Composting - No Frills

Composting - No frills.

Ever considered purchasing one of those gadgets for making compost? These are usually drum shaped, with a handle to mix the contents and with which you have to sprinkle with water regularly. While these are nice to have, especially if you have space in the garden to place one in, I don't have the luxury of garden space nor do I want to invest in one since the amount of composting that I do is rather modest.  Having a small garden and with pots of plants all over the place, I thought it would be easier (and inexpensive) to do composting as follows:

1. Get an empty pot - this one is about 11 inches (about 28 cm) high. 

A smaller shorter pot should be just fine.

2. Fill it with a little earth - about 2 cm.

3. Put in about the same amount of kitchen waste 

(fruit peels, vegetable peelings, tea leaves, egg shells, etc. but no meat) 

as the next layer.

4. Cut up the kitchen waste into smaller bits if you like 

(this helps to increase the surface area of the kitchen waste 

and therefore helps it to be converted into compost quicker).

5. Fill it with another layer of soil.

6. Cutting up the kitchen waste into smaller pieces using a pair of garden scissors.

7. Adding more kitchen waste.

8. Adding another layer of soil.

9. Yet another layer of kitchen waste

(vegetable cuttings, onion skins, broken egg shells, potato peelings, payaya seeds

- whatever is biodegradable).

10. Yet another layer of soil.

11. Topping up the pot with the rest of the kitchen waste 

(this is about 3 days kitchen waste).

12. The final layer of kitchen waste.

13. Cutting up the kitchen waste into finer bits.

14. The final layer of soil added up to the brim of the pot.

15. With a little bit of acrobatics, turn the pot upside down, without spilling the contents.

16. I place one of my bonsai trees in a pot over the pot 

filled with kitchen waste for composting.

17. When I water the bonsai tree, the water from the pot of the bonsai tree should seep down through the holes underneath the pot with the kitchen waste and so the mixture gets watered regularly.