Make Your Own Miracle Fertilizer Out of the Kitchen Scraps

Have you ever thought about how many banana peels, carrot ends, potato eyes, corncobs, coffee grounds and uneaten vegies are thrown away in this country every day? Want to know a better way to dispose of them and get a bonus of fertilizer that will turn your vegie garden into a gold mine at today's produce prices? Try composting. I have been recycling my kitchen vegie scraps, eggshells, coffee grounds and the like for years and would no more think of trashing a banana peel than I would of throwing out aluminum cans and plastic milk jugs.

It's really simple to make compost. Go to your local home store and get two large plastic bins, the kind with locking lids About 25 to 30 gallon size is good. These will be the containers for your compost pile. Now you will need five 2 cu ft bags of potting mix. Get the light kind with lots of chunky bits and some plant food added. This insures that the pile gets air and a source of carbon (C) which it needs for decomposition. The nitrogen (N) part of the compost will come from the vegie scraps you add.

Try to find a location for your bins that is not too far from the kitchen and is preferably in a sheltered area like a carport or garage. Temperatures in the 70s or 80s F are ideal. In winter, depending on how cold your climate is, the compost pile will slow down a lot unless you have an indoor location like a mudroom or basement. The little soil bacteria need two things in their work environment--warmth and moisture. Keeping your compost moist is easy but just do your best with maintaining the temperature. If the bacteria get cold they won't die. They'll just take a nap.