Over the weekend Ted and I purchased and assembled a large compost bin in our backyard with the help of one of our closest friends, Kevin. (Thanks, Kevin!) It’s made from 100% recycled plastic, and it’s similar to this composter at Costco, though ours cost about $60. We found a bunch of rotting leaves and pine cones, and we alternated layers of dry/brown compost (dead leaves) with green compost (kitchen scraps, green plant matter) to start our brand-new compost pile. I’ve heard that a good ratio is 25:1 brown matter to green matter, but really, who can keep track? I’m a big fan of estimating.
There are other composters on the market; several, in fact. Gaiam and Clean Air Gardening have a bunch, and Terracycle makes a really cool composter out of old wine barrels, which is a great idea, but we chose not to use this composter because it’s so dang heavy. Of course, you can always go low-budget and create a compost pile housed by nothing but chicken wire, which will work fine as long as you turn the pile occasionally. Or something.
Making compost is a science, but I don’t really know much about it yet. I do know that throwing compostable food scraps into the trash is a waste of good organic matter. A sustainable farm composts and biodigests all of its organic matter to be used on the farm, eliminating the need for outside inputs; so a sustainable household should take advantage of all the organic waste from its kitchen, putting it to good use in a compost pile. Even if you don’t have a garden, someone you know does. Or you can offer your compost on Craigslist if you really don’t have a friend or neighbor that could use it. The goal is to create soil from organic waste and then put it to good use to grow food, preferably yours.
The best way to keep kitchen scraps is in the freezer. Sure, there are lots of fancy compost scrap bins on the market, one of which I recommended in a gift guide. There’s nothing wrong with these bins, but they’re expensive, and they create waste by requiring the use of replaceable filters. The best way to keep compost is in a freezer-safe container. Freezing compost scraps will serve two purposes: it will keep your kitchen from smelling like rotten food, and it will help the food to begin breaking down. (Kevin’s my source on that one, I’ll have to ask him how that works.) I’ve been keeping our scraps in our freezer for about a week now, and it’s unbelievable how much good organic matter we used to just throw away.
Now, I just have to tackle the task of setting up our home garden. Wish me luck!
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Christine 04.09.08 at 8:18 am
Kerry, let us know if you need any tips! My hubby has worked long and hard to perfect our compost pile. We don’t have a tumbler, but our plants are THRIVING! Our basil must have grown 2 feet in a day when we added compost around it. Amazing. And we hardly have any trash anymore. Good luck! One other thing, I’d recommend growing your fruits/veggies in container gardens so you can completely control the soil mix. Otherwise you don’t know the last time your yard was treated with chemicals or if they’re still in the soil.
Jenni 04.15.08 at 10:14 am
I totally want to start composting. Freezing the scraps sounds awesome. No stink.
Kevin 04.16.08 at 11:47 am
From what I have read, freezing the organic scraps before composting, works better because when it freezes the water inside the plants expand and breaks the organelles inside of it. That makes it easier for all the micro bugs to break down it down and get it done faster. I’ve started freezing my scraps for my vermicomposter and it seems to be going faster than before.