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Food Waste Composting Tips
General Composting:
- Ideally, your composter should be located near your home so that it is easy to walk to and in a sunny location. If you garden, your composter can even sit right inside its boundaries.
- "Brown" and "Green" waste should be mixed and added to a composter at a ratio of 2 or 3:1.
- "Brown" are items with a high carbon content: any type of dead dry vegetation or paper i.e. shredded leaves, sawdust, wood shavings, straw, shredded newspaper, etc.
- "Greens" are items with a high Nitrogen content: food waste, fresh yard waste, coffee grounds, and tea bags.
- Pet wastes should not be mingled within your garden composter due to diseases that may be passed like tapeworms.
Tumbler Composting
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Continuous Add |
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Batch Composter |
- There are two kinds of tumblers: batch and continuous add. Batch composters work by filling up with waste, then
tumbling in a single "batch" until done. You cannot add more food while the batch is being made. This system usually requires more than one unit so you can add food to one while the other is tumbling. Continuous add tumblers can have food added continuously as compost is being tumbled and made.
- Food waste should be chopped up as much as possible before being added to the tumblers. 1" pieces are ideal. We use an edging tool to chop some of our waste in a rubber feed bucket.
- When using a tumbler composter to compost food waste, dry sawdust is the BEST type of "browns." We have tried many types of browns like napkins
and shredded leaves and by far sawdust is the most
effective, easy to store and easy to acquire additive.
- If you use a tumbler to compost food waste, it will produce some liquid "leachate" caused by water shedding from the food scraps. You can collect and dispose of the leachate by placing a pan under the composter or let the liquid dissipate into the ground by placing your composter on a gravel or grassy area.
Static Pile Composting
- There are two kinds of static pile composters: Container
and Open
Pile. With Container composting, waste is kept in a closed plastic container that prevents animals from getting access to waste, avoids unsightly piles, and lowers odors. Open pile composting consists of a cage or slatted container with the top open to the air.
- Both yard clippings and food waste can be added to a static pile.
- Green yard clippings are considered a "green" with high nitrogen content. Dead yard clippings are considered "browns" with a high carbon content.
- Some container composters are more suited to cold climates i.e. Green Johanna Hot Komposter comes with a winter jacket which adds insulation.
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