How to Compost Kitchen Scraps
This year, I’ve decided to crank it up a notch in the composting department. Growing 4000 lbs of fresh produce is going to require that I really think about my soil. In the words of the movie Uncle Buck, I am going to start “cooking our garbage”–all of those wasted food scraps {that are too rotten for the chickens} are going right back into the wood pallet compost bin, to cook into glorious FREE compost. {I’m also totally curious to see how much less garbage and recycling I have each week as a result.}
I’m going to use a counter-top compost bin for all of my compostable kitchen scraps–that way, I only have to run it out to the compost bin when it gets full. I found this one on Amazon.com and loved it because it claims to trap odors inside, instead of making your kitchen smell like, um, well, rotting food. The reviews were awesome as well, so it must do as promised.
If you are interested in composting your kitchen scraps, here a few guidelines of what IS and IS NOT compostable:
Compostable Items:
- Peels, rinds and clippings from fruits and vegetables {if it was once alive, you can most likely compost it}
- Coffee grounds, old coffee and coffee filters
- Tea bags, old tea and tea grounds
- Paper towels and napkins
- Cardboard – inside pizza boxes, cereal boxes, cardboard food packaging and other thin cardboard {Make sure the pizza boxes are not caked with cheese and oil, though}
- Brown paper bags
- Receipts
- Old cotton dishtowels or clothing {100% cotton is a must}
- Stale bread
- Flour, oatmeal, or cornmeal
- Nutshells except walnut shells which are bad for compost
- Freezer-burned vegetables and fruit
- Old spices
- Paper or wood matches
- Molasses residue
- Potato peel
- Egg shells
- Old pasta
- Stale potato chips
- Apple cores
- Shrimp, crab and lobster shells
- Pie crusts
- Melon rinds
- Seeds
- Date and olive pits
- Bread crusts
- Rice
- Spoiled wine
- Old beer
- Fish bones
- Wooden toothpicks
- Stale breakfast cereal
- Dust clumps from under the refrigerator
- Coconut hulls
- Dead flies and bugs from the windowsill {gross!}
- Peanut butter sandwiches
- Old Newspapers
- Egg Cartons {Not the Styrofoam kind}
NOT Compostable:
- Metal
- Plastic
- Man-Made Substances or Fabrics
Somewhere In-Betweeners {These have a tendency to ROT FAST, so they stink, I mean, REALLY stink. It is up to you whether you would like to avoid the hassle or not}:
- Meat Scraps
- Dairy
- Cheese
- Yogurt
- Oil
The rest is easy-peasy. Just throw all of your scraps into your countertop kitchen compost bin or bucket and empty into the compost pile once it is full. If you don’t plan on starting an outdoor compost bin, that’s okay too. Just make sure to “stir” your kitchen compost frequently while it “cooks” to give it a little air–you can also add a little dirt to the mix to speed up the process and minimize smell.
Is there anything on this list that I missed? Do tell!
~ Mavis
 |
Just in case your counter top composter doesn’t work as well as promised, I toss my compostables into the freezer. Everything goes into a small paper bag or bin that I can empty, and then when it’s full it goes outside. Keeps it tidy and manageable for me.
Good idea, Erin!
I would research which seeds are safe for your compost. Peach, Apricot and Apple seeds when crushed are poisonous, they contain cyanide. It would take a lot of apple seeds to do harm, but if I am growing my food, I don’t want to put that back into the earth. Just a thought.
This is a great list. Thanks! I thought that you reason that you didn’t include meat and dairy was because it brought unwanted critters (rats, skunks, cayotes) to the compost bin.
What are peoples’ suggestions for how to prevent fruit flys
from overwhelming the kitchen sink area
(from collecting all the compost materials) ?
Even though I put compostables in a closed container
I still get an infestation.
I don’t have preventative measures other than taking it out more often, but if you put some juice in the bottom of a soda bottle and cover the top with plastic wrap (hold it there with a rubber band) and poke some holes in it, they will go in there and be trapped.
Fill a small bowl with about an inch of apple cider vinegar. Then add a drop of dish soap to break the surface tension of the vinegar. I try to add the soap so it’s on the side of the bowl, always in contact with the surface of the vinegar. Fruit flies don’t stand a chance!
Here you go – http://www.onehundreddollarsamonth.com/2012/07/easy-kitchen-tips-how-to-get-rid-of-fruit-flies/
Be aware that composting animal products DOES make your compost better, but also attracts animals who want the rotting food.
Miriam, you are so right. I had to stop composting food scraps because they attract rodents and possums and raccoons.
Mavis, have you thought about a worm bin outside.? They’re great at munching extra veg that the chickens don’t need, coffee grounds, even egg shells.
You can also compost dryer lint, the stuff you sweep up off your floor and the gunk from the vacuum cleaner.
Ohhhh I left those out. Thanks April!
And even the hair from the bathtub drain and your hair brush. We put more stuff in our compost bin than in our garbage can!
It’s not a good idea to compost animal products in a home compost pile – it’s likely that the pile will not get hot enough to kill any pathogens in the meat or dairy or grease. Also the issue of attracting other animals to the pile (like RATS) is huge.
Composting bread and flour products is discouraged, too, because of the pest-attraction issue and the possibility of growing certain kinds of molds (such as ergot on rye flour).
Paper and cardboard should be UNWAXED, and will compost better if you cut or shred it into small pieces first.
That still leaves a whole truckload of things you CAN compost. We’ve been composting all our vegie-based kitchen garbage for years, and it really boosts our soil health.
We have been composting for nine years now and what we put into the garbage for pick up is almost non-existent. It almost seems a shame to put out our bin. We have gotten more and more conscious about other ways of saving packaging, too and reusing it for seed starting, etc.
Just a note on composting receipts. The new “computerized” register receipts most likely have BPA in them.
Thanks for posting this Debbie. I was just going to make the same comment!
Last year I composted all our veg and fruit scraps plus coffee , tea bags and egg shells. My cat enjoyed hunting all the rats that attracted. This year just egg shells, coffee grounds and tea bags in my compost. All the fruit and veg scraps go in my bokashi bucket along with dairy, meat, chicken bones and pasta and bread. I’ll try burying that in my compost and see what happens. Dead rats scattered about the yard were yukky.
I used to compost food scraps, but I stopped because of issues with rats and raccoons. The neighborhood cats couldn’t keep up. Now I compost with earthworms. No smell, no fruit flies, and lots of nutrients in the compost.
Restrictions: no meat, no fat, no dairy, no citrus (egg shells are fine.) I also toss in toilet paper rolls and occasional newspaper.
See the book, “Worms Eat My Garbage” for more info.
I still you traditional composting for leaves, grass/garden clippings (a ix of greens and browns.)
~Anne
I was told you couldn’t compost meat bones (besides fish) or corn cobs, since they won’t break down. Oh yeah, and chicken poop is good but dog or cat waste, not so much.
hair ( human and pet) adds protein. Urine adds nitrogen. Don’t know where to get that.
Hi Mavis. Last spring I bought one of those really cute stainless steel counter top compost containers. It is really lovely, but the grove around the underside of the lid is rusting. When it self destructs, I will get one of these. Thank you for doing all the research for us!!
Erin
Sidney BC
Wow! That’s a lot more than I knew about!
Hi Mavis! We have been composting for about 4 years now, and we just use an old ice cream bucket with the lid on, and it works just as fine, and it’s FREE!
My kids shred their graded homework (not glossy or colored paper), and it works well when our compost bins are in need of more “brown” materials. I seem to have plenty of “green” materials with fruit/veg scraps & coffee/tea dregs!!
Thanks for the list Mavis! An FYI that I just learned, you CAN compost walnut shells so long as they are not BLACK WALNUT shells.
My problem with composting is I never seem to get the “green/brown” balance right. I think I have too much “brown” and it’s too dry so it just sits there and does nothing for months. I have never managed to get a compost bin to heat up…. Would love to hear tips from you or your knowledgeable readers about this.
Debra, make sure you layer your green/brown materials in the compost pile, and only add enough “brown” in a layer to barely cover the green stuff so it doesn’t smell.
Green grass clippings, if you or your neighbors have a lawn, are great for adding nitrogen, which is what heats up the pile. You can also add a sprinkling of blood meal, or even collect your own urine to sprinkle on the pile, if that’s not too big an “UGH!” factor (or have a male in your household go out and scare the neighbors by peeing into the pile every so often).
Turn or “punch into” the pile every few days with an aerating tool or a broom handle to get oxygen into it – that will keep the materials breaking down faster and generate more heat.
You can add processed steer or chicken manure to heat things up, but DON’T add cat or dog feces, which can carry dangerous pathogens.
Keep the pile moist but not soggy – spray it lightly with the hose every now and then if the materials seem on the dry side.
Get earthworms if you don’t have them in your pile already – they’ll break down nitrogenous materials like crazy.
Hope this helps.
Is there a special kind of worm to get?
Red Worms.
I have this little kitchen composter and really like it.
I use an old margarine carton and keep it in the fridge until full, then empty it into the compost barrel. Have been trying to compost more, so this is a great list of ideas. Also, my garden soil desparately needs it. Thanks for your website; I really enjoy hearing about your adventures!
…just want to drop in on your blog to say I love it! The list of items to compost is great…the only thing I would leave off is the potato chips…salt kills plants (I believe that long ago Hannibal won a war by salting the enemy’s fields and destroying their ability to grow food!)…Lorna
I use a worm bin for kitchen scraps. Since I’m a lazy composter, I let the little guys do all the work. My worm bin is bottomless, so the critters can dig into the earth if it gets too chilly. But I did put broken, used brick on the bottom to keep out moles, rats, etc. The cedar bin has a tight cover, so no one else but humans can get in. Many people object to the fruit flies that become a part of the process when the weather warms up. I have found that burying the compost under a 2″ layer of composted manure or topsoil keeps the fruit flies at bay. I compost my yard waste separately in two other bins. The compost from the worm bin decomposes much faster and enriched with worm castings makes a terrific fertilizer. From what I’ve read, composting animal products (meat, grease, bones) is not a good idea. It’s hard to kill the harmful pathogens that this kind of waste generates in a home composting operation. I’ve heard stories of pets going after this type of compost and dying from ingesting the toxins in the rotting food.
Also, if you want to “stain” your compost bin, use pure, raw linseed oil–that’s what our local vermiculture guru recommended for my cedar worm bin.
I’ve had my worm bin for 8 yrs now using a Rubbermaid container with holes drilled in the bottom. It was a bit of work separating the worms from the castings so, this year, my husband bought a Worm Factory at the Tacoma F&GS for me :- )))
I like to pamper my worms by whizzing the veggie, fruit, & egg shells in the Vitamix so they don’t have to chew that hard, it also speeds up the process.
BTW, the type of worms recommended for vermiculture are the “red wigglers” as opposed to earthworms. Check CraigsList or Farmers Markets as a resource. If you’d like to try vermiculture, I would love to share with you as a “Thank You” for your helping me through your blogging :- )
Cheers dear!
Ursula