How to Compost Your Kitchen Scraps
What can an apple core, a half eaten cookie, and some slimy salad from the back of the crisper get you? Not much on the open market, but with the right combination of dry organic matter, you can turn it into nutrient dense garden soil that can help your home grown fruits and veggies thrive. Turning your leftovers into super soil is easy once you learn how to compost your kitchen scraps.
What is Composting?
Composting is a natural process where organic material breaks down over time with the help of various insects and soil organisms. When plant matter decomposes in a lawn or forest, it is spread out over a large area and takes months or even years to break down. If you concentrate the mix of fresh green material and dry brown material in a pile and keep the pile at the right humidity and properly aerated, you can significantly speed up the process. You need a lot more dry brown material than wet greens to get the optimal mix.
When the compost pile is decomposing, it creates heat. A well run pile can get up to 140 degrees or more. This heat is beneficial to kill weed seeds, plant diseases, and other pathogens. You want to let your pile heat up to at least 140 degrees and stay hot for 3-4 days before you turn it the first time. Once it’s started the process, the more you mix or turn it, and the smaller the compost material was chopped, the faster it will break down. Once the compost starts to look and feel like healthy soil, it is ready for use in your garden. Larger sticks or hard items will take longer to break down, you can sift out the items that haven’t decomposed and throw them back into your pile.
What Can You Compost?
For green, fresh compost material, you can use almost any plant material. Fruit or vegetable scraps, garden weeds, grass clippings, or kitchen waste like coffee grounds and eggshells. If you have livestock manure, spent hay, or bedding it could also go in the pile. For dry, brown materials, shredded newspaper or cardboard, leaves, sticks, woodchips, or brush can all be good for your compost. You want up to three times as much brown material as the green material you need to mix in. If your pile isn’t composting very fast, you may need extra greens, or you need to add water to keep the pile from getting too dry.
Some things to avoid composting are large quantities of meat, bones, oil, dairy, or other fats. Although these items will eventually break down, they also attract insect and animal pests and encourage digging or nesting in the pile. You should also avoid human or pet waste, weeds with lots of seeds, and diseased plants. Although a good hot compost pile can kill most seeds or pathogens, it’s better not to risk spreading these things through your garden. You also need to be careful where you get your compost materials. Grass clippings, yard waste, or even leaves collected from lawns that use herbicides or pesticides can poison your compost pile and kill your garden plants.
What You’ll Need to Start Composting
If you’re composting indoors, you’ll need a container for your kitchen scraps, a container for your compost and access to dry organic matter like straw, dead leaves, shredded paper or cardboard. You can keep your compost pile in a series of containers, but it can quickly get messy. The compost can also attract unwanted animal or insect pests. There are compost kits you can buy, or electronic devices that will dry and grind your kitchen scraps for you. But the kits or devices can be pricey.
If you have the space, composting outdoors is much easier to keep your living space clean and free of pests. You can build a compost pile enclosure out of pallets, blocks, wire mesh, or wood. Or just use a free form pile or windrow on the ground. Layer your greens and browns to get the best mixture. Make sure your pile can get sufficient water, or use a hose to add moisture as needed so your pile doesn’t dry out. To monitor the temperature and humidity throughout the year, you may want a sensor you can stick into the pile. Having a pitchfork, shovel, and large screen can help turn and harvest your compost.
Next Steps
If you’re ready to turn your kitchen scraps into rich compost, start making your compost plan today. Gather your materials and build your enclosure or start your pile. Make sure you have enough green and brown materials to get a good mix. Layer your materials and ensure good drainage and airflow throughout the pile. Let it get nice and hot for a few days before you start to turn the pile. You can transfer materials from one enclosure to another, or use rakes, shovels, or machinery to turn a pile or windrow.
If you are composting during the warm season, a well turned pile could go from start to finish in about three months. If you are composting over the winter, it can take longer to finish as the soil organisms slow down during the cold weather. Plan your compost pile to provide a harvest when you need nutrient dense soil for seed starting, top dressing, or bed prep throughout the growing season. If you don’t have enough kitchen scraps or yard waste to produce the volume of compost you need, consider asking friends or family to save their organic materials for you. It can be a great way to get them involved in your garden journey and teach others how to compost your kitchen scraps.
Not sure if your garden soil needs compost? Testing your soil is a great way to figure out which nutrients will help your plants the most. Check out my blog post on How to Test Your Soil for all the details.
Want to green up your thumb this year? My gardening mini-course, Mission: Healthy Plants has everything you need to take your plants from sad to thriving. Join now!
