Composting is nature’s way of recycling. It’s the magical transformation of your garden and kitchen waste into nutritious food for your plants. By feeding your soil with compost, you’ll feed your whole garden.
There’s a composting system to suit everyone, it’s just a matter of finding the right one to suit your household and knowing how to keep it happy. Here’s a rundown of the different systems to get you started and you can view step-by-step guides and more details on each method over on the Dr Compost page.
Bokashi buckets – easy, indoor, painless and odourless. Suits bach owners, busy people, and those who don’t like trekking to the compost heap every day with their food scraps. You’ll need a garden to dig it into or a friendly neighbour who is keen to dig it into their garden. The system adds masses of fertility to your garden and attracts worms once the fermented food waste is dug in.
Worm farms – worms need more looking after than your average composting system (but less than your average pet). Their population can grow to deal with all your kitchen waste, but you need to be prepared to look after them a bit. A fun and educational system to enjoy with kids. The best bonus is that worms create fabulous side-products to boost your garden (vermicast and worm tea).
Hot composting – the classic composting system. You’ll need a copious supply of greens/nitrogen (food waste, plants) and browns/cardboard (straw, leaves, cardboard) to layer up at the same time. Hot composting works best for a bigger garden and for those with a ready supply of both green and brown materials. The end product is an amazing soil conditioner and natural fertiliser, which also adds to the moisture-holding capacity of the soil.
Cold composting – works on the same principle as hot composting, but without the pressure of needing enough ingredients to build a large heap on the same day. Just layer up your greens and browns as they come to hand, and wait. The process takes longer than hot composting but works well if you’re not in a hurry.
Chickens – a commitment, but a lot of joy too. Give them food scraps and they’ll give you eggs.
EXAMPLES OF COMPOST CONTAINERS
The Green Cone
The Green Cone is a “solar-powered” digester. This is a relatively new system for New Zealand but it has been around for a while. This is for the busy person who wants to do something with their food scraps but has very little time. Also perfect for holiday homes, rental homes, apartments.
This system will take all your food scraps, I’ll say that again, all of your food scraps! When I say everything I mean all meat and fish, raw or cooked. Ninety percent of food waste will be absorbed as water into the soil and thereby nutrients are absorbed straight into the ground.
Note that the Green Cone doesn’t produce a supply of compost for your garden.
The caddy goes into the ground and the Green Cone sits on top
Once set up, it’s as simple as emptying your caddy full of food scraps into the Green Cone. That’s it. Over the winter months you add a biological activator that aids the composting process. Every few years it may need an empty out.
Earthmaker composter
This is a large plastic composting all-in-one three chamber unit. You put your food scraps and garden scraps into the top and the composting process begins.
On my travels I have yet to see one of these work properly. This is not to say they don’t work, they just probably need a tweak on how they’re used. The Earthmaker website has info on how to use this system.
Tips:
Water
I have found that the most common problem is the moisture levels, the contents of the bin drying out. If this is happening give a light watering once a week or as needed.
Materials
Remember not to stuff the top chamber full with just one ingredient ie when you mow the lawn, mix in other ingredients at the same time. If you have too much of one ingredient store and use later on.
Worms
Add a handful of tiger worms into the bottom chamber. You can buy them or, better still, ask a neighbour for some. Sometimes they arrive by themselves. These fellas will aid the composting process.
Wastebusters delivers the Dr Compost home-composting programme in Queenstown and Wānaka under contract to Queenstown Lakes District Council. Check the Dr Compost Facebook page to see if there are any veggie growing or composting workshops scheduled soon.
Dr Compost can also solve any composting dilemmas for Queenstown Lakes residents, and give you personalised advice to get your composting system humming. Email him your questions to: drcompost@wastebusters.co.nz
