Composting is an easy way to practice good land stewardship and control trash odors inside your home. It’s one of the low-hanging fruit of the conversation about sustainability and carbon sequestration, as well as a simple way to build the earth’s carbon banks. In this article, we’ll discuss the basics of composting and introduce you to a few different ways to compost, followed by links to products you may find useful.
Later in this article, we’ll discuss what’s easily compostable and what needs to be kept separate from your compost. For the sake of simplicity, we will focus on cold composting and worm composting. Hot composting—that is, creating a composting environment that emits so much heat during the decomposition process that it literally vaporizes on a cold morning—is the fastest way to turn organic matter into compost. It’s also a bit more sophisticated than digging a hole in the ground and filling it with potato peelings. So we will leave it for another article.
How to make good use of Organic Waste
Every socially conscious kitchen should have a resealable container near the sink to collect organic waste. As you prepare your meal, dump your skins, eggshells, and onion skins directly into this bin, and when it’s full, take it to your composting area. This requires very little effort once you establish the routine, and the reward is a good compost. What if you live in an apartment or an urban area, as more than half of all humans do? Will composting be more of a nuisance than a reward? Possibly.
Your compost bin will attract insects and a host of microorganisms. For starters, you don’t want this in your kitchen, although there are vermicomposting bins on the market. The ideal place is a backyard or a shared green space where composting is allowed. Eggshells, vegetable peels, carrot tops and lettuce tips, apple cores, banana peels, coffee grounds, tea bags and the like make good biomass for the compost. Avoid citrus. Absolutely no protein or fat, like bacon grease or leftover fried chicken. These will rot differently than plant matter and will attract more attention than you want, especially from rodents.
do it yourself cheap
You can buy a container to suit your needs (see links below) or build your own. A classic DIY compost bin is a large RubberMaid bin with pencil-width-diameter holes drilled regularly around the sides (for aeration). With some shredded newspaper and mail order worms, you can create an accelerated composting environment and harvest worm casings that are ounce for ounce the most valuable soil additive you can buy, even more so than petroleum-based fertilizers like 10- 10-10. This type of container can work well on a porch or balcony, but if worms are used, temperature and sun exposure must be considered. Worms need temperate, shady areas to thrive. Places with cold winters won’t see much activity in outdoor composting situations, but there are ways to plan for this. The goal should be to create the best environment that is profitable for you. If you find that you can only compost half the year, hey, that’s better than nothing!
waiting for him
Another method for DIY composting is to dig a hole in the ground, fill it up, cover it up, and forget about it for a couple of months. Variations on the theme include building a bed out of rails or fallen logs. Wild animals will be attracted to the smell of your compost, so be sure to cover fresh peels with soil or leaves. The ideal compost pile is not too wet and not too dry. A good rule of thumb is that it should be wet enough to feel wet, but not so wet that water oozes out when you squeeze a handful. Balance is important. You want to have equal parts green material (like kitchen scraps) and brown material (leaves and mulch). Please note that coffee grounds (which tend to be a large part of Joe’s average kitchen waste output) count as a GREEN material.
When you get further along, it might be necessary to test the pH of your compost. For now, take the plunge and start thinking about where you can set up your system! Composting is a rewarding way to channel your waste into something useful. We cannot say enough good things about these days.