Saving water in Oklahoma is always beneficial. Soaking and cooking water should not hurt your plants. I don't know if it will help. There's a green tint to blanching water when I blanch things. I suspect that means there are nutrients lost to the water that would benefit the soil. I like to put the water from rinsing out a milk jug in the garden, too. Diluted whey from homemade greek yogurt is supposed to be good for the soil.

I read somewhere, many years ago, that if you can't compost, you can just bury the veggie waste from the kitchen in the garden. I used to use my vita mix to grind it into a slurry and just pour it into beds... along with coffee and tea leftovers. Most things will be gone in a short time except things like grapefruit halves. I really didn't like to see paper coffee filters in the spring when the garden was tilled, but it really wasn't a big deal... just my sense of neatness. ;-)

Amy, if you make homemade bread, that whey is great as a liquid and improves the flavor as well as the nutrition. I like to make a sponge (biga, if you making Italian bread.. forgot the term the French use for the same thing) the day before. All of the liquid, at least half the flour, and about 1/2 t. of yeast, Cover it with plastic wrap and let sit at room temp for at least 12 hours. The next day I put that into my bread machine, add the butter or oil, rest of flour on top... then the rest of the yeast and the salt. I let it go through the dough cycle... take out and shape into two loaves... pan it and let rise the final time before baking. That process changes the flavor entirely. The rest of the story is that I use freshly ground "hard white wheat" flour for the ferment/biga/ sponge and then bread flour for the rest. The whey would be good in smoothies, also. Millie

Thanks Millie. I don't bake bread, DH does, and has used whey. I am lactose intolerant, and most of the lactose is in the whey. I haven't made yogurt in quite a while though. I used to make it weekly. DH found a brand he really likes, so he buys it.

Thanks for your responses. I think I'll try it and see if if makes any difference. Hopefully, it will be a positive difference.

I've done this. Lately, most of it goes into the compost bin to be added to the compost pile. Potato water, pasta water, bean 'juice' and other moist elements are great for soil microbes as long as it doesn't go anaerobic.

I don't have "proper" irrigation and have used watery kitchen wastes directly in the garden, especially in drought. When I feel like the waste might harm the plants even if I place it away from the base of the plant, I just add some water to dilute the solution.

Never had any problems, but it can get smelly (anaerobic) if too much is dumped in one spot. Of course, the solution to 'smelly' is 1) dilute and/or 2) spread it around.

Consider the type of hungry life it might attract! Something is going to consider it a snack. Depending on where you are it can be ground-dwelling bugs or even four-legged critters. This is the main reason I toss everything into the compost nowadays (and we're not in a drought so tossing it in the garden would be too much moisture). I don't mind critters rummaging through the compost at night.

bon