Kitchen Scraps Can Save You Money

(start composting today!)

In my household at least 1/3 of all the contents of my garbage are compostable matter. In our last yard we had a compost pile but since moving we still have no dedicated spot. Compost bins should be located close enough to your kitchen that you will actually use them and in our case they must be built to keep the dog out. I have finally figured out where to put our new compost site but we have yet to build it. In the meantime I have all this waste going into the landfill that could be adding humus to my own patch of clay. It bothers me to see so much good matter being wasted.

So I finally resolved to make the extra effort to begin composting right now. Where to put all this good stuff? In my master gardening course we got an instructional talk about lasagna gardening. This is a method by which you prepare a bed for planting at least six months before you need it by layering brown and green organic materials into a bed and let nature break down the materials in her own slow way. As the beds are moistened by rain (or in dry climates -by you) the plant matter breaks down and its nutrients become available in the soil. Over time the first layer will break down and become soil.

This is a "no till" method of gardening. The important thing to remember with both composting and lasagna gardening is that you need to add both "green" and "brown" matter to the pile (or the beds).

I realized that I have two garden beds that are built, half filled with dirt, and not planted out. If I decide to reserve these beds for next year's fall/winter garden then I have plenty of time to use a lasagna method of composting in them. My first step is to begin putting my vegetable trimmings in them. Because this is an unfenced area and I don't want neighborhood dogs digging around in my beds I decided to dig my compost in a bit. I may end up adding some soil on top of each layer of straw as well because these beds are one foot deep and it would probably take more than a year to build them up completely with compost.

I have heard a lot of gardeners argue about the cost of growing your own vegetables versus just buying them in the store. There are many people who claim that it isn't cheaper to grow your own and list all of the costs of gardening. I get frustrated with this argument because a lot of the costs of gardening disappear once you have the right tools on hand (and you don't need many) and once you've put in your structure. The biggest costs for me have been compost (because in every garden I've had the soil has needed a huge amount of amendments to make it grow anything) and lumber for beds which I consistently choose to build because I always end up with very difficult soil.

(I can make a case for growing your own being cost effective but I don't even think that's the best reason to grow your own food.)

If you develop good homesteading habits you shouldn't need to buy compost. Yes, it takes time to make it, but once you get going and KEEP it going you will always have compost to add to your beds every year. Compost is an expense of gardening that anyone with a yard can cut back on or cut out altogether. Other benefits of composting are that you send less waste to the landfill, you are getting more out of the money you spend on your groceries, and you participate more fully in the cycle of life mirrored in your own patch of dirt.

Your compost should include two types of organic matter:

Green matter: plant materials such as weeds from the garden, kitchen fruit and vegetable scraps, green leaves, coffee grounds* and tea bags, egg shells, fresh horse/cow/chicken manure.

Brown matter: dry and dead plant materials such as straw, dry brown weeds, autumn leaves, wood chips, or sawdust. If you have access to newspapers that use soy or other nontoxic ink they can also be used in the compost but if it is going in the pile-shred it first. If being added to a lasagna bed it can be added in a layer without shredding it first.

You should supply roughly equal amounts of both to your pile to feed the microbes that will break your compost down.

What should NOT go in your compost pile: human waste, pet waste, diseased plants (unless you have a consistently hot compost pile), chemically treated plants or wood products, meat, bones, fatty food wastes, pernicious weeds (unless completely dead and dry!).

Some people like to put all their kitchen waste in their compost. You can do this but some things (listed above) will break down more slowly and in the meantime will attract pests you don't want in your garden or near your house such as rats. So cheese, bread, meat, or bones are best left to either the garbage or given as rare treats to your hens or dog. Egg shells are a very good addition to compost but not eggs themselves.

A great benefit of having hens in your backyard is that you will have a consistent excellent source of both green and brown matter to add to your compost. I just cleaned out my chicken run and now have a giant pile of semi-broken down hay caked in chicken waste which may seem gross but is an absolutely fantastic addition to your soil. One thing you have to be careful about is not adding fresh chicken waste directly into the garden. Either it needs to age for six months in your compost bin or it should be used in lasagna gardening where it will age for months as you layer it before being planted out. Chicken manure is very "hot" and can burn the roots of plants until it has mellowed. This is true of all manure but especially true for chicken waste.

I look forward to having compost bins near my kitchen but in the meantime I'm happy to finally be making better use of my kitchen waste. I give scraps to my hens but they won't eat quite a few things and now I will be sure to be getting better value out of all of the produce that I buy and grow.







*If you have clay soil you should not use coffee grounds in your compost because your soil is already acidic and the grounds will add more acidity. You can save them to put around the specific plants that like acidity such as roses, rhododendrons, camellias, blueberries, etc. Egg shells are an especially good addition to your compost pile if you have acidic soils because it will add calcium to the soil which helps to neutralize the ph.