With a cooking day or mini-session, there is a lot of food waste created (think potato & carrot peels, egg shells, vegetable trimmings, fruit rinds). That food waste should be put to work for us! Composting is the answer; and you can compost in town or out on the farm.
I keep a stainless steel compost bucket under my sink - I've owned it for at least three years. It has two carbon filters in the lid and has never created a smell. When we lived in town, we kept a larger black composting bin behind the shed. When the bucket was full, the kids or I would go dump the scraps in the large bin.
Out on the farm, my oldest ds and I constructed a much more crude, but larger compost system from wooden pallets left over from the building process. Our new compost bin system has three compartments. The first is the active pile (well, it's not doing much, yet). The second is ready to go when needed and the third is for storage of brown material.
We lined the bins with chicken wire to help keep the materials in place, and the kids layered dirt on the bottom of the first two compartments to help aeration. Every time we add green matter (kitchen scraps, grass clippings, etc.), we add a layer of brown to cut smell & keep pests away. The layer of brown is also more attractive to look at than decomposing waste!
I'm still learning quite a bit and have been reading about composting. I know it will take a while to get usable material for our gardens, especially with cold weather coming our way. But, the results are worth the wait, and it includes a valuable lesson on stewardship for our kids.
No comments:
Post a Comment