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Lisbet
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| Posted: Nov 25 2009 at 9:30am | IP Logged
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How do you keep your kitchen scraps for the compost pile? I've seen some fancy dancy counter top compost bins - are these necessary, really nice, or over the top? Can I just use an old ice cream bucket? Will it smell? I will probably need to keep it on the counter top because of the dog, and I probably will want it to look nice, and definitely not stink. Thanks!
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Lisa, wife to Tony,
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Nick, 17
Abby, 15
Gabe, 13
Isaac, 11
Mary, 10
Sam, 9
Henry, 7
Molly, 6
Mark, 5
Greta, 3
Cecilia born 10.29.10
Josephine born 6.11.12
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Mackfam
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I have a bin that is affixed to the inside of one of my cabinet doors because I'm low on counter top surface area. That might be an option for you. My mom keeps hers in a rubbermaid canister.You can use anything, Lisa.
Yes, it will smell if you leave it too long, so just train one of the children to dump it in your compost bin each evening when the trash goes out. Rinse the bin after it comes in and it will be fine.
Let me see if I can find my bin...I know it came from Lee Valley...this is it. I have the small one. It was a gift for my birthday several years ago and I like it very much.
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Jen Mackintosh
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Carole N.
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We started off with a plastic container. It worked well, but since it sat on the top of my counter, I wanted something nicer. So I purchased a ceramic container from Gardner's Supply Company. It worked well until my ds broke it one day on his way out to the compost bin.
I was torn after that since I liked the ceramic bin (we had the white one), but I also had to supply filters for those. So I ended up purchasing the Copper Finish Compost Pail which is a bit more expensive, but does not require filters. I am still using it and it survived a move over the ocean. Very sturdy!
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Carole ... in Wales
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LLMom
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We use an ice cream tub and one ds empties it everyday and we rinse it and then scrub it weekly. It is a bit smelly but not if the lid is on. 
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Lisa
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Paula in MN
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I use an old Sherbet container and it gets emptied and washed daily.
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Paula
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Karen T
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I have a 5 gal plastic bucket with a tight-fitting lid (Petco sells them with cat litter and they are refillable there so I just got an extra one). I keep it under my sink in the cabinet, away from the dogs. Even in summer, I never empty it more than once a week and it really doesn't smell with the tight lid. During the day, though, I keep a cheap plastic container (the kind that lunchmeat comes in now) in the sink to put vegetable peelings in as I peel things, so I don't have to open the big one each time. I dump it into the large one at night, add the coffee grounds from the coffeemaker, and wash out the little container for the next day.
I also have a worm bin in my garage that I had hoped would use enough garbage to cut down on how much goes in the big bin, but I have too few worms at the moment and can only put a few things in each week.
Karen T
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donnalynn
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No container - I pick an appropriate size stainless steel bowl (like a big mixing bowl) and put all the veggie peals and things in that - it's dumped that day or the next.
I went to a composting workshop once and that person did not like plastic containers for compost collecting -anaerobic bacteria apparently can hide in any stratches or imperfections in the plastic surface. He was a very interesting speaker and had helped set up a huge composting program for Disney Land (is that the one in Florida?).
We are much less likely to forget about the compost when it is sitting there staring at you on the counter. 
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guitarnan
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This is excellent "food" for thought, since we've just started composting!
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Nancy in MD. Mom of ds (24) & dd (18); 31-year Navy wife, move coordinator and keeper of home fires. Writer and dance mom.
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juststartn
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I give 90% of our "compostable" stuff to our chickens and dogs. Or our pigs, when we have them. Seriously. Get a couple of pigs, once you get to the country. The only things I know mine wouldn't eat were citrus peels. And paper coffee filters. Coffee grounds? Sure. Egg shells? No problem.
Really cut down on the garbage, too. Between our birds, dogs, and pigs, well, we didn't have much trash left at all, honestly (and we weren't throwing away much of anything to start with!).
Rachel
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Lisbet
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Thanks for the tips ladies. I am thinking that I really need to keep it up out the the dogs reach because right now I keep my potatoes in a basket under my sink and the dog actually opens the cabinet and takes off with them!!
Our new house has a fairly large garden space and I hope to have some good humus by spring planting, so I want to get started right away...
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Lisa, wife to Tony,
Mama to:
Nick, 17
Abby, 15
Gabe, 13
Isaac, 11
Mary, 10
Sam, 9
Henry, 7
Molly, 6
Mark, 5
Greta, 3
Cecilia born 10.29.10
Josephine born 6.11.12
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Paula in MN
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Karen T wrote:
| add the coffee grounds from the coffeemaker |
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I used to add my coffee grounds, and then I read an article in a magazine that said to use them as a facial scrub.
I tried, and it works! Must be the caffeine? My face always feels so alive, refreshed and tingly! And I know I look healthier and younger than I feel!!!
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Paula
A Catholic Harvest
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Mackfam
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Paula in MN wrote:
Karen T wrote:
| add the coffee grounds from the coffeemaker |
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I used to add my coffee grounds, and then I read an article in a magazine that said to use them as a facial scrub.
I tried, and it works! Must be the caffeine? My face always feels so alive, refreshed and tingly! And I know I look healthier and younger than I feel!!! |
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 Really???
I'm off to scrub my face with coffee grounds!!!!!
donnalynn wrote:
| No container - I pick an appropriate size stainless steel bowl (like a big mixing bowl) and put all the veggie peals and things in that - it's dumped that day or the next. |
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This is a great idea, Donna! Actually, I find myself gravitating towards this as I prepare in my kitchen anyway. So...just have a compost bowl at the ready and dump it as part of cleanup...hmmmm. Not sure why I hadn't made that connection before! Thanks!!!
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Jen Mackintosh
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Angel
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donnalynn wrote:
No container - I pick an appropriate size stainless steel bowl (like a big mixing bowl) and put all the veggie peals and things in that - it's dumped that day or the next.
I went to a composting workshop once and that person did not like plastic containers for compost collecting -anaerobic bacteria apparently can hide in any stratches or imperfections in the plastic surface...
We are much less likely to forget about the compost when it is sitting there staring at you on the counter. |
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That's interesting. I think they are making stainless steel compost buckets now... or at least I *think* I have seen one in a catalog recently...
at Lee Valleyactually. The only problem is they aren't very big, so they're expensive for their size.
****(ETA: I just realized that the volume for these pails is listed as gallons while the pails in other catalogs are listed in quarts. So the Lee Valley stainless steel compost pails are actually comparable to other large compost pails. You know, I actually can teach my kids math. Sheez. I just shouldn't try to write anything early in the morning!!!  )
We still haven't found a good system for compost. We compost pretty much everything but meat. I have the Gardener;s Supply bucket that's supposed to go under your kitchen sink, which I bought to save our valuable counter space, but for some reason it was never attached  . So it's sitting on the counter. We tried using these compostable bags to keep the pail reasonably neat, but they don't seem to break down as fast as they're supposed to... at least in my compost bin, which is (admittedly) compost the lazy gardener's way -- which is to say, we don't spend a lot of time fussing with it. The plastic pail does look a little.... hmmm... icky by now, actually. It's not an attractive thing to have sitting on your counter, if you know what I mean. We also had a ceramic pail once, but it was too small and overflowed often as kids responsible for kitchen cleanup stuffed in "one more thing".
We have also gone through periods where we gather compost in open containers -- usually containers we are getting ready to recycle. So the compost is collected for a day or two, then dumped, and the container is recycled. The only problem with collecting food in a container without a lid is that you always have food on your counter, and at certain times of the year, the fruit flies can be really bad. Also, if you leave it overnight, you risk attracting mice to your counter. This becomes more of an issue in the winter time, when it is pitch black after dinner and usually a couple of degrees below zero and the wind is blowing snow 30 mph. Nobody wants to trudge to the compost bin in that. (Our garden is also situated farther from the house than I would like, but it was the best available spot.)
Sometimes managing all the compost becomes a real pain in the neck, but of course it's nice to see that black dirt piling up. You'll be surprised at how many scraps are required just to make a small amount of compost, but the first year if you can get enough to plant melons and winter squash/pumpkins, which love compost and grow best in the actual bin, I think you will be doing well.
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Angela
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Kristie 4
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The lee Valley ones are a good size and are plenty for us mostly vegetarians if we empty it once or twice a day...
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Kristie in Canada
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organiclilac
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I have used a plastic pail and also just paper grocery bags, as long as there isn't anything very wet in there - the nice thing about paper bags is that you can dump the whole thing in the compost, since the bag will break down. We use the bags to haul out the litter from our guinea pigs also. You can put animal waste in the compost as long as your animal is vegetarian, from what I have read.
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juststartn
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Lisbet wrote:
Thanks for the tips ladies. I am thinking that I really need to keep it up out the the dogs reach because right now I keep my potatoes in a basket under my sink and the dog actually opens the cabinet and takes off with them!!
Our new house has a fairly large garden space and I hope to have some good humus by spring planting, so I want to get started right away... |
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Lisa, is there any way you all can (I know, I know, moving and what not will make that difficult), but work on building your beds this winter? You're in OH, right? Maybe by layering leaves, dirt, any manure you can get from a local "supplier" (check with horse farmers, they are always looking to get rid of it!), and then covering it with something like newprint, cardboard (moving boxes are GREAT!) and then weighing it down (ie, do it before a snow? Or just see about putting some clean dirt on top of it, rocks, big pine/fir 'logs' you wouldn't want to burn in a fireplace, but will make fine 'paperweights'), you can get a really good head start on that? If you know where you plan on planting, that is...
Then you can build a compost heap over the winter/spring/summer, add to it as you can (esp making sure to hit up any local horsemen, etc, in the interim, adding that to your pile--the bedding combined with the urea and the manure, well, it will add immense value)..
Here things are so windy, everything has to be weighed down, or else it ends up either in Tulsa/OKC, or Dallas! LOL.
Rachel
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4Real Forums : Our Lady's Loom, Larder, and Laundry
Topic: Storing kitchen compost
