#HAPPY FARMER KITCHEN COMPOSTER HOW TO#

To help speed up the decomposition of food scraps, an easy trick is to use your blender.Ī blender breaks down waste material into a slurry, which can then be added to a larger garden bin or outdoor tumbler for a quicker rate of decay. Some, like community gardens, may even offer a swap program, trading aged humus for your fresh kitchen waste. If your region doesn’t have organics recycling, look for drop-off bins at local community gardens and farmers markets, or with service groups.

If you’d like to learn more about this process, check out this article on composting basics on our sister site, Gardener’s Path.

This produces little internal heat, with material breakdown occurring more slowly over a period of 6-12 months. The much easier, but slower, cold method utilizes both brown and green waste products layered onto a pile as they’re available. However, this method also requires monitoring internal temperatures, regular turning, and adequate space to achieve the ideal conditions. This is due to the consistent, high temperatures achieved by mixing high-nitrogen materials with high-carbon ones. The hot method is the quickest to produce humus, in several weeks or a few months. There are two primary methods of composting, known as hot and cold. Over time, moisture and heat break down these materials, turning them into rich, black soil – a valuable commodity revered by the home gardener, landscaper, horticulturist, and organic farmer. In the compost cycle, a wide variety of natural materials, usually considered to be waste products, are layered.

Humus is the primary organic component that makes up soil, peat, and coal – not to be confused with hummus, the tasty chickpea dip! Rich in nutrients and beneficial as a fertilizer, soil conditioner, and natural pesticide, it also provides important humus for the soil. How It WorksĬompost is comprised of decomposed organic materials. And if you do have a garden or plant a few containers, compost adds tilth to your soil as well as healthy, natural nutrients. So, it’s an easy way for us as individuals to reduce waste and have a positive environmental impact in our communities. Once it’s processed, it can be used by families, community gardens, environmental groups, horticultural schools, and local governments to beautify our towns and cities. However, in today’s world, even if you don’t have your own garden bin, many municipalities offer pickup services in residential areas, and bins for organic waste are now found in many multi-family buildings. But with city dwelling, this hasn’t always been an option. Recycling food scraps for the home garden has been practiced for millennia. The second reason is that food waste is an important component of compost, an organic material that helps to renew and rejuvenate depleted soils. The first is that our ever-growing amounts of food waste have a hugely detrimental impact on our environment.Īs massive amounts of food rot in landfills, this releases powerful greenhouse gases into the atmosphere – like methane, which is a major contributor to global warming. There are two compelling reasons to repurpose food scraps:

#HAPPY FARMER KITCHEN COMPOSTER HOW TO#

How to Get Started with Kitchen Composting

Happy farmer kitchen composter