This is just a hint for those who eat oranges (or other citrus fruit), and have a stove that is almost always burning. You end up with a lot of peel, most animals won't touch it, it doesn't compost well, and worms don't like it either.

If you put the peel on a flat tray in a slow oven, it will slowly dry. While it's doing so, it will make the kitchen and the entire house smell marvelous due to the aromatic citrus oils evaporating. When the peel has dried, it makes marvelous kindling - it still contains the less-volatile oils. If bone-dry, it will burn long enough to get almost anything else started.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), July 28, 2001

Answers

Great idea, Don. You could also use some of the dried peel, if you get all the white membrane off first, to grind up and use as flavorings in cooking. Nice to find ways to use up things you would waste otherwise. Jan

-- Jan in Co (Janice12@aol.com), July 28, 2001.

You can put it in the soap receipes too. I make a soap with sweet orange essential oil and add my died orange peels to it, it is a pretty soap and people buy it.

-- Debbie (bwolcott@cwis.net), July 28, 2001.

My goats LOVE the crunchy orange peels and I give them as treats.

-- diane (gardiacaprines@yahoo.com), July 28, 2001.

I had a horse that would eat quartered oranges. I don't know if she would have eaten just the peels, but it might be worth a try. I'd try cows and pigs too.

Citrus peels, especially the fresh ones can be place in the garden (veggie or flower) to help repel cats, who don't like the smell.

-- Joy F [in So. Wisconsin] (CatFlunky@excite.com), July 28, 2001.

Joy, most pigs REALLY don't like citrus, for some reason. Poultry sure don't want to know. Ground-up citrus peel has been used as a feedlot food for cattle, but you've got to get them used to it - they won't just choose to eat it. I wonder how it would go as a vermifuge (wormer) for animals (say those goats) who will eat it?

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), July 28, 2001.

Between the rabbits and the goats they keep most of the oranges which fall off the tree picked up.Thanks for the tip if we ever get our wood stove I will have to try that as we are drowneding in oranges in december.

-- kathy h (ckhart55@earthlink.net), July 28, 2001.