July 5, 2008

FROM GARBAGE TO GARDEN IN 2 WEEKS


I've always hated throwing away kitchen food scraps during the long months of winter in Chicago when it's not possible to place them in my outdoor compost tumbler. Did you know that landfills in urban areas are responsible for 40 per cent of all trash and they are also the biggest single source of green house gas ? Growing up on a farm we never wasted anything and collected all our kitchen scraps and fed them to the hogs.

One day I saw the kitchen composter above featured on the History Channel and a light went on in my head . It turns up to 5 lbs. of kitchen waste a day into compost in two short weeks and for as little as 50 cents of energy per month. That's as much as a family of 5 uses on a daily basis.

Greenculture, an environmentally concerned California company that sells the kitchen composter contacted me and offered to send me one if I would write about it . Anxious to do my part for the environment I of course agreed .

I have now completed my first batch of compost and I must say that I am very impressed with the kitchen composter . I especially like its ease of operation. Each time you add kitchen scraps you toss in a handful of baking powder and sawdust pellets with it . The heat it uses and the constant mixing aids in quickly breaking down the waste. There's a charcoal activated air filter inside so there are no nasty smells. Unlike outdoor composters, meat scraps and other kitchen waste can be composted.

Visit the website at Greenculture.com . They have a wide selection of wonderful compost bins and tumblers that will meet your specific need :

composters
compost bins
compost tumblers

I don't usually do commercials but I am happy to plug Greenculture and do my part to keep our landfill free of as much waste as possible. I thank Greenculture for their generous donation. I'm tickled pink, or should I say green ?





2 comments:

  1. Hi Carol,

    About a forthnight ago, BBC featured an English gardener explaining how to make compost. He used two big wooden crates and just threw everything in there; dried leaves, twigs, mowed grasses, vegetable leaves, other kitchen scraps, baking powder, etc and covered each box with thick, black plastic.

    Q: Are composts good substitute for commercially-produced fertilizerz?

    Thanks!

    www.onchong.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi bay martin,

    And welcome ! I do have an outdoor composter as well but living in a cold climate when one cannot compost outdoors I especially enjoy my new kitchen composter. Plus, as mentioned, it cuts down on the landfill.

    To answer your question, compost is not a substitute for fertilizer. It is a valuable soil amendment , high in nitrogen , that improves the structure of soil.

    ReplyDelete

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