Your Free Easy Compost Guide
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You can start by collecting kitchen scraps in a used yogurt container. This works if you have easy access to a larger container outside or nearby in your kitchen. Otherwise it can get messy and not pretty to look at. A better choice would be the Kitchen Counter Composter with compostable bags.
Orange peels, apple peels, onion, tomato, celery, and any other food scraps, that are left over when preparing a meal that you normally would throw in the garbage. Also keep your coffee grounds filter and all and your teabags in another container. Banana peels can be put in the scraps as well but also can be used for a fertilizer for your house plants when soaked in water for a few days. This can also become smelly. My number one choice for everytype of gardener is....The Kitchen Counter Composter or food digester. It literally turns your food scraps into compost that can be put into your garden in a few hours!!!
Do you see that your garden is a container to start with, but your compost containment is something totally different? The kitchen compost bin basically stores your kitchen food scraps like veggie waste and coffee grounds that you can then bury into your container garden. Compostable bag liners further simplify the process by making it easy to remove and bury directly into your garden. An added investment would be the Kitchen Counter Composter also call food digester which would breakdown any other foods into a actual compost material that can be added to your soil further decreasing food waste.
As your collection of scraps grows you are going to want a place to keep it outside like a bin or tumbler. The other addition would be a food digester/KItchen Couner Composter not to be confused with kitchen counter compost bin, which actually takes even more of your actual food waste, like leftovers and turns them into a powder which you can then add to your compost bin or tumbler SInce you have a little extra room the vermicomposter is a gold mine of soil nutrients and actually this can be kept inside as the worms will seek out a warm place if it gets too cold outside. In Europe they are commonly seen in the kitchen. Keep reading for more info on the Hot Pile.
Farm owners have the advantage of having their own manure to add to the compost pile. Remember only use non carnivorous animal manure, like chicken, horse and cow. Chicken is by far the best. I haven't mentioned the Bokashi Bucket , excluding balcony and deck gardens which would be to small to handle this amount of raw compost material even after being broken down most other garden types can certainly have one of these to breakdown just about anything including dairy. It is an anaerobic process that will ferment the food waste and other carbon and nitrogen products enough to be buried into your garden soil. I must say this again that in every garden situation to eliminate food waste, a Food Digester/ Kitchen Counter Composter is a MUST!!
Remember the 50:50 ratio and keep everything cut up or shredded to the smallest version. This will speed up the process. It can take 1-3 months if the temperature is right. So a thermometer is a necessity. Even in you kitchen counter composter remember the 50/50 rule. Use the above suggestions and be creative, dryer lint and hair from your hair brush are considered brown or carbon. Some papers torn up will digest properly others have more difficulty.
The key is to keep your compost in the right consistency. You should be able to squeeze it in your hand and it will keep its shape, not soggy or dry. This can be accomplished by the proper amount of moisture, covering to keep it hot and from getting too moist and turning it to get air. You can use a pile, or bin but chances are you will need a pile due to the amount of material you will have on hand. In fact you may need 2-3 bins that are at least 3-4 feet deep and width. You would then turn (or lift with pitch fork) #1 bin material into #2 bin and then fill #1 again and repeat.
The sprinkler valve method is something I learned from some awesome garden people on IG. The way these are used is to bury them in the corner of you raised bed or in ground garden fill them with the materials from your kitchen compost bin that you have lined with compostable bags and put the lid on. Scatter them throughout your beds and as each one decomposes you just keep adding more. They should get adequate water if you have drips system and the leachate with natural flow into your soil.
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