What is a Kitchen Composter?

If you do not have the room to start garden composting, but want all the green kudos from making your own compost have you heard of a kitchen composter? If you would like to know how you could possibly recycle kitchen scraps into compost without your kitchen smelling like the municipal dump, read on.

When we root cuttings we use coarse sand in the flats, so when it�s time to pull the rooted cuttings out of the flats, the old sand goes on the compost pile. In our little backyard nursery we also have some plants in containers that do not survive. Rather than pulling the dead plant and the weeds out of the container, and then dumping the potting soil back on the soil pile, we just dump the whole container in the compost bin. This adds more brown material to the mix, and is a lot easier than separating the soil and the weeds.I would recommend using a commercial starter to begin with though, so you can see exactly how the process works. That way, once you start making your own you will know if it is working correctly. No-one wants a pile of fetid vegetable matter in the corner of the kitchen!Once the bin is full, the rules of composting say that you should turn the material in the bin every few weeks. There is no way that I have time to do that, so this is what I do. I pack as much material in the bin as I can before I start filling the second bin. I pile the material as high as I possibly can, and even let it spill out in front of the bin. Then I cover all the fresh material with mulch or potting soil, whatever brown material I can find.Having a pile of rotted compost near your compost bins is great because if you have a lot of leaves or grass clippings, you can throw some rotted compost in the bin in order to maintain that layered effect that is necessary in order for the composting process to work well.Although names and colours may vary every kitchen composting system is pretty similar. Indeed, there is nothing overly complicated involved. You can make your own, you just need a sturdy plastic bin with a very well fitting lid.My mulch pile might be 12� wide, but it may only be 24 to 30 inches high. Once I have all the compost on top of the pile, then I go around the edge of the pile with a shovel, and take some of the material from the edges of the pile and toss it up on top of the pile, covering the compost with at least 6" of rotted bark. This will cause the compost material to decompose the rest of the way.Around here many of the supply companies sell a compost material that is already broken down quite well. This is what I buy to add to my stockpile. But I try to make sure that I have at least 3 yards of old material on hand, then I�ll add another 3 yards of fresh material to that. Then in the spring I�ll empty one of the compost bins and add the compost to the top of the pile.

As foodstuffs ferment they will produce moisture. Each commercial bin for kitchen composting includes a tap, to drain off that excess liquid. If you make your own Bokashi style composter make sure to add a drainage tap too.

Author: Lec Watkins