Here’s the Advanced Composting Scoop

Here’s how to compost most of your organic waste, using advanced techniques you won’t find in most composting guides.

A lovely ratio of “browns” (dried leaves) to “greens” (fresh kitchen scraps) in a backyard compost bin.

You’re into the province of “advanced” composting any time you’re managing organic waste beyond the “basic” recipe. To recap the “basic” composting guide from last week: outdoors, during warm weather, create a big pile of several parts browns (such as dry leaves) to one part greens (such as grass clippings), carefully selecting material to include only disease-free plants and kitchen waste not likely to attract rats, raccoons, or bears. Keep this pile moist and turn it every few days so that in a month or two, you have a nice batch of compost that looks like potting soil.

In this week’s advanced composting action guide, we’ll cover four common scenarios that go beyond the basic recipe:

1. You want to compost year-round (even in winter), not just when outdoor temperatures are warm enough for basic composting.
2. You want to compost all your kitchen waste (including oils, fats, meat, and milk products), not just the limited selection of waste suitable for basic composting.
3. You want to compost in small increments, not in a big batch that works well for basic composting.
4. You want to compost pathogens, including pet waste and weed seeds, that are problematic for basic composting.

Help! We have winter. How do I compost when there is snow on the ground?

Most of us who live with winter like to eat and cook year-round, not just when it’s warm enough to compost outside. Plan A is to have a composting service-a private company or your local municipality-pick up organic waste all year long. That makes it super simple to turn kitchen scraps into healthy soil no matter what your local climate is like. My mom lives in Salt Lake City, which provides a nice big brown composting bin that gets picked up every week as part of the curbside trash collection. Although there is a short wintertime suspension when pick-ups don’t occur, the bin is big enough that you can keep filling it with kitchen scraps until the weekly collections resume.

If every city and town in America followed Salt Lake City’s example, composting would be so easy! But if a composting service is not available in your area — or you’d like to make your own compost all year — you’ll need another plan.

This compost bin is a bit hard to reach in winter…

Plan B is to buy or make a composting bin to store organic waste during cold weather, put this container in a place where you can walk, ski, or snowshoe out to it, and then mix this collected waste into your composting or gardening process when the weather warms up. In my yard I have four different containers that can serve this purpose, storing material over the winter so I can use it later to make compost.

My first choice of a wintertime storage bin is an Envirocycle Composter Compost Tea Maker, which bills itself as the “most beautiful composter in the world.” This is a round plastic container that sits on its own plastic base. In the winter, it’s easy to brush the snow off the top and open it with one hand to dump in the contents of my kitchen compost pail every couple of days. Once my Envirocycle is full, I just let the contents sit. In the spring and summer, I’ll occasionally spin and check it to see if I can add anything more until the bin is well and truly full. In the fall, I roll the bin off the base and around my yard to use the material in it as I put my gardens to bed.

My second choice of wintertime storage bin is a Sun-Mar Garden Composter 200. This one is quite a bit harder to open and close than the Envirocycle (especially after an ice storm) and needs to be turned after every deposit to make room for the next batch of kitchen compost. I only bother adding things to it when temperatures are above freezing, such as during a January or February thaw.

The Sun-Mar needs to be emptied in the spring, when I’ll spend a few weeks turning it to disgorge balls of “cud,” which I put in a finishing bin to turn into compost for the next spring. In other words, material I put into the Sun-Mar in winter, I’ll take out the next spring, then put in a finishing bin for a year, and then use as compost the following spring.

My third choice of wintertime storage bin is an Earth Machine, which my town used to give away for free. You make your own version of this by cutting out the bottom of a plastic garbage can. The idea is to fill this plastic cylinder up with organic waste, and compost will begin forming naturally in the lower layers that are in contact with the soil below. Fine in theory; it doesn’t really work in practice. But as a place to stash kitchen waste in the winter-as long as you don’t have a rat problem-an Earth Machine can work. Sandwich kitchen scraps between layers of dry leaves. That minimizes the chances that hungry rodents will discover what they must think are yummy treats being delivered to them. In the spring, I’ll mix the contents of my Earth Machine into a finishing bin to make compost.

For the purpose of storing organic material over the winter, there’s not much difference between an Earth Machine and one of the bins in a three-bin compost system, so if you have one of those going in your yard, you can just as easily keep dumping your kitchen scraps in there all winter. But you’ll have to keep an eye out for pests like rats and chipmunks getting into your compost.

My fourth choice of a wintertime storage bin is a used 55-gallon poly barrel with a screw top. These are solid containers that do a good job of keeping rats and mice out of your compost. The original use of these barrels was to ship pickles and other food items around the world, but there’s a thriving market turning them into rain barrels, compost bins, planters, eel traps, and other items. If you drill half-inch holes to allow air in and out, these bins are great for making finished compost and can serve double duty as a place to store material in the winter. The screw top (which can freeze in place) makes them a bit harder to use than an Envirocycle or an Earth Machine. You can also use a plastic garbage can and use the same trick of drilling it full of half-inch holes to allow airflow. If you don’t provide air holes, I do not recommend filling a barrel or a garbage can with kitchen scraps and leaving it all winter: you’ll end up with a very stinky, slimy mess!

That was all for Plan B. Are you ready for Plan C?

Plan C is to compost indoors using a worm bin or an electric composting appliance. I don’t have room to go into much detail this week about either of these options (look for a future action guide), but I’ll just say the key to success is to lower your expectations. Each worm bin or composting appliance can only handle a very small amount of kitchen waste per day.

Help! I’ve read that you can’t compost meat, dairy products, and pet waste. Is that true?

Depends on what you mean by “can’t.” Biologically, anything that was once alive can compost: that includes meat, dairy products, oil, fat, grease, hair, bones, gristle, skin, and poop. Legally, there may be a rule that prohibits you from composting these materials outdoors because if you don’t do it right, you can create a stinky mess that attracts pests and might even make someone sick.

So, start by finding out the composting rules that apply where you live. If there’s nothing that says that you can’t compost meat and dairy and the rest, here are two ways to to do it well outdoors.

The following method is good for all sorts of kitchen scraps (but not great for pet waste):

• Chop or break up material into small pieces. Small pieces of ground beef mixed into a batch of damp leaves will compost much better than a big steak with a clump of wet leaves stuck to it.
• Keep your material off the ground in a fully-enclosed, rugged bin that rodents can’t chew through. A tumbling container like the Sun-Mar Garden Composter 200 might work for you (although some customers have informed me that the plastic Sun-Mar Garden Composter does not stand up to a hungry bear). If you live in bear country, consider a metal tumbling composter like the Jora JK125.
• Keep a stash of dry leaves or shredded paper, and be sure to add these “browns” every time you add any type of meat, dairy, etc. Saving up dried leaves from the fall to use all year long is a great strategy.
• Thoroughly mix different types of material. Imagine feeding your composting microbes a balanced diet, not too much meat and dairy at once.
• Add water as necessary, but don’t overwater. The material will stay wetter in a fully enclosed tumbling composter than in an open pile.
• Plan to take material out of your tumbling composter in “cud” form, then finish in an enclosed bin that doesn’t tumble (such as a 55-gallon poly barrel) for a year. It’s very typical for material in a tumbling composter to form balls of unfinished compost. You can put these in a finishing bin, water them, and let them break down over the course of a year to produce the type of compost you might buy.

Here’s a second method that is good for pet waste and batches of meat, fat, oil, etc., that might overwhelm the capacity of your tumbling composter:

• You’ll need some land that is not next to a well. Do a “percolation test” to make sure your soil is appropriate for an in-ground composting system: dig a test hole about a foot wide and two feet deep, fill it with five gallons of water, and check to make sure the water drains out within 48 hours. If you can’t dig a hole or the water does not drain, this method is not suitable for your rocky or heavy clay soil.
• Assuming your soil is not heavy clay, dig a hole and install a Green Cone digester, or make your own version by drilling holes in a plastic bucket and burying it in the ground.
• Add small amounts to your in-ground composting system on a daily basis. If you have large amounts of oil or grease, don’t add it all at once, but spread it out over a few days.
• Your below-ground composting basket will fill with groundwater and act like a septic tank, providing a home for microbes to break down material underground and allow nutrients to flow into the surrounding leach field.
• After a couple of years, you may find that waste stops “disappearing” after you feed it into your in-ground composting system. Once that happens, you’ll need to dig it up, bury the waste that wasn’t disappearing from your composter, and move your composting system to another location with good drainage.

Another option for composting everything from your kitchen, including dairy products and meat scraps, is an indoor electric composting appliance.

Help! I generate only a little kitchen waste each week, not enough to build a big compost pile. What are my options?

Little bits of kitchen waste are actually perfect for worm bins or indoor electric composting appliances. But if those options don’t appeal, just add material little by little to an outdoor composting pile. You’ll still make compost, and it will just take much longer because it won’t heat up like a larger pile will. Weed seeds and some pathogens can survive a “cold” composting process, so you’ll want to think carefully about what you’re putting into this type of pile. See below for some ideas about how to “sanitize” compost that may contain pathogens or weed seeds.

Help! I’ve got diseased plants and dog poop to dispose of. How can I compost those?

If you have small amounts, see the section above about in-ground composting for handling pet waste. You can chop up and toss in a few diseased plants from time to time into that type of system.

If you have larger amounts of diseased plants, here’s another approach: process them in a separate pile or container, then “sanitize” the compost before using it. Once the regular composting process is done, spread the finished compost out thinly on top of a piece of plywood or cardboard in a sunny place. After a few days in full sun, the compost will be dried out, and most pathogens and many weed seeds will be killed. Put this dried compost in a black plastic bag or in a closed cold frame (a box with an old window for a lid) and “cook” it for another week in full sun to finish the job. You can insert a compost thermometer into the bag or cold frame to verify that the compost temperature is reaching 170 F.

What’s Still Ahead on the Pathway…

Last year, we explored the pathway to sustainable movement, energy, and goods. Now, we’re exploring the pathway to sustainable food to transition from the standard American diet to a healthier-for-our-planet plant-centered diet and transition from industrial to regenerative agriculture. Stay with us on the journey as we blaze a trail to a superbly sustainable future, one practical step at a time.

References and Further Reading

• Compost Can, Salt Lake City Sustainability
• Envirocycle Composter Compost Tea Maker, Envirocycle
• Garden Composter 200, Sun-Mar
• Earth Machine, Orbis
• 3 Bin Compost System (Fully Explained!), Help Me Compost
• Used Poly Barrel with Screw-Top, 55 gal, Wilco
• How to Start a Worm Bin the Right Way: Vermicomposting 101, Urban Worm Company
• Best Electric Composter Of 2024, USA Today
• The Jora Compost Tumbler, Jora Composters
• Frequently Asked Questions, Doggie Dooley
• Green Cone Solar Digester: Food Waste / Pet Waste, Green Cone USA
• Build your own backyard dog poop composter, Ecobags
• Airthereal Revive Electric Kitchen Composter, Amazon.com
• Yard and Garden: All about Cold Frames, Iowa State University
• Compost Thermometer, Gardener’s Supply Company
• Composting to Reduce Weed Seeds and Plant Pathogens, eOrganic

Originally published at https://sustainablepractice.substack.com.