is no need to till it into the soil.

Making Natural Pesticides With Your Vita-Mix® Super 5000
Believe it or not, you can use items grown right in your garden as natural pesticides. Some of the more popular items used are hot peppers or tomatoes. Hot peppers are a great all-around pesticide since they not only work as a pest repellent, but also help to heal plant diseases.

Hot pepper sprays have been known to work especially well on leaf eating pests as well as root maggots, ants and soft-bodied insects. Best of all, mixing up a hot pepper pesticide is easy! Simply throw a handful of hot peppers into your Vita-Mix Super 5000 with a quart of water, mix well (about 2 minutes), strain thoroughly with cheesecloth before pouring in your spray bottle, and use this mixture to spray on affected plants.

Another great natural pesticide is, interestingly enough, one of America’s favorite foods! The California Salsa recipe, which can be found in the Recipes for Better Living cookbook that comes with the purchase of the Vita-Mix Super 5000, contains just the right ingredients that are not only tasty for you and your family, but also pull double-duty as excellent pest and disease deterrents. And like hot pepper sprays, it’s a cinch to make.

Prepare the salsa recipe contained in the cookbook with the same ingredients, but instead of using LOW to chop, process on HIGH speed for 2 minutes to liquefy. Strain with cheesecloth, pour the liquid into a spray bottle and spray on affected plants. The general rule of thumb for most applications is spraying every 3 to 5 days for 2 weeks.


You may want to consult your local library or the internet for a wealth of information on specific pests or further information on other “organic” ingredients for making natural pesticides.