Composting Our Food Scraps

The breaking down of kitchen scraps, plant remains and any other once living remains is called composting, but let's talk about composting our food scraps. Where do we get all the food scraps for composting, you ask? Well, we all have such items in our kitchen. They can be fruit and vegetable waste, the leftovers from our meals, tea bags, coffee grounds, any stale bread or grains. One item that most of us have occasionally is anything that has spoiled in the refrigerator. Composting our food scraps is a much better idea than sending it all down the waste disposal.

Our gardens, and most importantly, our landfills will thank us for composting. Some cities object to home composting due to the fact that they attract vermin. They will only attract these critters if the compost containers are not secured. If your garden compost bins are covered and locked you shouldn't have problems.

There are a few things that you should not compost that come from our kitchens: meat or its waste such as fat, skin, gristle and bones, as meat attracts maggots; fish or fish waste, dairy products, grease and oil, they cause an imbalance, break down slowly, attract rodents and other scavengers and your compost pile will smell horrible.

Other products that are good for composting are: any products made of flour, coffee filters, old spices, boxed food that are outdated, well crushed egg shells and corn cobs and husks.

You can also recycle your food scraps for eating at a later date. For instance the peels, skins, and stalks from vegetables can simply be simmered on the stove, cooled and stored in your refrigerator to use at a later date when you're ready to make soup or a sauce.

If you don't want to walk to the garden composter every time you finish a meal, there are a couple of ways to do it in the kitchen: store them in plastic bags in your refrigerator; store them in a kitchen compost container until you are ready to take to the compost bin.

You can purchase your container at almost any home improvement center or on-line. Look for a pail or some sort of container with a tight fitting lid, a handle, appealling to look at, washable and had ample storage. You don't need to empty the container in compost bin daily but every few days instead as long as it hasn't started to smell. In order to keep down the odor or the gnats put a wet paper towel or newspaper on top of the waste before you cover it.