Regarding the Composting Machine: Sorted Food took a look at one roughly 2 years ago and there was one comment below the Video that I will just copypaste in here because I think it's relevant: "As someone who actually helped design and engineer one of those home “food composters,” just don’t. Composting is a combination of aerobic bacteria and enzymes breaking down organic material into compost. It takes time. Every one of these “composters” is kneecapped by orders from on high that they have to make low volume, dry “compost” overnight. So they have to cook it all down, which kills any bacteria and deactivates any enzymes present. Which means what you’re spreading on the garden isn’t actually compost, it’s just finely ground waste. It still needs to convert via enzymatic and bacteriological processes, and can actually burn your plants if used too generously. It also sucks up a ton of power to effectively boil off the water, which carries water soluble compounds with it into the air, so there’s going to be a smell of cooking garbage. There’s some validity to a composting appliance. Using a machine to routinely agitate the decomposing mixture helps keep it aerated, which means aerobic decomposition which is faster, less smelly, emits less methane and CO2, and produces a more nutritious compost for the garden. The problem is time. If you want to turn food waste into compost, even with the help of agitation, you’re looking at around three weeks to a month, minimum. So any small kitchen appliance you could put on a countertop would be full within a week, and then it would have to sit there for three weeks, the refuse of which would have to be put somewhere else (likely the garbage can, as if you tried to store it until there was room in the machine again, it would have long since melted into horrifying slime). Composting appliances, if there is a place for them, belong where you’d keep your compost if you were doing it the manual way: in the back garden or shed." Credit to "rhvette" under the Video "Reviewing Food Trends | Vol.14 Sorted Food".
Thank you for this post. Super informative. I had no idea how countertop composting machines work. Now I know that they really don’t compost they just dehydrate the food scraps.
Im the only composter on my street, so my neighbors text me when they have green waste for me 😊 You can start composting without spending a dime. I loved Kate Floods book The Compost Coach from my local library.
I'm the composter in my triplex so I also encouraged my neighbors to throw in their fruit and veg scraps. Although I once found a raw chicken breast in there and had to send out a gentle reminder😊 but it's been nothing but scraps since!
I am so fortunate that here in my beautiful city of Boise Idaho, they do curbside compost pickup. We have a designated bin for compost materials (like lawn clippings and autumn leaves and/or kitchen scraps) that is picked up weekly. This material is, in turn, given away, for free pickup, at our local botanical garden for use in our home gardens, it's such a fantastic program. Great video/subject Mike, Thank you!
I live in an apartment and don't have a garden. I bought 3 30L plastic canisters, made holes in them for airation and use them for composting at home. I just put one in my kitchen, collect all food scraps in it (except for meat products), mix them with cardboard pieces for brown material, and some water. Then, when it's full, I put it elsewhere and use another one. If there's a proper ratio of green and brown materials and I mix everything from time to time, there's no bad smell. I also add some thichoderma to the compost I make (it's a kind of fungi that eats different pathogen fungis and helps decompose the scraps faster). When the compost is ready, I use it for growing some vegies on my balcony.
I agree that as we cook we generate more material for compost. At parties or when visiting friends or family that don't compost, I often bring home the compostable materials to my bins. Thank you for promoting composting!
In Manhattan, they've started adding composting bins around the city that you can unlock with an app. I trim down the sides of a paper grocery bag to make a sort of tray/bin that can fit in my freezer, line it with a compostable bag, and fill it with food scraps throughout the week. At the end of the week, I remove the compostable bag and walk a few blocks to the bin that's near me and toss everything in. Then I re-line the paper tray with a new bag. Rinse and repeat. The best part is that my garbage can never smells!
Concur on the smells! My trash has required so much less frequent removal because 1) it fills less quickly 2) no rotting food. Love having an option outside of trash can! One note though is those brown bins are for anaerobic digestion and I think they collect the methane to power things.. which is a huge improvement over landfills! But if you can I’d reach out to public officials too about restoring the food scrap collection at GreenNYC since that’s the full compost!
I have been composting since the 1980s. I have 2 compost bins at home and 7 at my allotment. All councils here in the UK offer a green waste bin for garden waste such as grass clippings, hedge trimmings, weeds etc, mainly during the summer months. Everyone is encouraged to compost their raw veg food scraps and some councils either offer free compost bins or discounted bins. In some of the cities where having a compost bin is not practical - living in an flat, for example, then food scraps are collected by the council either weekly or fortnightly. More and more councils are looking at kerbside cooked food scraps as well as bones, fat etc. The UK, is pretty big on recycling in general. Most people have at least 3 bins, which are collected weekly, fortnightly or monthly and we are encouraged to recycle cardboard and paper, plastics (including food trays) and tins. Many of the supermarkets now take back thinner plastics such as cling film, plastic that vegetables come in etc. My bin for waist that cannot be recycled goes out once a month and it is only half full. I don't put out cardboard, that is all composted, as is most paper only shiny paper and cardboard such as toothpaste tubes, which has a plastic film on it, goes in the recycling bin.
I have been composting for a couple of years now. I have a three bed system. This year I added vermicomposting and have a big bin of worms in my basement that I feed. I haven’t always been diligent on layering my compost (doing much better this year) but I am able to use the fruits of my labor this year with fresh compost for my ever growing garden. I plan to use my worm castings to make worm tea in order to fertilize my garden. I love the fact that I am not contributing to the ever expanding landfills and getting black gold for my garden.
I'm an avid gardener and I compost everything too. I have a bokashi system going for kitchen waste. Outside I have one hot compost bin and one cold compost bin. A tip for good aeration and taking care of too much moisture and odors: Add biochar. I have used wood ash too. A thin layer in between the wettest stuff. It will absorb odor, moisture, and nutrients and become a real powerhouse for your compost.
My scraps go 50% to the compost and 50% to my worm bin. Using my own compost has made my yard go from bare hard soil to a lush farm oasis. Now I use chop-n-drop just to contain the growth and keep the soil covered. I wish I knew about the value of not tossing garden waste years ago! 💚
@@Karma-qt4jithat’s amazing! Here in my area of the US we are behind the times environmentally so we’re lucky to have recycling added to our weekly pickup. 😢
I’ve been Bokashi composting for almost a year. It basically pickles the scraps before they go in the compost heap. It breaks down very quickly and supposedly isn’t a draw for critters. You can make your own bokashi bins from Home Depot buckets and you. Wed to buy bokashi bran that lasts quite a while and is pretty cheap in Amazon. Super easy.
As someone who recently started composting, the size of the trash has phenomenally decreased. It is really incredible. I’ve been wanting to compost for years but couldn’t because I didn’t have any nearby compost in my city. But I asked the city to dispose one and they did it. I thought it would smell really bad and have a ton of insects but it’s not as bad as I though. I really recommend everyone to compost.
I just recently found your TH-cam 13:54 . I really enjoy how you connect growing food with cooking food, and fermentation. We also compost and have chickens. We give our chickens the majority of our food scrapes and they also have layer feed. The chickens are on a deep wood chips in the run and deep hemp bedding in the coop. Once or twice a year we clean out both areas and that goes into our compost.
I looked into the Lomi because I wanted to try and break down my kitchen scraps quicker, but it was just too expensive for me. Instead, I use a cheap food processor (separate from the one I use to prepare meals) to break down peels, egg shells, etc.) I really hope this video encourages more people to compost.
It's also not a composter. It's a very energy-intense way to shred and dry your stuff, but it's not actually composting it. Binning your scraps is probably better at that point.
Started composting during the pandemic in a tumbler bin. I love composting itself, but I probably wouldn't do the bin in the future. I like the big green giant you have though. Thanks for making a video like this. The more people that do it the better off we'll be, plus who doesn't like their flowers or veggies looking amazing!
If you do happen to have a yard, you do not need to buy a compost bin, nor do you need to buy wood to make one. You can get old pallets and screw them together and make a compost bin. Lots of places give away the odd size pallets. If you are a renter in an apartment, try to work with someone that does compost that owns a home. The point that I am trying to convey, is don't give up because of circumstances. Try to find a way.
And if you don't have a yard, find a place that takes it. Local gardens, neighbors with backyards, municipal composting, etc. I volunteer at a farm weekly (Simple Promise Farms in Elgin, TX. They grow and sell organic veggies, fruit, medicinal and culinary herbs, eggs, and goat's milk products to provide free addiction treatment to those who cannot afford it), and I have an airtight bin in my apartment, so I just bring the bin full of veggie scraps with me! They really appreciate the compost, as it cuts down on fertilizer costs.
@@jennastephens1224 Very cool. I have garden, so I compost all my kitchen scraps and use them right here. Oh - not that far from you either. Canyon Lake here.
Sorry but no: those so called composting machines are useless and do the exact opposite of composting that needs moisture so multiple layers of micro-organisme can do there job of breaking down the complex sometime tough (cellulose, calcium shells) compounds so that they can later be reused by plants. Dessication is energy intensive and stops that process; You might as well throw it away where it will end up composting naturally anyway in a landfill without the need for a plastic gadget and the associated energy of manufacturing, use, cleaning and recycling.
@@cgourin Yeah.. my comment said that composting was a good idea even if you don’t have a garden. Not sure where all crazy came out about not liking those machines lol
I've composted and vermicomposted in 18qt Rubbermaid storage bins. I compost newspaper. Worms love the soy ink. Most brown dry material can be gotten from friends and neighbors. McDonald's and Starbucks will give you coffee grounds.
This vid was awesome! You're the 1st I've seen to break it down in layman's terms. Giving gardening another try & this really helped. Any tips for composting in areas w/ long periods of extreme heat/humidity? I'm a bit nervous about the smell. While I have a yard, I don't want to blow my neighbors away either 😁
If you mix enough browns, smell shouldn't be an issue. We use pine needles. I live in the southeastern US. It's VERY hot and humid here. Heat index in upper 90s F hot. My compost breaks down so quickly it doesn't smell or draw vermin. Once I put whole watermelon rinds in, they were gone in a week.
Thanks for making this video. It was a much needed video to make as once you turn away from process food, what follows is a sustainable approach. Food waste to landfill is insane as commercial fertilizers are based on fossil fuels and landfill leaks methan. Compost.
I got an American Giant Tshirt from the thrift store, and it's one of my absolute favorites for comfort and durability. Love that thing! My Lomi, though, not so much. It actually broke and the company wanted me to jump through too many hoops to get it fixed/replaced for my busy life. But even before that, it didn't make "compost" in the sense that I could add it to houseplants or anything. It made a dried out weird smelling mixture that actually made my potting soil worse for water retention (it got hard when it dried out). I guess you could sprinkle it sparingly in a garden or add it into a compost pile and it would be OK, but I only had small applications and it made those worse. I love the idea of it, but it just didn't work out for me. And don't put raw eggshells into it! I think that's what broke mine - the heat congeals the albumin and stresses the motor. At least that's my theory since the motor quit after a batch of "compost" with raw (non dried) eggshells. Maybe they've improved it since (I got mine from the kickstarter), who knows?
I agree. Doing my part in making my soil healthy and balance. Growing my own food and reducing my food expenses and its healthier as I know how it was grown. The extra produce, I ferment or give to my neighbours. Free food is always welcomed. When I was younger and poor, renting an apartment. I had a window so I got a thyme plant and feed the soil by making additional soil via composting and eventually got more plants. So when I cooked, I can cut my own fresh herbs. Somehow I felt it cleaned the air, gave a nice scent and they looked pretty. It really matters...
I live in a city that composts food scraps, but there are some creative ways to put food scraps to good use. Max LaManna and the Spicy Mustache are two options, but I’m sure there are others to help stretch our food dollars and minimize waste.
Your “show n tells” are so easy to follow! I’m a visual learner sooooo…. I’ve been putting off getting chicks bcuz I haven’t found a good “how to” explanation from start to well. Almost finished. Well Mike you did it! Thanks again! So glad I found your channel.
I want to start composting. Great video. I do use the onion peels and ends that are cut off. I dehydrate them and grind them into homemade onion powder. Smells and tastes amazing. I'm going to try that with garlic too.
I've composted for probably 4+ decades. When I lived in the USA I had a great yard and a compost pile for yard waste (mostly tree leaves) and I used a burying technique in my large garden space for [mostly] kitchen vegetable waste. The hole was capped with a garbage can lid (excluding vermin problems) and I just moved the hole every time it was full. Well, I moved to Brazil and here my household generates EVEN MORE vegetable waste than ever because we have just loads of wonderful fruits and vegies that result in a whole lot of material daily (like 1-2kg per day). Initially, the material was simply sent to the landfill by those who work in the kitchen. Because they complained of the heaviness of the garbage bags that they hauled to the street 3 times/weekly I suggested that we compost. Of course, who ended up resolving the compost was me and I'm a bit older and less able to haul stuff around YET I did it, with wonderful results - a lot of great soil to use around all of the yard plants my family maintains. Weekly I haul a 50 liter container to our nearby lot where I have 4 holes (size of garbage cans). I fill them one at a time and by the time (4 months) that I get to the third hole the first hole is getting to completion. Now I'm older and less able to haul material down the street to our extra lot. I'd like to find a way to make composting fit within the bounds of the home and possibly even an apartment. I HAVE done kitchen-worm-composting in the past with success but our volume here in Brazil is large. What I'm thinking of is better shredding (as in garbage disposal) and vermiculture in a 500 Liter water tank (Brazil doesn't have large compost bins on the market - but I'm sure I could build one). I'm considering a garbage disposal shredder to "amp-up" composting speed, combined with heavy reliance on vermiculture. My idea is to build a veggie-sink with a disposal that drops material into a screened bucket for distribution to a very large worm box (tank). When I came to Brazil I brought these three books: "The Rodale Book of Composting: Easy Methods for Every Gardener," 1992, by Grace Gershuny (Editor), Jerry Minnich (Editor) "Let It Rot!: The Gardener's Guide to Composting," 1998, Storey's Down-To-Earth Guides "The Worm Book: The Complete Guide to Gardening and Composting with Worms," 1998, by Loren Nancarrow, Janet Hogan Taylor I would love to see more community composting, both in the USA and here in Brazil.
Bokashi composting might be good for people without yards. If you do have a yard, do in-ground composting. It works like this: #1 Drill small holes in a bucket. #2 Dig a hole the size of bucket in the ground. #3 Put bucket in hole. #4 Add food scraps. #5 Secure bucket with lid. That's it! Happy composting. 🙂🌎
Really cool video, thank you for sharing this important information. I also do a veg stock from scraps and throw all my bio waste from the kitchen to compost. So I don't have to clean my waste bin every day and also have free plants fertilizer
Thanks Mike!! We just moved, and have a cute little fenced in yard that gets decent sun in our short summer months (Alaska)..i dont have time to grow this season, so I had planned on using the space to compost so that next season Im flush with healthy food for my food. Appreciate your content, youve helped elevate my home cooking game to the point where I am wondering how my family survived on my cooking pre-TH-cam 😂❤
I work for EcoSafe, a compostable bag company, and this is the best, most accurate video I've seen on composting in a LONG time. Great to see. I noticed that you put compostable film bags in your backyard composter which isn't really recommended because they don't break down well outside of a commercial composting environment. Have you had any success breaking them down, or do you tend to pull them out afterwards?
Great video! I give most of my stuff to the chickens even if they dont eat it they scratch and eventually compost! I am yet to perfect it since my mom has dementia , things slip throgh but I am trying.
Moving in a week from the country to a small city. Though I didn't maintain a formal compost bin, most of my scraps got tossed out the back door to let nature take it. New small yard is a blank slate and next spring I plan on doing raised veggie beds. So - in my cart at Amazon is a dual rotating compost bin and I plan on starting that up immediately.
Very informative video! We like to freeze the scraps so we can to make stocks, but any scraps that don't make it to the freezer, definitely head to the compost bin!
in Germany we just have a separate trash can for plastic waste, paper waste, and organic waste that gets collected every week and is then recycled or composted
Here in Wales, the local council provides every household with both a small food waste bin for the kitchen worktop and a larger bin to set out on the kerb with the recycling for weekly collection. Whenever you need more, you can pick up a roll of liner bags for the small bin from the library or designated stockists in your neighbourhood - all free of charge.
Another simple option is trench composting. You dig a hole (the trench), toss your scraps in it, and cover it back up. Also don’t forget to compost your yard scraps as well. Leaves make a great source of ‘browns’ for your bin, and mulching lawn mowers shred your grass clipping up to more easily break down right where they land.
I compost my food scraps and I have just discovered it is really easy to make bone meal slurry with 4 hours in the Instant Pot and then any blender will liquefy the bones easily combined with cooking liquid. Since you want to use the cooking liquid, clean off, or cook off, the bones before going for the long pressure cooking. Use the slurry right away. It is a really good form to use bone meal. No dust, soaks in well. My artichokes are happy! Urine NPK is approximately 11-1-2 and they love that too. Bone meal adds to the middle number, especially, the P phosphorus.
I take all of my online shipping boxes and put them through the shredder and also add that to my compost bin! In the summertime they can break down in like 2 weeks
Compostable Material landing in a landfill sounds pretty wild to me. Here in Germany we have a specific brown bin for compostables, which then usually get sent to an industrial compost company. You can drive there to buy different qualities of the resulting compost as a regular person. We did that to get half a ton of humus, when we had to fill up a patch in our garden, to even it out.
all edible veggie scraps (potato skins, ends of onions, tomato tops, carrot peels, etc) go into a bag in the freezer. when it's full, I make veggie broth with a few root veg. additions. the rest of the food scraps get run thru the blender with water and poured over my various garden beds. the worms take care of the rest. this is especially good in winter when compost bins aren't active.
I live in a place that made composting mandatory and the people aren't happy lol. They don't want a green bin with maggots to push out once a week. I personally compost but I see where they are coming from. And l know, people say freeze it till composting day but most people don't want a bag of kitchen waste in the freezer. I'm a lazy composter, I just picked a spot on our property and that's where I dump kitchen waste. I also have chicken coop, horse poo and goat poo that goes into the compost. Mine is a big pile so I use the tractor to lift it and dump it to aerate it. The biggest problem here is to keep it moist in the summer because we don't get rain. Having the compost for the garden is super satisfying knowing you made it!
We bought a compost tumbler and throw all kitchen scraps in there. The main benefit from this is that we always have so much more room in our landfill trashcan than ever before.
If you're a farmer/homesteader: chickens, pigs, or even rabbits are awesome! Obviously they each have their dietary needs/restrictions, so do your research. I used to have rabbits and so many greens went to them instead of being wasted! 😊
A lot of people are caught up in the mindset of "needing the right tool" for the job. That is what companies trying to sell you useless shit WANT you to believe so you'll buy. Remember, our great great grandparents did this kind of stuff with buckets, baskets, and a hole in the ground. And to those of you who say this kind of task is "priviledged".... are you stupid? It takes just as much time to throw your (wasted) food in the garbage as it does in a compost bin. What is the damn difference? Hes showing us OPTIONS. Observe and learn, even if this kind of action doesn't suit your life at this time. But dont poo-poo on others who find this valuable, especially the creator who makes content creation his job but ALSO happens to love what he does.
I’m so lucky to have access to a municipal composting program. It’s $50/year for the lockable bin and they pick up every week. The compost is made at a local farm and we can pick it up for our own usage and the rest goes to other local agriculture. Because it’s such a big hot compost pile and not just a backyard deal, it gets super hot so we can do bones, meat, cheese, shellfish, paper towels, certain non-clay kitty litters, etc in there as well. It’s great.
What is that tool at 0.57? We have 3 compost bins in our yard that are similar. We rotate them every year (eg bin #1: 2012 scraps; bin #2: 2023 scraps; bin #3: 2024 scraps). In general, we find that after a couple years, it turns into something that we can add to the garden beds. But it's not great. It does look as .... soily as yours. ;) Maybe we need to be mixing more?
Just started composting this year with a tumbler - worried about the winter only because I know compost does well with heat. I know eventually it will break down when it warms up again but anything to know about composting in the winter?
Hi guys, If anything is useable to make stock we do that first. Then we compost the drained veggies with garden clippings, and the non-soupables....egg shells banana peels orange pith etc etc. It keeps my garden healthy and my pots full. I've been doing this since the 1970s. I think my main inspiration came from Sandra Oddo's 1970s seasonal farm cookbook "Home Made" which taught me to think seasonally. I had alrready decided to do all my own cooking from scratch. Thanks for this PHC. I hope the word gets out. Jim Mexico retired.
In sweden, organic waste is usually composted and sold as fertilizer or bio gas is made for buses etc. I still do my own compost at home because its fun and I get free fertilizer.
I was waiting for bokashi compost to come up as it is almost the easiest way to compost when you don’t have space. It is an anaerob composting technique which means you don’t need to add air/carbon rich things in your compost, only food scraps work with the bacteria culture which breaks down the stuff and makes compost + compost tea (it’s for plants, not to drink😂). Of course in the end you have to use up the compost, but if you give it to a friend with a garden, they’ll be happy for sure :D there are bokashi bins on amazon, so no need to diy anything either :)
Ive always composted and was taught by my Nana (born 1905). Mine currently all go to the chickens. I had a worm farm but they dont like our cold winters. Making dinner always starts with 'what needs eating?' because i now live in a rural area and there is no 'just pop to the market' or takeout or meal delivery. I dont make veg stock because i think its a waste of time
Worms! Not crazy!! I've been raising worms under my sink - or in my bathroom - for years. Absolutely no smell. Absolutely no bugs. And really, not much different than you collecting your waste in your plastic container. And worm castings are even better than compost for your garden or indoor plants. Good side hustle selling the castings and the worms if you're so inclined. Great kid project. If you want to step up your composting game, make sure your compost pile is at least one cubic metre in size (3 feet x 3 feet x 3 feet). Small compost piles - including most of the spinning types - only reach the mesophilic phase, up to around 25°C/77°F. A larger pile will reach the thermophilic stage (40-60°C/104-140°F) where most pathogens and weed seeds perish. Adding human urine is a good way to kickstart a compost pile that you can't seem to get to the thermophilic stage. If you need compost quickly, the Berkeley method can turn your pile into compost in as little as 18 days. The drawback, it needs to be turned every two days after an initial four day starting phase. Don't be hatin' on the worms! 😂 Oh, and your chickens will love you for the extra protein in their diet from a few worms every now and then.
I use the Bokashi bins for my food scraps. I have a very small garden, so I cannot always put the fermented scraps in the garden. The next logical step is to put the scraps in a pot, put some soil on top of the scraps to hide them (it is not a pretty sight) and then wait for nature to do its work to turn them into the most beautiful, fertile soil. Bonus point, you can just plant right in the pot, no need for extra soil.
Wooow sooooo educative and aspirational your message here LOVE IT...by the way ...let's do not peel potatoes always ...their skeen if pack of vitamins A ..so not need to peal it away !!!!
Bokashi composting is fantastic! You can compost literally anything - fried stuff, meat, shells, everything. Plus, it doesn’t smell and takes up a tiny amount of space!
I compost my scraps with red wiggler worms in my garden tower and overwinter the worms while still feeding them scraps. I have a few videos on my channel for both scenarios!
I just bury my food scraps in the back yard. I have several spots. When I go back to a former spot, I notice the food peelings are all gone, however, parts of the egg shells are still visible. Think I need to grind them up before burying them..
ive been cooking a lot more at home the past couple weeks as my senior year of high school has ended and i have a bit more free time around lunch time so ive saved ALL of my scraps and found something to do with them. carrot peels and ends, onion peels and roots, and the same for garlic all go into soup with the bones from smoked boston butts or already roasted chickens or whatever other vegetable scraps i might have and i have a solid week worth of meals right there for almost free. boiled pineapple peels and cooked with that water that was almost like a tea, orange peels can be dried and put into sauces as an aromatic, i throw absolutely nothing away anymore and im basically preparing for the day i move out and have to budget my food. its not just efficient and cheap, its fun finding new ways to use stuff youd otherwise throw out anyway, why not experiment with something you dont intend on using anyway?
i work for a school. WE try to compost but, we have plastic or metals in our compost. is it better to try to compost this? if it is not a lot of metal or plastic or worse to do so?
I keep a lidded 5-gallon bucket on the floor in my kitchen for all of my food scraps . After every 2 inches in the bucket, I sprinkle on some Bokashi powder, which I bought on Amazon. I spray the powdery granules with a little bit of water from a spray bottle that I keep next to the bucket. There is no odor, and they say you can even put in dairy and chicken bones (I have only fruit and veggie scraps, coffee grounds, tea herbs, crunched-up eggshells, plant leaves, dog fur, etc.). The Bokashi microbes eat the waste and break it down. When the bucket is full, which takes a couple of weeks for me, I either empty it into my compost bin outside (I have a big green Aerobin from Costco) or toss it around my plants and trees outside. No mess. No fuss. I don't cut things up, I just throw them in the bucket and put the lid back on. Sprinkle with the powder and dampen with water after every 2 inches. Super easy.
My biggest worry with getting a composting bin for food scraps is I worry about when I inevitably move Maybe I'm just anxious but the thought of hitting a speed bump a little to fast in a uhaul and compost covering my bed in apple cores and straw makes me have second thoughts - maybe the solution is to do build something out of pallets and just break it down and recycle what I can when I leave?
If you live in a major city you can probably pay a composting service to pick up the bucket once a week. I live in Philly and there are a few. They give you free pickup of Xmas trees, pumpkins and free compost every year for $5/week.
Living in a largish city has its perks as often they have composting, or yard waste bins that also accept food waste. I have partaken that offer, along with recycling and garbage. The garbage bin is the smallest they have (it's just me at my place) and currently, both yard waste bins are full, mostly with cut grass as I cut my grass last weekend and one has some food scraps, and old growth from the fuschia plant I have in my flower bed. The other full yard waste goes out tomorrow so both get emptied on Friday. But yes, I toss all food into the yard waste bins to be composted as one, I don't really have room, and two, do not want to attract varmints around my place (get occasional rats/mice) IN the house, unfortunately. In fact, saw a rat/mice scuttle out of the kitchen via the dishwasher into the old back porch last evening that's also my laundry room (it's enclosed).
Regarding the Composting Machine:
Sorted Food took a look at one roughly 2 years ago and there was one comment below the Video that I will just copypaste in here because I think it's relevant:
"As someone who actually helped design and engineer one of those home “food composters,” just don’t. Composting is a combination of aerobic bacteria and enzymes breaking down organic material into compost. It takes time. Every one of these “composters” is kneecapped by orders from on high that they have to make low volume, dry “compost” overnight. So they have to cook it all down, which kills any bacteria and deactivates any enzymes present. Which means what you’re spreading on the garden isn’t actually compost, it’s just finely ground waste. It still needs to convert via enzymatic and bacteriological processes, and can actually burn your plants if used too generously. It also sucks up a ton of power to effectively boil off the water, which carries water soluble compounds with it into the air, so there’s going to be a smell of cooking garbage.
There’s some validity to a composting appliance. Using a machine to routinely agitate the decomposing mixture helps keep it aerated, which means aerobic decomposition which is faster, less smelly, emits less methane and CO2, and produces a more nutritious compost for the garden. The problem is time. If you want to turn food waste into compost, even with the help of agitation, you’re looking at around three weeks to a month, minimum. So any small kitchen appliance you could put on a countertop would be full within a week, and then it would have to sit there for three weeks, the refuse of which would have to be put somewhere else (likely the garbage can, as if you tried to store it until there was room in the machine again, it would have long since melted into horrifying slime).
Composting appliances, if there is a place for them, belong where you’d keep your compost if you were doing it the manual way: in the back garden or shed."
Credit to "rhvette" under the Video "Reviewing Food Trends | Vol.14 Sorted Food".
Thank you for this post. Super informative. I had no idea how countertop composting machines work. Now I know that they really don’t compost they just dehydrate the food scraps.
Awesome comment I’m also a huge fan of sorted food and the fact that seeing somebody else shout them out just makes me happy
Im the only composter on my street, so my neighbors text me when they have green waste for me 😊 You can start composting without spending a dime. I loved Kate Floods book The Compost Coach from my local library.
I'm the composter in my triplex so I also encouraged my neighbors to throw in their fruit and veg scraps. Although I once found a raw chicken breast in there and had to send out a gentle reminder😊 but it's been nothing but scraps since!
I am so fortunate that here in my beautiful city of Boise Idaho, they do curbside compost pickup. We have a designated bin for compost materials (like lawn clippings and autumn leaves and/or kitchen scraps) that is picked up weekly. This material is, in turn, given away, for free pickup, at our local botanical garden for use in our home gardens, it's such a fantastic program. Great video/subject Mike, Thank you!
I live in an apartment and don't have a garden. I bought 3 30L plastic canisters, made holes in them for airation and use them for composting at home. I just put one in my kitchen, collect all food scraps in it (except for meat products), mix them with cardboard pieces for brown material, and some water. Then, when it's full, I put it elsewhere and use another one. If there's a proper ratio of green and brown materials and I mix everything from time to time, there's no bad smell.
I also add some thichoderma to the compost I make (it's a kind of fungi that eats different pathogen fungis and helps decompose the scraps faster). When the compost is ready, I use it for growing some vegies on my balcony.
I agree that as we cook we generate more material for compost. At parties or when visiting friends or family that don't compost, I often bring home the compostable materials to my bins. Thank you for promoting composting!
In Manhattan, they've started adding composting bins around the city that you can unlock with an app. I trim down the sides of a paper grocery bag to make a sort of tray/bin that can fit in my freezer, line it with a compostable bag, and fill it with food scraps throughout the week. At the end of the week, I remove the compostable bag and walk a few blocks to the bin that's near me and toss everything in. Then I re-line the paper tray with a new bag. Rinse and repeat. The best part is that my garbage can never smells!
Concur on the smells! My trash has required so much less frequent removal because 1) it fills less quickly 2) no rotting food. Love having an option outside of trash can!
One note though is those brown bins are for anaerobic digestion and I think they collect the methane to power things.. which is a huge improvement over landfills! But if you can I’d reach out to public officials too about restoring the food scrap collection at GreenNYC since that’s the full compost!
I have been composting since the 1980s. I have 2 compost bins at home and 7 at my allotment. All councils here in the UK offer a green waste bin for garden waste such as grass clippings, hedge trimmings, weeds etc, mainly during the summer months. Everyone is encouraged to compost their raw veg food scraps and some councils either offer free compost bins or discounted bins. In some of the cities where having a compost bin is not practical - living in an flat, for example, then food scraps are collected by the council either weekly or fortnightly. More and more councils are looking at kerbside cooked food scraps as well as bones, fat etc. The UK, is pretty big on recycling in general. Most people have at least 3 bins, which are collected weekly, fortnightly or monthly and we are encouraged to recycle cardboard and paper, plastics (including food trays) and tins. Many of the supermarkets now take back thinner plastics such as cling film, plastic that vegetables come in etc. My bin for waist that cannot be recycled goes out once a month and it is only half full. I don't put out cardboard, that is all composted, as is most paper only shiny paper and cardboard such as toothpaste tubes, which has a plastic film on it, goes in the recycling bin.
I have been composting for a couple of years now. I have a three bed system. This year I added vermicomposting and have a big bin of worms in my basement that I feed. I haven’t always been diligent on layering my compost (doing much better this year) but I am able to use the fruits of my labor this year with fresh compost for my ever growing garden. I plan to use my worm castings to make worm tea in order to fertilize my garden. I love the fact that I am not contributing to the ever expanding landfills and getting black gold for my garden.
I'm an avid gardener and I compost everything too. I have a bokashi system going for kitchen waste. Outside I have one hot compost bin and one cold compost bin. A tip for good aeration and taking care of too much moisture and odors: Add biochar. I have used wood ash too. A thin layer in between the wettest stuff. It will absorb odor, moisture, and nutrients and become a real powerhouse for your compost.
My scraps go 50% to the compost and 50% to my worm bin. Using my own compost has made my yard go from bare hard soil to a lush farm oasis. Now I use chop-n-drop just to contain the growth and keep the soil covered. I wish I knew about the value of not tossing garden waste years ago! 💚
I love this!! I am passionate about food waste so I try to use as many “scraps” as I can and I compost what’s left.
Agree on the first and my home town (in the UK) has a weekly road side collection for the rest.
@@Karma-qt4jithat’s amazing! Here in my area of the US we are behind the times environmentally so we’re lucky to have recycling added to our weekly pickup. 😢
I’ve been Bokashi composting for almost a year. It basically pickles the scraps before they go in the compost heap. It breaks down very quickly and supposedly isn’t a draw for critters. You can make your own bokashi bins from Home Depot buckets and you. Wed to buy bokashi bran that lasts quite a while and is pretty cheap in Amazon. Super easy.
I do a seasonal BSFL bin for all the things that are harder to compost, like meat, citrus, etc. And the chickens love 'em!
As someone who recently started composting, the size of the trash has phenomenally decreased. It is really incredible. I’ve been wanting to compost for years but couldn’t because I didn’t have any nearby compost in my city. But I asked the city to dispose one and they did it. I thought it would smell really bad and have a ton of insects but it’s not as bad as I though. I really recommend everyone to compost.
Some of my food scraps I put directly in the ground in and around my garden. Super easy and effective.
I just recently found your TH-cam 13:54 . I really enjoy how you connect growing food with cooking food, and fermentation. We also compost and have chickens. We give our chickens the majority of our food scrapes and they also have layer feed. The chickens are on a deep wood chips in the run and deep hemp bedding in the coop. Once or twice a year we clean out both areas and that goes into our compost.
I looked into the Lomi because I wanted to try and break down my kitchen scraps quicker, but it was just too expensive for me. Instead, I use a cheap food processor (separate from the one I use to prepare meals) to break down peels, egg shells, etc.) I really hope this video encourages more people to compost.
It's also not a composter. It's a very energy-intense way to shred and dry your stuff, but it's not actually composting it. Binning your scraps is probably better at that point.
Started composting during the pandemic in a tumbler bin. I love composting itself, but I probably wouldn't do the bin in the future. I like the big green giant you have though. Thanks for making a video like this. The more people that do it the better off we'll be, plus who doesn't like their flowers or veggies looking amazing!
If you do happen to have a yard, you do not need to buy a compost bin, nor do you need to buy wood to make one. You can get old pallets and screw them together and make a compost bin. Lots of places give away the odd size pallets. If you are a renter in an apartment, try to work with someone that does compost that owns a home. The point that I am trying to convey, is don't give up because of circumstances. Try to find a way.
And if you don't have a yard, find a place that takes it. Local gardens, neighbors with backyards, municipal composting, etc. I volunteer at a farm weekly (Simple Promise Farms in Elgin, TX. They grow and sell organic veggies, fruit, medicinal and culinary herbs, eggs, and goat's milk products to provide free addiction treatment to those who cannot afford it), and I have an airtight bin in my apartment, so I just bring the bin full of veggie scraps with me! They really appreciate the compost, as it cuts down on fertilizer costs.
@@jennastephens1224 Very cool. I have garden, so I compost all my kitchen scraps and use them right here. Oh - not that far from you either. Canyon Lake here.
Definitely never thought about composting without a garden. Great video!
Sorry but no: those so called composting machines are useless and do the exact opposite of composting that needs moisture so multiple layers of micro-organisme can do there job of breaking down the complex sometime tough (cellulose, calcium shells) compounds so that they can later be reused by plants. Dessication is energy intensive and stops that process; You might as well throw it away where it will end up composting naturally anyway in a landfill without the need for a plastic gadget and the associated energy of manufacturing, use, cleaning and recycling.
@@cgourin Yeah.. my comment said that composting was a good idea even if you don’t have a garden. Not sure where all crazy came out about not liking those machines lol
@@howler5000 if you don't have a garden where do you compost?
@@cgourin I was thinking outside on the ground.
@@howler5000 I'm thinking your neighbors are going to love it if you throw your garbage outside "It's not rotting it's composting!""
Thank you for making this video for our environment
I've composted and vermicomposted in 18qt Rubbermaid storage bins. I compost newspaper. Worms love the soy ink. Most brown dry material can be gotten from friends and neighbors. McDonald's and Starbucks will give you coffee grounds.
In arizona, I compost using Rubbermaid trash cans with holes drilled into the sides and bottoms. I use a three bin system and it works great!
This vid was awesome! You're the 1st I've seen to break it down in layman's terms. Giving gardening another try & this really helped. Any tips for composting in areas w/ long periods of extreme heat/humidity? I'm a bit nervous about the smell. While I have a yard, I don't want to blow my neighbors away either 😁
If you mix enough browns, smell shouldn't be an issue. We use pine needles. I live in the southeastern US. It's VERY hot and humid here. Heat index in upper 90s F hot. My compost breaks down so quickly it doesn't smell or draw vermin. Once I put whole watermelon rinds in, they were gone in a week.
Thanks for making this video. It was a much needed video to make as once you turn away from process food, what follows is a sustainable approach. Food waste to landfill is insane as commercial fertilizers are based on fossil fuels and landfill leaks methan. Compost.
I got an American Giant Tshirt from the thrift store, and it's one of my absolute favorites for comfort and durability. Love that thing! My Lomi, though, not so much. It actually broke and the company wanted me to jump through too many hoops to get it fixed/replaced for my busy life. But even before that, it didn't make "compost" in the sense that I could add it to houseplants or anything. It made a dried out weird smelling mixture that actually made my potting soil worse for water retention (it got hard when it dried out). I guess you could sprinkle it sparingly in a garden or add it into a compost pile and it would be OK, but I only had small applications and it made those worse. I love the idea of it, but it just didn't work out for me. And don't put raw eggshells into it! I think that's what broke mine - the heat congeals the albumin and stresses the motor. At least that's my theory since the motor quit after a batch of "compost" with raw (non dried) eggshells. Maybe they've improved it since (I got mine from the kickstarter), who knows?
I have been composting for about 10 years so my boys are also putting scraps in the bin... this spring I have 0,5 m3 of composted earth...so proud...
Love that you created a whole video about compost! Thank you!!
Bro, your channel is gold, thanks!!!
I agree. Doing my part in making my soil healthy and balance. Growing my own food and reducing my food expenses and its healthier as I know how it was grown. The extra produce, I ferment or give to my neighbours. Free food is always welcomed. When I was younger and poor, renting an apartment. I had a window so I got a thyme plant and feed the soil by making additional soil via composting and eventually got more plants. So when I cooked, I can cut my own fresh herbs. Somehow I felt it cleaned the air, gave a nice scent and they looked pretty. It really matters...
I live in a city that composts food scraps, but there are some creative ways to put food scraps to good use. Max LaManna and the Spicy Mustache are two options, but I’m sure there are others to help stretch our food dollars and minimize waste.
Your “show n tells” are so easy to follow! I’m a visual learner sooooo….
I’ve been putting off getting chicks bcuz I haven’t found a good “how to” explanation from start to well. Almost finished. Well Mike you did it! Thanks again! So glad I found your channel.
Another great option is the Bokashi composting system especially for people with small gardens or living in apartments.
I want to start composting. Great video. I do use the onion peels and ends that are cut off. I dehydrate them and grind them into homemade onion powder. Smells and tastes amazing. I'm going to try that with garlic too.
Composting is amazing. They are really helpful to me.
Thank you very much!
I've composted for probably 4+ decades. When I lived in the USA I had a great yard and a compost pile for yard waste (mostly tree leaves) and I used a burying technique in my large garden space for [mostly] kitchen vegetable waste. The hole was capped with a garbage can lid (excluding vermin problems) and I just moved the hole every time it was full.
Well, I moved to Brazil and here my household generates EVEN MORE vegetable waste than ever because we have just loads of wonderful fruits and vegies that result in a whole lot of material daily (like 1-2kg per day). Initially, the material was simply sent to the landfill by those who work in the kitchen. Because they complained of the heaviness of the garbage bags that they hauled to the street 3 times/weekly I suggested that we compost. Of course, who ended up resolving the compost was me and I'm a bit older and less able to haul stuff around YET I did it, with wonderful results - a lot of great soil to use around all of the yard plants my family maintains. Weekly I haul a 50 liter container to our nearby lot where I have 4 holes (size of garbage cans). I fill them one at a time and by the time (4 months) that I get to the third hole the first hole is getting to completion.
Now I'm older and less able to haul material down the street to our extra lot. I'd like to find a way to make composting fit within the bounds of the home and possibly even an apartment. I HAVE done kitchen-worm-composting in the past with success but our volume here in Brazil is large. What I'm thinking of is better shredding (as in garbage disposal) and vermiculture in a 500 Liter water tank (Brazil doesn't have large compost bins on the market - but I'm sure I could build one). I'm considering a garbage disposal shredder to "amp-up" composting speed, combined with heavy reliance on vermiculture. My idea is to build a veggie-sink with a disposal that drops material into a screened bucket for distribution to a very large worm box (tank).
When I came to Brazil I brought these three books:
"The Rodale Book of Composting: Easy Methods for Every Gardener," 1992, by Grace Gershuny (Editor), Jerry Minnich (Editor)
"Let It Rot!: The Gardener's Guide to Composting," 1998, Storey's Down-To-Earth Guides
"The Worm Book: The Complete Guide to Gardening and Composting with Worms," 1998, by Loren Nancarrow, Janet Hogan Taylor
I would love to see more community composting, both in the USA and here in Brazil.
Bokashi composting might be good for people without yards. If you do have a yard, do in-ground composting. It works like this:
#1 Drill small holes in a bucket.
#2 Dig a hole the size of bucket in the ground.
#3 Put bucket in hole.
#4 Add food scraps.
#5 Secure bucket with lid.
That's it! Happy composting. 🙂🌎
Really cool video, thank you for sharing this important information. I also do a veg stock from scraps and throw all my bio waste from the kitchen to compost. So I don't have to clean my waste bin every day and also have free plants fertilizer
Can you please show us how to get the final good compost out from the bottom on that large compost plastic bin???
Thanks Mike!! We just moved, and have a cute little fenced in yard that gets decent sun in our short summer months (Alaska)..i dont have time to grow this season, so I had planned on using the space to compost so that next season Im flush with healthy food for my food. Appreciate your content, youve helped elevate my home cooking game to the point where I am wondering how my family survived on my cooking pre-TH-cam 😂❤
I work for EcoSafe, a compostable bag company, and this is the best, most accurate video I've seen on composting in a LONG time. Great to see. I noticed that you put compostable film bags in your backyard composter which isn't really recommended because they don't break down well outside of a commercial composting environment. Have you had any success breaking them down, or do you tend to pull them out afterwards?
I've used them before and they break down fine in my pile. But I do live in the hot, humid southeast so that probably helps.
Thank you! They do eventually break down.
@@LifebyMikeG If you ever want some more bags, we'd love to send you some. Happy to support any creator that's promoting the good word of composting!
Great video! I give most of my stuff to the chickens even if they dont eat it they scratch and eventually compost!
I am yet to perfect it since my mom has dementia , things slip throgh but I am trying.
Moving in a week from the country to a small city. Though I didn't maintain a formal compost bin, most of my scraps got tossed out the back door to let nature take it. New small yard is a blank slate and next spring I plan on doing raised veggie beds. So - in my cart at Amazon is a dual rotating compost bin and I plan on starting that up immediately.
I use vegetable peelings to make vegetable stock.
Very informative video! We like to freeze the scraps so we can to make stocks, but any scraps that don't make it to the freezer, definitely head to the compost bin!
great video!
restaurants, cafes and similars should be doing this as well
in Germany we just have a separate trash can for plastic waste, paper waste, and organic waste that gets collected every week and is then recycled or composted
Same here in Belgium. Also the same in the UK and France, and I think most of Western/Northern Europe.
@@pseudomonad It does exist in France but sadly its still pretty rare, it is getting more and more common though !
Here in Wales, the local council provides every household with both a small food waste bin for the kitchen worktop and a larger bin to set out on the kerb with the recycling for weekly collection. Whenever you need more, you can pick up a roll of liner bags for the small bin from the library or designated stockists in your neighbourhood - all free of charge.
Another simple option is trench composting. You dig a hole (the trench), toss your scraps in it, and cover it back up.
Also don’t forget to compost your yard scraps as well. Leaves make a great source of ‘browns’ for your bin, and mulching lawn mowers shred your grass clipping up to more easily break down right where they land.
I compost my food scraps and I have just discovered it is really easy to make bone meal slurry with 4 hours in the Instant Pot and then any blender will liquefy the bones easily combined with cooking liquid. Since you want to use the cooking liquid, clean off, or cook off, the bones before going for the long pressure cooking. Use the slurry right away. It is a really good form to use bone meal. No dust, soaks in well. My artichokes are happy! Urine NPK is approximately 11-1-2 and they love that too. Bone meal adds to the middle number, especially, the P phosphorus.
I take all of my online shipping boxes and put them through the shredder and also add that to my compost bin! In the summertime they can break down in like 2 weeks
Compostable Material landing in a landfill sounds pretty wild to me. Here in Germany we have a specific brown bin for compostables, which then usually get sent to an industrial compost company. You can drive there to buy different qualities of the resulting compost as a regular person. We did that to get half a ton of humus, when we had to fill up a patch in our garden, to even it out.
all edible veggie scraps (potato skins, ends of onions, tomato tops, carrot peels, etc) go into a bag in the freezer. when it's full, I make veggie broth with a few root veg. additions.
the rest of the food scraps get run thru the blender with water and poured over my various garden beds. the worms take care of the rest.
this is especially good in winter when compost bins aren't active.
I dunno why I enjoy watching these videos so much😊
Thank you for this video! Great info! I like how you acknowledge challenges and keep going! ❤
Well, this came at a great time! My fiance and I just started a compost bin and this’ll be great for us
I live in a place that made composting mandatory and the people aren't happy lol. They don't want a green bin with maggots to push out once a week. I personally compost but I see where they are coming from. And l know, people say freeze it till composting day but most people don't want a bag of kitchen waste in the freezer. I'm a lazy composter, I just picked a spot on our property and that's where I dump kitchen waste. I also have chicken coop, horse poo and goat poo that goes into the compost. Mine is a big pile so I use the tractor to lift it and dump it to aerate it. The biggest problem here is to keep it moist in the summer because we don't get rain. Having the compost for the garden is super satisfying knowing you made it!
We bought a compost tumbler and throw all kitchen scraps in there. The main benefit from this is that we always have so much more room in our landfill trashcan than ever before.
If you're a farmer/homesteader: chickens, pigs, or even rabbits are awesome! Obviously they each have their dietary needs/restrictions, so do your research. I used to have rabbits and so many greens went to them instead of being wasted! 😊
If you use gas to cook lookinto Bio bags composting and trapping and using the methane to cook.
I have a really good vegetable broth going right now with my veggie scraps . Some scraps go to my chickens, compost and meal worms farm.
In Denmark the government collects food waste for biogas production, so the methane is captured and used in households or heating
that is so cool!
What do you do in the winter time when it’s colder? Anything different?
Great video! Thanks for sharing and educating! 🙂😎❤
A lot of people are caught up in the mindset of "needing the right tool" for the job. That is what companies trying to sell you useless shit WANT you to believe so you'll buy. Remember, our great great grandparents did this kind of stuff with buckets, baskets, and a hole in the ground.
And to those of you who say this kind of task is "priviledged".... are you stupid? It takes just as much time to throw your (wasted) food in the garbage as it does in a compost bin. What is the damn difference? Hes showing us OPTIONS. Observe and learn, even if this kind of action doesn't suit your life at this time. But dont poo-poo on others who find this valuable, especially the creator who makes content creation his job but ALSO happens to love what he does.
I’m so lucky to have access to a municipal composting program. It’s $50/year for the lockable bin and they pick up every week. The compost is made at a local farm and we can pick it up for our own usage and the rest goes to other local agriculture. Because it’s such a big hot compost pile and not just a backyard deal, it gets super hot so we can do bones, meat, cheese, shellfish, paper towels, certain non-clay kitty litters, etc in there as well. It’s great.
What is that tool at 0.57? We have 3 compost bins in our yard that are similar. We rotate them every year (eg bin #1: 2012 scraps; bin #2: 2023 scraps; bin #3: 2024 scraps). In general, we find that after a couple years, it turns into something that we can add to the garden beds. But it's not great. It does look as .... soily as yours. ;) Maybe we need to be mixing more?
Just started composting this year with a tumbler - worried about the winter only because I know compost does well with heat. I know eventually it will break down when it warms up again but anything to know about composting in the winter?
Hi guys, If anything is useable to make stock we do that first. Then we compost the drained veggies with garden clippings, and the non-soupables....egg shells banana peels orange pith etc etc. It keeps my garden healthy and my pots full. I've been doing this since the 1970s. I think my main inspiration came from Sandra Oddo's 1970s seasonal farm cookbook "Home Made" which taught me to think seasonally. I had alrready decided to do all my own cooking from scratch. Thanks for this PHC. I hope the word gets out. Jim Mexico retired.
In sweden, organic waste is usually composted and sold as fertilizer or bio gas is made for buses etc. I still do my own compost at home because its fun and I get free fertilizer.
Spread the Knowledge G! Much respect.
My town have drop off bins since years. It's perfect for me. I just keep my compost in a tupperware in my fridge and go empty them when they are full.
I was waiting for bokashi compost to come up as it is almost the easiest way to compost when you don’t have space. It is an anaerob composting technique which means you don’t need to add air/carbon rich things in your compost, only food scraps work with the bacteria culture which breaks down the stuff and makes compost + compost tea (it’s for plants, not to drink😂). Of course in the end you have to use up the compost, but if you give it to a friend with a garden, they’ll be happy for sure :D there are bokashi bins on amazon, so no need to diy anything either :)
I have always been wondering. How is that spinning thing you use to mix your compost called? Great video I just built my first composter 3 days ago!
Ive always composted and was taught by my Nana (born 1905). Mine currently all go to the chickens. I had a worm farm but they dont like our cold winters. Making dinner always starts with 'what needs eating?' because i now live in a rural area and there is no 'just pop to the market' or takeout or meal delivery. I dont make veg stock because i think its a waste of time
how do you avoid getting flies in your compost?
Just cover really well with browns. We use pine needles (lots of pine trees on the property), but other browns work too - leaves, paper, sawdust, etc.
Great video!! Thank you for doing this one.
Glad you enjoyed it!
How long does it take from dropping stuff into compost bin to be ready to be used as fertiliser?
If you setup a garden compost with dried leaves/hay like the first one you've outlined, does it smell?
Have you tried Bokashi composting before? Would be nice to know how that fares in comparison for people who don't own a garden.
Worms! Not crazy!!
I've been raising worms under my sink - or in my bathroom - for years.
Absolutely no smell. Absolutely no bugs. And really, not much different than you collecting your waste in your plastic container. And worm castings are even better than compost for your garden or indoor plants.
Good side hustle selling the castings and the worms if you're so inclined. Great kid project.
If you want to step up your composting game, make sure your compost pile is at least one cubic metre in size (3 feet x 3 feet x 3 feet). Small compost piles - including most of the spinning types - only reach the mesophilic phase, up to around 25°C/77°F. A larger pile will reach the thermophilic stage (40-60°C/104-140°F) where most pathogens and weed seeds perish. Adding human urine is a good way to kickstart a compost pile that you can't seem to get to the thermophilic stage.
If you need compost quickly, the Berkeley method can turn your pile into compost in as little as 18 days.
The drawback, it needs to be turned every two days after an initial four day starting phase.
Don't be hatin' on the worms! 😂
Oh, and your chickens will love you for the extra protein in their diet from a few worms every now and then.
I tried to use scraps to make a veggie broth and it turned out super bitter, I couldn’t use it. Any tips to make it work next time?
I use the Bokashi bins for my food scraps. I have a very small garden, so I cannot always put the fermented scraps in the garden. The next logical step is to put the scraps in a pot, put some soil on top of the scraps to hide them (it is not a pretty sight) and then wait for nature to do its work to turn them into the most beautiful, fertile soil. Bonus point, you can just plant right in the pot, no need for extra soil.
Wooow sooooo educative and aspirational your message here LOVE IT...by the way ...let's do not peel potatoes always ...their skeen if pack of vitamins A ..so not need to peal it away !!!!
In Australia ( and not sure where else) we have an app called ShareWaste
Side note- I find brown onion skin makes stock bitter.
Bokashi composting is fantastic! You can compost literally anything - fried stuff, meat, shells, everything.
Plus, it doesn’t smell and takes up a tiny amount of space!
Radish leaves are edible, as are strawberry stalks. Both things can be used to make, for example, pesto or add to a salad
I compost my scraps with red wiggler worms in my garden tower and overwinter the worms while still feeding them scraps. I have a few videos on my channel for both scenarios!
I feel like composting is part of being a true home cook.
it is better to compost a school food waste witha small amount of metal or plastic or to not to do it at all?
I just bury my food scraps in the back yard. I have several spots. When I go back to a former spot, I notice the food peelings are all gone, however, parts of the egg shells are still visible. Think I need to grind them up before burying them..
it saves so much space in the trash!!!
ive been cooking a lot more at home the past couple weeks as my senior year of high school has ended and i have a bit more free time around lunch time so ive saved ALL of my scraps and found something to do with them. carrot peels and ends, onion peels and roots, and the same for garlic all go into soup with the bones from smoked boston butts or already roasted chickens or whatever other vegetable scraps i might have and i have a solid week worth of meals right there for almost free. boiled pineapple peels and cooked with that water that was almost like a tea, orange peels can be dried and put into sauces as an aromatic, i throw absolutely nothing away anymore and im basically preparing for the day i move out and have to budget my food. its not just efficient and cheap, its fun finding new ways to use stuff youd otherwise throw out anyway, why not experiment with something you dont intend on using anyway?
3:05 it really doesn't take me long to breakdown. See me on my commute to work these days
I live on Vancouver Island (southern) you're not allowed to throw food scraps in the garbage. Forcing everyone to compost
i work for a school. WE try to compost but, we have plastic or metals in our compost. is it better to try to compost this? if it is not a lot of metal or plastic or worse to do so?
I keep a lidded 5-gallon bucket on the floor in my kitchen for all of my food scraps . After every 2 inches in the bucket, I sprinkle on some Bokashi powder, which I bought on Amazon. I spray the powdery granules with a little bit of water from a spray bottle that I keep next to the bucket. There is no odor, and they say you can even put in dairy and chicken bones (I have only fruit and veggie scraps, coffee grounds, tea herbs, crunched-up eggshells, plant leaves, dog fur, etc.). The Bokashi microbes eat the waste and break it down. When the bucket is full, which takes a couple of weeks for me, I either empty it into my compost bin outside (I have a big green Aerobin from Costco) or toss it around my plants and trees outside. No mess. No fuss. I don't cut things up, I just throw them in the bucket and put the lid back on. Sprinkle with the powder and dampen with water after every 2 inches. Super easy.
My biggest worry with getting a composting bin for food scraps is I worry about when I inevitably move
Maybe I'm just anxious but the thought of hitting a speed bump a little to fast in a uhaul and compost covering my bed in apple cores and straw makes me have second thoughts - maybe the solution is to do build something out of pallets and just break it down and recycle what I can when I leave?
If you live in a major city you can probably pay a composting service to pick up the bucket once a week. I live in Philly and there are a few. They give you free pickup of Xmas trees, pumpkins and free compost every year for $5/week.
Living in a largish city has its perks as often they have composting, or yard waste bins that also accept food waste. I have partaken that offer, along with recycling and garbage. The garbage bin is the smallest they have (it's just me at my place) and currently, both yard waste bins are full, mostly with cut grass as I cut my grass last weekend and one has some food scraps, and old growth from the fuschia plant I have in my flower bed.
The other full yard waste goes out tomorrow so both get emptied on Friday. But yes, I toss all food into the yard waste bins to be composted as one, I don't really have room, and two, do not want to attract varmints around my place (get occasional rats/mice) IN the house, unfortunately. In fact, saw a rat/mice scuttle out of the kitchen via the dishwasher into the old back porch last evening that's also my laundry room (it's enclosed).
How do you feel about bokashi composting?