A Beginner’s Guide to Home Composting
Composting is an easy way to reduce your food waste, create nutrient-rich soil and give back to the earth. Once you know what to do with your food scraps, it’s easy to get started and maintain. Best of all, it’s free garden food that will help you grow strong and healthy plants.
Food waste is a major issue across the world. It’s estimated that nearly 30-40% of all food in the United States alone is wasted. Feeding America estimates that about 42 billion pounds of food are wasted in our homes when they go bad on our counters and in our fridges. What if the brown bananas and too-late spinach sitting in your fridge was not wasted but turned into nutritious compost?
With so many options for composting, it can get overwhelming. Really, there are a variety of simple options that can suit either small apartment dwellers or those with spacious backyards.
You don’t have to be an expert or have a deep scientific knowledge of soil to be successful at composting. We’ll go over all the basics of what to compost, its benefits, and the types of composting available.
What is Home Composting?
Home composting refers to the process of using household waste like food scraps and plant leaves to create your own compost, or soil amendment, at home. This happens when the natural elements of your food waste, organic materials, break down through natural decomposition.
The result is compost, a dark, crumbly material that is great to add to the environment. Its often referred to as “black gold” by farmers and environmentalists for its benefits to soil, resulting in healthy, fertile ground.
By mimicking the natural decomposition process of nature, like when you throw an apple core to the ground, and it eventually breaks down into the soil, we are able to create compost in a controlled, aerobic (meaning oxygen-required) process.
Benefits of Composting
Composting is one of the absolute best things you can do for the environment. After all, it is the natural cycle of nature to decompose and add nutrients back into the soil, completing the circle of life. We, humans, tend to disrupt this cycle, but not anymore, once we know how to compost effectively. Here’s why it’s so wonderful:
It Creates Nutrients for the Soil
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We’ve already touched on this, but compost is a wonderful addition to your soil. Whether you have a lawn or garden, adding compost will bring nutrients to your plants and help your soil retain moisture.
The microscopic organisms in compost will help to keep soil healthy and productive as well. These help aerate the soil (allow air to flow through) and ward off plant disease.
Through mismanagement and harmful chemical fertilizers, much of our agricultural land has been degraded, which makes it less effective for growing food. Compost helps to restore vitality and nutrients to the soil, bringing it back to health.
It Reduces Landfill Waste
Landfills are overflowing with trash – why add your food waste to them? It’s estimated that over one-third of landfill waste is made up of compostable materials.
Because they are mixed with non-compostable materials like plastic and styrofoam, these materials don’t get to break down fully in landfills and instead create methane gas. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas that accelerates and exacerbates climate change.
It’s Good for the Environment
Even if you don’t have a garden that you are passionate about, composting is great for the environment. Just tossing your compost in an empty natural area helps return precious and crucial nutrients back into the ground. In today’s day and age of removing every leaf from your yard, composting can help you reap the benefits of decomposed plant matter without all the mess.
It Saves You Money
Get this – you get FREE fertilizer for your soil. Not only that, but with less waste going into your trashcan, you might save on trash bags too.
Fertilizer is one item that has been badly affected by supply chain issues and ongoing conflicts, so it continues to increase in cost. Use the food scraps you already have to create your own instead.
What Can You Compost at Home?
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- Food peels/scraps
- Coffee filters and grains
- Dead leaves and plants
- Wood
- Eggshells
- Grass clippings
- Cardboard
- Newspapers and magazines
What Can’t You Compost at Home?
- Meat scraps or bones
- Fish
- Dairy products
- Cooked foods
- Fat/grease/oils
- Pet manures (especially cats)
- Diseased plants
How to Compost at Home
If you’re inspired to compost, the first thing you want to do is consider the space you’ll have available for composting. Do you live in an urban area without a backyard, or are perhaps growing an apartment garden? A countertop compost bin might work best. Do you have a backyard area? You’ll have a variety of options to choose from. Composting is possible in any size space.
Choosing Your Composting Bin
Enclosed Bin
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Enclosed bins are best for small-scale outdoor composting. Instead of composting in an open pile directly on the ground, you add your materials to a bin that closes at the top and sides to help keep bugs and critters away.
These are inexpensive to make or buy, but they can make it difficult to turn or aerate your compost, resulting in the process moving more slowly.
Composting Tumbler
A tumbler is another great and efficient option for small-scale composting in either a yard or on a balcony. Tumblers are designed to allow you to turn them easily, helping to aerate your compost effectively.
With tumblers, you can keep your compost at a high-temperature year round and therefore speed up the composting process. They are also good for keeping pests and rodents away and reducing smells.
Countertop Food Digesters
These small and compact machines will grind down and dehydrate your food waste material instead of decomposing it. You can add the resulting material to your garden, which will add nutrients to your space after burying it underneath the soil to continue the decomposition process.
These are best for apartment dwellers or those who can’t compost naturally outdoors due to lack of space.
Vermicomposting
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Also known as worm composting, vermicomposting uses worms to help easily break down your food scraps into compost. This mimics the natural environment in which earthworms travel through the soil, breaking down larger particles.
The resulting compost made almost entirely of earthworm castings is extremely nutrient rich – a super-compost, if you will!
Start Adding Your Green and Brown Matter
Okay, you’ve picked your bin, and you are ready to get started turning stuff into soil. Here’s where some science comes in. To compost most effectively, you want to have a good ratio of carbon-based items and nitrogen-based items.
Carbon-based items, or your browns, include things like wood clippings, straw, hay, and shredded paper. Nitrogen-based items, or your greens, include things like grass clippings, leaves, table scraps, and flowers.
You’ll want to try to add these in even layers if you can to help them work together to decompose. Adding “browns” like sticks first on the bottom can help your compost aerate better.
Managing Your Compost
Once you’ve added all your scraps and leaves, your compost is mostly complete and ready to do its thing. There are only a few things to keep in mind.
Your compost needs some moisture to break down efficiently, so you might need to add water occasionally if it’s looking a little dry. If you’re composting outside in a semi-open container, rain should take care of this. For options like vermicomposting, you’ll definitely need to add water every once in a while to create a viable atmosphere for the worms.
You’ll also need to turn your compost every once in a while to help aerate the mixture. You can give the pile a big turn every few weeks. You can also add “activators” like comfrey leaves or even chicken manure that will help speed up the process of decomposition.
If your compost is smelling, adding lime or calcium can help reduce odors. Also, remember to cover your new food scraps with a “brown” to help lessen smells.
Using Your Compost
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Now for the fun part – using your precious black gold! Compost is versatile and always helpful in the garden.
You can use it as a mulch around your plants, trees, and shrubs for an extra nutrient boost. You can also turn it into compost tea by soaking it in water for a few days.
If you want to fertilize a grass lawn, you can just add a small layer to the top and let the rain and wind naturally do the rest. If you have potted plants or houseplants, add it there too.
Final Thoughts on Home Composting
Home composting can be easy and fun once you know how to get started. Creating your own compost benefits the environment in a variety of ways, including reducing landfill and food waste.
Whether you choose a tumbler, vermicomposting, or even just a big ole pile in your yard, you’ll reap the benefits of creating nutrient-rich compost from your food scraps. Get the hang of the browns and greens, and soon you’ll be swimming in black gold!
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