Timing the Tumble - Week 1

Time for my first update since starting my first batch of compost in the spinning compost tumbler on June 6.  It's actually been just a bit over a week.

To review, I started with the bin full of a mix about 60/40 of green to brown.

You can see the bin is almost completely full.

I've been spinning it about 10 times once every day and I have missed only one day.

After 11 days the volume has decreased dramatically and the mixture now looks almost competely black. 

I think I have a good mix of green to brown because it seems just wet enough without being too wet or dry.  Also the mix does not smell.  A bad smell would be an indication of too much green or too wet. 

In an effort to be a good recycler, I try to save all my kitchen scraps for the compost.  I also have a worm composter and that is were most of the kitchen scraps go along with most of my shredded junk mail.

Saving kitchen scraps could be a messy business but I have a GREAT solution for that.  There are lots of catalogs out there with fancy, pricey containers for kitchen scraps, even with charcoal filters for the smell.  Overkill.

Just save the scraps into a (recycled) plastic grocery bag.  Stick um in the freezer.  You can pull the bag out and keep adding to it until it is full.  Then dump the whole frozen contents into your composter.  The freeze/thaw process helps to speed up the composting by breaking down the food and frozen scraps DONT SMELL!

Here's the bag I've got going in my freezer right now.  This bag is getting full and it's about time to feed it to the worms.

I'll tell ya all about my worms another day.

Comments

[Penny @ Lavender Hill Studio & The Comforts of Home]

We have a composter too. We bought it and used it when we lived in our old farmhouse in Tennessee. When we moved here to NC we stopped using it. We were just talking yesterday about starting again. Thanks for the inspiration!
Penny

[Brenda Kula]

Excellent idea! I need to tell my neighbor that. She keeps putting leftover chicken in her trash can and then forget and go somewhere. Her little dog manages to wrestle open her "locked" cabinet and get to it every time! Freeze it!
Brenda

[Farmlady]

Freezing the kitchen scraps is a really great idea. No more nasty container on the sink. Thank you for a great idea.
I love your composter.

[Dede Warren]

I LOVE this!!! I don't think I could actually keep trash in my freezer... but completely try to be as green as possible. Plastic bags are not allowed to enter our home, no plastic bottles either!! And we shred, and recycle almost everything. I'm down to one bag of trash, trash per week. Pretty good for a family of three. My recycle bin is huge and full! Thanks for sharing and encouraging us all to do more!

[Alison Gibbs]

Great update about your Tumbler. Clever way to collect your kitchen scraps
Alison

[Vanda Azevedo]

Great post! Every week, I buy lots of organic fruits and vegetables, wash them carefully and then I prepare them for cooking. I pull off the ugly leaves, I remove the flesh from the rind, I cut off the ends, I remove the outer layers, etc. I use only the most tender and tastiest parts of the vegetables for my clients.

This leaves a large pile of organic kitchen scraps that is perfect for composting, I’ve been saying I need to compost, for a long time. This year, I’ve joined a CSA with Sang Lee Farms and I expect to get large quantities of fruits and vegetables that will create piles of kitchen scraps for composting. Well this year, I’ve taken another step to be greener by purchasing a composter and setting it up behind my shed.
Thanks for sharing how easy it is.
Keep it up!
Namaste,
Chef Vanda
The Organic Personal Chef