It’s fantastic to see that the word “compost” is no longer a dirty one in modern American culture. There are a few hold-outs here and there, but I have noticed that guests no longer look quizzically at the buckets on the edge of my sink, and instead ask me where I got them.
I have two buckets. One that accepts everything from meat to oatmeal, and which gets thrown to the chickens; and another that takes coffee filters, tea bags, paper towels, banana and orange peels and which is thrown onto the compost pile.
This old enameled bucket has been around for years — originally found in a thrift store.
The manure that the chickens create from the scraps is also dumped onto the main pile; so, directly or indirectly, the only kitchen material that doesn’t get composted around here is chicken itself. And that’s only because I’m uncomfortable with it – the chickens couldn’t care less.
In years when the raccoons that circle the coop at two in the morning finally find a way in, and we lose our scrap-processing machines for a season, I find myself distinctly put out to have to dig the contents of those buckets into a pile – the way I did when chickens were ‘illegal’ in my town, (but barking dogs weren’t).
During that time (we’re in one now) the bucket makeup changes to a cleaner mix of veg peelings and scraps, lest we encourage generations of rats to make their home with us.
Chickens are the ultimate compost pile.
You’ve Got to Be Flexible When You Compost
No matter how gung-ho you are in the quest to compost everything from paper towels to dryer lint, there are moments in the composters’ life when things don’t tick along like clockwork. These are problems you might not have read about when you originally began to treat household waste like gold dust, and followed the online ‘recipes’ for the perfect pile.
The people you live with aren’t as excited as you are.
It is hard for a rabid composter like me to watch someone flagrantly throw a banana peel in the trash – as if this act negates all my work for the previous twenty years. Of course this is a ridiculous reaction. Composting is not a zero-sum game. Anything that gets put in the compost pile is one less thing in the landfill.
When my children were small and I caught them being thoughtless, I had the ability to make them fish it out of the trash and put it in the bucket. Which is a terrific way to ensure that they don’t do it again (or at least don’t get caught doing it again).
The learning curve proved to be a little steeper with my husband; but picked up sharply when we moved to a property where trash wasn’t collected weekly, and he had to visit the municipal dump every four weeks. Smelly trash cans packed with organic waste are not fun after four weeks.
The bucket fills up too fast and needs to be dumped continually.
There are a couple solutions here. Either get a bigger bucket (made-for-the-purpose buckets are almost always woefully undersized); and/or consider having an ‘interim bin’ right outside the back door for daily dumping which is then dumped once a week into the main bin. This is particularly helpful when there is snow on the ground and your daughter stole your boots again.
Snow doesn’t stop me from composting. It just makes it more challenging. My first compost pile at Oldmeadow on far right (long before there was a garden to surround it).
The bucket attracts fruit flies in the summer.
This is one of the toughest challenges for composters, but for most of the season, it is admirably solved with a fruit fly trap or old vinegar bottle with pour spout filled with red wine sitting nearby. In deepest August, the every other day dump schedule I use here turns into ‘every day’.
Compostables “accidently” slip down the disposal.
Save your septic tank or waste treatment facility with a Dollar Store recessed sink strainer. Organic bits can then be dumped straight into the compost bucket, conveniently located next to the sink. If you don’t have chickens and are trying to be careful with meat scraps, a few tiny remnants will not hurt your pile. You may have a garbage disposal, but it doesn’t mean you have to use it.
The bucket smells.
Assuming that you have a lid for your bucket, every time you dump it (which should be at least every two days), wash it out with soapy water. If you do this, you will not notice a smell. Fail to rinse and you’ll knock yourself flat when you next open it.
Being Green Means Living Green
When it comes to green initiatives, walking the walk is always more effort than sharing the meme. And it feels better. Whatever you manage to compost is one less thing processed by landfills or waste-water treatment plants, and eventually one more bit of organically rich soil for your garden or that of your neighbors.
Rich, compost enriched soil means better nutrition for my heavy feeders (like turmeric or Brugmansia).
Composting makes sense on many levels, and although it requires effort, it’s a shame to see people stop because of a few solvable obstacles or a small lifestyle change.
And, if your neighborhood still insists on restricting composting, it might be time to hop on the zeitgeist and use national awareness to marshal a group of supporters, stand in front of your HOA board and change their minds through the miraculous power of shame. -MW
For years I’ve used a kitchen scrap container with no lid. No lid – what? It’s an old gallon plastic ice cream container. It stays mainly in the freezer. I simply drop in vegetable scraps, peelings, etc., when I open the door. If I had to pull it out and take off the lid, then put the lid on, then… You get the picture? I only have to empty it about once every two weeks (house of 2). The way I make the container last longer is I take the container out and put it in the fridge for a while or on the counter for a few hours. Gardens know what happens to vegetative material that freezes and thaws; it shrinks. That makes for more room. It never smells. Then it goes into my compost tumbler, not a compost pile, when I’m not feeling so lazy about taking it out. The tumbler is fed scraps for about a year. They go in frozen. I just harvested a 32 gal trash bag in November, and a fresh batch has begun.
I REALLY love this idea. Thanks Dale! – MW
Yes. Yes. Yes. As a single gal in the country, my bits are dumped into a gallon bag in the freezer. Actually 2 bags- one contains meat scraps/ fruit that gets dumped into the trash bag before pickup day (keeps the bags from getting smelly beforehand) and one for what goes in the compost. We have black bears in the hood so it’s only veg, coffee and paper that I compost. Wire bins of leaves are kept next to the current collection compost bin to add the ‘brown’ to my green. Battling fruit flies is not a favored activity.
I use two “Behrens RB20K 20 Gallon Galvanized Steel Compost Bins with Lid” to keep rats out of kitchen compost. I also have three big pallet bins of garden debris going, was four when I was working full time as a gardener and brought home all the clean garden debris. And a leaf bin. I’m obsessed with composting. I just added four buckets of crab guts and shells from my fisherman neighbor… buried deep in the fullest debris pallet-sided bin.
You must have some amazing soil Skyler! — MW
Good post, thanks! Pretty chickens, too!
Kitchen scraps make great compost. They certainly are a good source of food for soil-building critters. It’s really smart to do as you’re doing by adding livestock to the loop. Scraps (aka “slops”) are good food for chickens (and pigs), too. Or, at our house, great food for worms.
But we gardeners have lots more to compost than kitchen scraps and dryer lint (American usage, since “compost” can mean something like “potting soil” in the UK and Oz) Here, we still get the printed newspaper on Sunday (remember them and balanced journalism?). There’s no better compost ‘bulker” (“C source” if you like…). Then there’s all the autumn leaves right now, plus spent plants, and the list goes on. You can even raid the neighbors to get their leaves and grass trimmings, and flag down tree service trucks for ground up limbs. Then you can mulch (lay it flat), compost (pile it up), dig it in… on its way back to the biosphere.
Point is, composting returns OM to the soil, keeping a fundamental cycle cycling. Plus, just as you say, everything you don’t send to the landfill helps.
As Felder Rushing said for our part of the world (US South), there are three compost rules: 1. Don’t throw that stuff away – 2. Pile it up someplace – 3. Bless your heart, don’t fret about it.
All your reports about kids, mates, other skeptics and unauthorized freeloaders like racoons are hilarious and spot on, Marianne. Yep, same goes for us.
Now, there is one other option, especially for those of us with small lots or in apartments (in addition to worm composting – worm are great fun, actually so are their pals black soldier flies and whoever else shows up.)
That alternative is community-wide composting.
Even down here, not only are cities getting rid of composting bans, they’ve actually started making their own.
We started using our community program this year, after years of going it alone. Dale, I hear you, but we don’t have freezer space (especially after veggie harvests come in). And our tiny yard space is precious.
So, our city collects yard “waste” curbside and composts it. They make a great product (OMRI and Composting Council certified), sold back very cheaply. $20 US for a pickup load!
Plus, my neighborhood has also started a pilot project for food waste compost. Essentially, you fill a second bigger outdoor bucket (like your “interim bin”, Marianne) and when full you take it to a nearby drop-off point. Around here, land of churches and coffeehouses, there are drop-offs at both. A farmer picks up the combined scraps and composts them at his farm just outside the city, with the right blend of C, N, moisture and air to make the compost critters in all their diminutive diversity very happy. He is happy to deliver some finished compost to contributors (it’s nice stuff!) but uses most to grow certified organic veggie crops.
It’s a trade-off, true. There’s the collection energy, but on the other hand a coop-composting strategy helps solve some of the backyard dilemmas you describe so well, and the product is pretty darn good.
(True – there were reports a couple of decades ago of municiple yard waste compost bringing in residual herbicides that wiped out organic farmers. Here the problem was spreading nutsedge. So, when doing things on a community level, there have to be policies, safeguards, and double-checks in place. The closer to home the better, as a general rule, agreed. However, the community-wide approach can work (the nutsedge problem has been solved here btw). It’s one more option.
But, yeah, healthy soil is key to successful outdoor gardening, and recycling OM is a key way to keep our soils healthy. Make compost, not war.
(Tip – composters are terrible for “tips”, huh? – Put a torm-up sheet or two of newspaper in the bottom of the indoor compost bucket each time after you empty and rinse it out. That sops up the worst moisture and makes it much easier to keep things clean. For some years, we’ve been using small milking buckets (~8 L/2 gal) with lids. We built a drawer for them beside the sink – works great, saves counter space. )
Thank you so much for a comment that could make up another Rant on its own. I agree so much with what Felder said — “Don’t fret about it.” That’s the order of business here, and I’m glad I let go of the recipes etc… many years ago.
And THANK YOU for the newspaper tip at the bottom of the bin. That is brilliant and I will be using it immediately — there’s always a lot of moisture, and newspaper composts so well. –MW
I grew up in the Netherlands. We did not compost, but nothing went to waste anyway.
The pig farmer came around once or twice a week to pick up kitchen scraps. When you heard him coming down the street you handed him your bucket full of potato peelings and such.
That of course is the very best way to do it — use scraps to feed pigs and chickens. That’s why I feel lost when I don’t have chickens. But I’ve never had a desire to raise pigs. -MW
Thank you for such an entertaining and inspiring post about composting! I love how you combine practical tips with little anecdotes from everyday life – from the two compost buckets to clever solutions for fruit flies and the interim bin. It’s a great reminder that even the most dedicated composter needs to stay flexible and realistic, and that small steps still make a big difference. I especially appreciate the idea of involving children and family in the process – it teaches them to see waste as a resource, not just trash. I also love how you emphasize that composting doesn’t have to be perfect; anything that ends up in the pile is better than the landfill. After reading this, I’m genuinely inspired to go home and give my own kitchen scraps new life in the garden!
It definitely doesn’t need to be perfect — and that goes back to Don’s quoting Felder Rushing in his comment: “1. Don’t throw that stuff away – 2. Pile it up someplace – 3. Bless your heart, don’t fret about it.” Thank you Frederik and good luck with the composting! – MW
I agree 100%. Nature is really good at recycling – as the brilliant Banana Slug String Band sings, “Is there “waste?” well, I dunno – one thing dies to let another grow…” Out in the woods, the leaves just “disappear.” No gadgets or contraptions, no bubblers (with great respect for Elaine Ingham), no fancy additives or complex formulas (reminds me of The Grinch – “no tinsel, no trappings…”). Frederick, right on to “flexible, realistic… small steps.” That’s good advice for the garden (and life) beyond composting. Let’s all just do it, however it works for us. Thanks for getting us thinking about this (’til our puzzlers are sore), Marianne!
The front of my house has shrubs that six to eight feet high. Kitchen scraps? Open the front door and toss them in the bushes (no meat!). Grass clippings stay on the lawn. Leaves? One mower pass over the lawn without a bag chops them up. Second pass with the mower bag chops them more and the bag collects most of the lighter stuff. Bag is emptied onto the beds. I only do this once, after the leaves are all down.
All I can say for those not happy with waste smells nor acquainted with country composting but now considering it with animals as a source, pigs should not be part of the mix!
Love the idea of using newspaper to line the in-house bucket. I also rip up the cardboard from toilet paper and paper towel rolls to keep the compost from getting too wet.
For a while, quite a while ago, I would pulverize the compost in my food processor, but that got a little too tedious even for me. (Although it did reduce the volume considerably!)
And it’s nice to know I’m not the only one who’s slightly obsessed with composting!