How do you make an indoor compost?

Question

I want to have fertilizer for a garden, but don't have room for a compost outside.

Answer 1

I've made an indoor compost, but its different than an outdoor one because I used "red wiggler" worms to do the composting. The good news is they love all the kitchen waste like vegetable and bread scraps, paper napkin and shredded paper (they love to eat all those unsolicited credit card approvals that come in the mail.) Just leave out any greasy, dairy or meat scraps. I used a bin (plastic with a snap on lid.) Put down a layer of moist, shredded newspaper or junk mail, put the worms (purchase at a bait or garden store) and then add your kitchen scraps. In the beginning, give them time to digest the food so it doesn't get smelly. Keep layering moist paper shreds over the food scraps to keep the smell down. No worries about worms escaping because red wiggler, unlike earthworms, don't like light and stay buried, happily eating all your kitchen waste and making great fertilizer. In a few months, you can scrape the food and paper aside an harvest "black gold" (the worm castings) for your plants.

Answer 2

There are several ways that you can compost for a garden and only one way that works indoors. That way is composting food scraps with worms in a worm bin or vermicomposting. It can be done by saving your fruit and vegetable scraps and peels, eggshells, tea bags and coffee grounds mixed with shredded newspapers, leaves and some soil. You put this mix into a small, shallow (8 to 12 inches deep) plastic storage bin with a snap tight lid and some air holes drilled into the top and sides and some red wiggler worms (Eisenia fetida or Lumbricus rubellus). Don't add meat or dairy to the bin but do add a little water enough to make the newspaper feel like a wrung out sponge. You may need to spray it with an occasional mist of water to keep it from drying out. Getting it too wet is a bigger problem and this will make it smell and may kill the worms. You have to bury the scraps in different areas and harvest the compost so that you keep the worms healthy. You can also make a tea from the worm casings that you can water your plants with. Most people keep the worm bin under the kitchen sink. Worms like it dark and between 50 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Worm bins can be a little tricky, Its easy to get it wrong and have a smelly bin. If you have room for a garden there are other ways that you can compost in a small area outdoors. An easy space saving way is to bury a plastic trash can with holes in the bottom. Dig a deep hole, down about 3 feet, Place the trash can into the hole, leaving about a foot or so exposed. Throw your food scraps and leaves into it. Cover it with a tight lid. Every time you add scraps add a shovel full of soil. When it is full leave it alone. In a year it will have produced some fine, rich compost. Another space saving way is to bury your scraps between the rows of your existing garden. Dig a foot deep and cover the scraps with at least 8 inches of soil. The next year, move your rows over and plant in the buried scraps, by then it will be rich compost. Another way is to have a simple compost pile of scraps that you cover with dirt. You plant something like pumpkins directly in it. Many people will tell you complicated methods of composting and some will try to sell you an expensive composter or digester. It really doesn't matter how you do it, your scraps will eventually become compost. It just takes longer if the moisture content is a little off, or if there aren't a lot of microorganisms in the soil, or if your mix of browns and greens (nitrogen and carbon) isn't perfectly balanced or if you don't mix up the contents every so often. But no matter what, it will decompose into compost, and the food that you grow in it will produce healthier food for you and yours.

Answer 3

compost needs air and moisture. This would work great indoors in a box, but will really stink up your house. The best compost is a square box. (3'x3'x3') put in 70% brown matter (leaves, clippings, etc.) and 30% green matter (grass clippings, coffee grounds, etc.) moisten and wait a week, turn it and wait and continue this way until spring. It will be nice and black organic matter. But not such a good air freshener.

If you don't have room for compost, what do you want to use the compost for? If you have a small garden spot, just compost on top of it. Also, if you are just an "environmentally friendly" person and are looking to save the planet by composting, most communities have public gardens that would love your organic contributions.

Answer 4

You don't need much room for an outdoor one if you use one of those pre-packaged plastic compost bins (about size of garbage can).

Since the idea of a compost pile is to rot the heck out of food and garden waste, having it indoors is a terrible idea (from a sanitation and odor point of view). When they offered free indoor composting bins in this extremely environmentally- oriented local town no one took them up on that offer.