People often complain that composting their kitchen scraps is a chore they hate. It’s messy, smelly and time consuming. But like all choices we make, choosing to compost is a habit that takes some time to make a part of our daily rituals. I find that when I consciously choose to live the principles I aspire too, then I feel more balanced and happier. But like many of you, I agree that saving my kitchen scraps, hauling them out to the compost bin, and dealing with one more chore in my daily ritual is at times annoying and I find myself throwing those little scraps into the garbage disposal or trash bin.
That was until I realized that I was buying compost each spring when I could have been accumulating it all winter! It is so much easier to compost in the spring and summer months, but during those cold winter months..brrr! This past fall I made a commitment to compost daily,no matter how hard it was. But like all daily rituals, there are good ways to change our habits and ways that seem like pure drudgery. I was determined to avoid the latter. So, doing some research helped me discover and purchase three easy products that have made all the difference.
Yesterday, I spread out some of this past winter’s composting “gold” or brown on a new flower bed and worked some more into the spinach and greens bed in our kitchen garden. I know it will make all the difference in how those crops will flourish this spring. And calculating the savings of purchasing my usual 10 to 20 bags of compost…at $3.00 a bag, I see that my trash is worth $30 to $60 for just this garden season.
Kitchen Counter Ceramic Compost Containers
One of the chores I hated with compost is the aesthetics of how ugly composting kitchen scraps was. First you had to save them in some sort of container and since our bigger compost piles were at the far back of our garden area, it required putting on a coat and venturing out in frigid windy weather to deposit our scraps in the bin. I would save them for several days at a time, but where? Usually under the sink in some sort of garbage bin..but then the smell would accumulate from onion skins and garlic scraps, etc.
So this fall I decided to make that daily scrap saving a more pleasant ritual. I bought a counter top ceramic composting jar for $25.00. It’s a beautiful shade of variegated green colors, with a nice size opening, and a filter that is replaceable. No smell, no ugly container and suddenly I didn’t mind scrapping my cutting board into that beautiful jar. It sat there on the end of my counter and about once a week, I would take that stroll back to the compost bin and dispose of the contents. Usually, the scraps had already begun to break down in the composting jar. The jar itself is rinsed easily and ready to refill. People often comment on how beautiful it is, thinking it’s full of home made cookies or some other goodie! Well, it is, it’s full of potential garden “gold”!
Nature Mill Kitchen Composter
After a couple of months of using my new ceramic compost jar, I had acquired the habit and no longer threw good plant kitchen scraps down the garbage disposal. But still, it’s a long walk to our big outdoor compost bin, and in long cold winter months even once a week seemed like a huge chore. Between work chores and daily living commitments, I decided to invest in a kitchen composter that took those scraps and turned them into compost…right in my kitchen. Could it be done without smell and yuckiness?
The answer is yes! The Nature Mill Kitchen Composter is small, but mighty. It produces compost in about 3 weeks and deposits it into a removable tray for emptying into an outdoor receptacle, ready for the garden.
So now my daily composting chores go like this. For large amounts of potato peelings or bananas that have gotten to ripe, I rough chop them on the cutting board and put them in the Nature Mill Composter. For smaller scraps like carrots scrapings, etc. I put them in my Ceramic Compost Jar. I wait for a nice day to take that walk out to the compost bin to empty the jar, and when my Nature Mill tray is full, I empty it into a holding covered bin in the garage for use next spring or on houseplants, etc.
These two composting tools have really made composting an easy part of our daily green ritual and in my opinion are worth the initial monetary investment. I endorse both of them as truly useful and worthwhile additions to your “green” lifestyle.
Kitchen Crock Composters
Nature Mill Kitchen Composter
