How to Compost Kitchen Waste

Although it's becoming easier to recycle food and beverage packaging, most of our domestic waste still goes into the trash. Reduce the amount of garbage you throw away by composting your kitchen food waste.

Food waste sealed in a plastic bag on a landfill site doesn't decompose properly. Instead, it produces methane, a greenhouse gas, which contributes to global warming, as well as a liquid, leachate, which can contaminate water supplies.

Composting your kitchen food waste is easy and requires little time, effort or space, depending on which system you use. The compost is invaluable for the soil in your garden or potted plants: It's a complete and natural food for the soil, helping to improve its structure, water-retaining abilities and overall health.

Worm Composting

Worm composting is small enough to keep on a balcony, patio or in a porch, so it's ideal if you don't have much outside space. It's also one of the cleanest, neatest and easiest composting systems to use. A ready-made kit provides both the bin with its lid and the worms. As you fill each layer with small amounts of scraps and leftovers, the worms work their way up through the layers, eating the waste (they consume up to half of their body weight a day). It's this action that speeds up the composting process, leaving you with rich, dark compost in the lowest tray after only a few months. After you've emptied out the compost, the empty tray can be placed on top of the stack and filled with more food waste. The liquid that collects at the bottom of the bin should be siphoned off regularly, but it makes a wonderful tonic for your plants when diluted 1:10 with water. Store it in screw-top wine bottles until you need to use it.

If you regularly add a few handfuls of chopped food waste and shredded dry fiber (cardboard is best), ensure good air circulation, a fairly constant temperature and prevent water logging, this efficient composting system should last for years.

The Best Waste for Worm Composting

• Raw or cooked fruit and vegetable peelings
• Pasta, rice and bread
• Dried and crushed egg shells
• Teabags and coffee grounds
• Dry fiber, such as torn-up egg crates and empty toilet rolls, to make up 25 percent of the contents

Avoid citrus fruit and onion peelings (which cause acidic conditions), plant seeds, meat, fish, dairy products, dog and cat droppings, spent tissues, grass cuttings and leaves, diseased plant material and anything in excess.

Conventional Composting

You can recycle both kitchen and garden waste if you keep a compost heap or bin in your garden. An insulating box or bin is essential: make your own from pieces of wood or buy a readymade wooden or recycled plastic version. A lid or covering, such as a piece of old carpet, keeps the contents of the bin warm and the rain out. Position the bin on an area of soil so that composting creatures such as worms and soil micro-organisms can help to break down the organic waste in the bin. If you want to pre-compost your food waste and accelerate the composting process, add Bokashi active bran to the food waste and leave it to pickle for two weeks in a bucket before adding it to the compost bin.

Kitchen waste is high in moisture and has very little structure once it has decomposed. Add a supply of dry material, such as cardboard, scrunched-up paper, coarse twigs and stems to stop the compost heap collapsing in on itself and becoming slimy. Wine corks, party hats and streamers can also be added to the compost heap, as can tissue paper, which biodegrades quickly. Cardboard packaging from food and gifts can also be composted.

Check the base of the heap after several months and dig out any dark, well-rotted compost. Mix up the remaining matter with a fork, and water it if it seems dry; if the heap is too wet, add some dry, bulky material. Acidic conditions inhibit decomposition, so occasionally add a little ground limestone or gardener's lime.

Organic Material to Compost

• Vegetable and fruit peelings
• Tea leaves and coffee grounds
• Crushed egg shells
• Grass cuttings and weeds
• Paper, paper towels and newspaper
• Leaves from non-coniferous trees and shrubs
• Woody prunings
• Straw, hay, wool, sawdust and pets' bedding
• Vacuum dust
• Wood ash

Avoid meat, fish, and cooked food, weed seeds, diseased plant material, disposable diapers, glossy newsprint and coal ash.

Food Waste Facts

It is estimated that five million tons of waste is generated over the festive period in the United States, but only a fraction of that amount will be recycled. Families can reduce their festive waste with careful planning and recycling practices.

The average American family throws away 14 percent of the food it purchases each year. This translates to approximately $600 per year spent on wasted food.

Composting food helps reduce the amount of material in landfills.

How to Compost With Worms

Wiggle your way to healthier plants with worms, the hardest working gardeners around. These tireless eaters transform organic trash into a soil rich in nutrients. Worm farmer Al Cardoza of Rainbow Worm Farm shares how he works with worms to create vermicompost:

The process begins with a pile of dairy cow manure that is distributed into 32 rows called ricks. Dairy cow manure works best because the cows are fed ultra-nutritious greens and soy, a diet perfect for the voracious appetites of hard-working worms. "The cow is a very poor digester," Cardoza says. "It digests only 15 percent of its intake."

And what the cows don't digest, the worms will. The worms start at the bottom of the manure pile, eating and excreting half their weight every day. It takes the worms a year to feast 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to eat their way through an entire row of manure. During this time, the ricks are watered twice a day to keep the material moist. If the manure isn't moist, the worms won't eat. The worms live in the top six inches of the ricks once they have eaten their way through the pile.

"When the rick is flat, and the worms are fat, it's time to collect some garden magic," says master gardener Paul James. The worms are carefully removed from the ricks, and the castings are scooped up and processed with a filler to keep the compost from caking together in wet conditions.

Worm castings are high in beneficial plant nutrients. Although vermicompost looks and smells like dirt, it can do amazing things for a garden. "Worm castings won't burn your plants like manure, and it will help ward off bugs," Paul says. "You can use it on anything - bedding plants, houseplants and all the flowering plants."

Making Your Own Vermicompost

Even if you don't own lots of land, you can still start your own vermicomposting system with a home composting kit. The kit includes a large plastic composting bin and red-wiggler worms. Fill the bin with manure, and place the worms on the edges of the manure pile. Remember to never bury the worms into the manure.

Sprinkle organic matter over the manure, or make your worms a delicious smoothie by blending up your organic kitchen scraps. Pour the organic mixture over the manure and add any leaves or grass cuttings, as well. Mist the inside of the bin thoroughly every day. Once the worms have worked their magic, carefully remove the worms and harvest the castings. Replace the bin with more manure, return the worms to the manure and start the process all over again. Keep in mind that besides eating and excreting, your worms will multiply.

How to Grow Peaches by the Patio

If you want to cultivate fruit trees in a small yard, you have to think big and grow small.

The main reason gardeners give for not growing fruit trees in their yard is lack of space. Here are some cool tips for growing an orchard in your backyard, even if you don't have much room.

Modern fruit trees are usually grown on vigorous root stalks, so even dwarf and semi-dwarf trees often grow much faster and larger than gardeners expect. "The primary concern for gardeners with smaller lots should be to maintain the size of the tree for easier maintenance and earlier harvest," says fruit-growing expert Ed Laivo.

So just how big should a backyard fruit tree be? Laivo answers by putting his hands above his head. "If the tree is taller than your hands," he says, "it's too big. If it's the same height, it's just right." To really size up a tree, though, you have to look at its framework. "The trunk of the tree begins here," Laivo explains. "And the primary scaffolding of the tree is the primary limb that comes off of the trunk." Laivo recommends keeping the trunk knee-high. The reason for this is simple: the trunk houses the primary limbs, which house the secondary limbs, which bear fruit on most trees. The lower the limbs, the easier it is to pick the fruit. A smaller tree equals a smaller yield, and if you're feeding a family rather than an army, the yield produced should be ample. A 3- or4-foot tree such as the Santa Rosa plum will produce 150 to 300 pieces of fruit.

Cutting established trees down to size requires some pretty major pruning over several years. If you are unsure of the procedure, contact your local nursery or cooperative extension agent. If you're planting new fruit trees, why not try high-density planting? Planting several trees close together provides a bigger variety, extended season and easier maintenance.

High-density planting offers many benefits - that is, if the trees are kept small. Never allow any variety to dominate at one time; all trees have to grow at the same rate. If one tree is growing faster than the others, cut it back. By pruning now, the tree will have more secondary limbs next year as well as a bushier shape. If you plant bare-root trees, Laivo suggests cutting them off knee-high for low branching, which also creates stronger trees that mature earlier than tall trees.

Laivo also recommends high-density mulching. He layers wood-chip mulch several inches high around peach trees planted four to a large hole. The mulch nearly covers the entire trunk, which allows for less frequent irrigation because the mulch holds the moisture in the soil. "In this case, having the mulch right up against the tree doesn't matter because air penetration to the crown is just fine," Laivo says. A nice deep layer of mulch keeps the roots cool.

Remember that most fruit trees need at least eight hours of sunlight a day to develop sweet fruit, but adequate moisture is also important. If you cut back on the amount of water toward the end of the growing season, it stresses the tree, which increases the sugar content in the fruit.