The majority of people garden composting, do so outside and with an aerobic garden composter. This means they use up lots of space, to allow aerobic decomposition of their garden waste and kitchen scraps. The bacteria that carry out most of the work of decomposition breath oxygen, hence the term aerobic garden composting. But, what if you don't have room for a garden compost bin? Then maybe the Bokashi Kitchen Composter is the answer.

There are a few different options open for you to recycle garden waste and kitchen scraps without a garden composter. Both the popular options assume the majority of your organic waste for home composting will come from kitchen scraps.

You can feed most of your kitchen scraps to worms, using a worm composting or vermiculture composting system. However worms will not tolerate certain foods such as dairy products and bones.

Instead why not try anaerobic kitchen composting with a Bokashi Kitchen Compost Bin?

Buy the Bokashi Kitchen Composter Here

Yuk! Well, you would think so, but actually no. Bokashi kitchen compost bins are designed to seal out air. So, rather than decomposing aerobically like in a garden compost bin, your organic waste is fermented anaerobically. This means you have no nasty smells and best of all the process is much much faster than conventional garden composting.

After two weeks kitchen scraps are fermented into being safe to put on your flower beds! Oddly, the waste looks little different but it is vaguely 'pickled' in appearance. Most people prefer to hide the fermented kitchen waste in shallow trenches dug around their garden, or by putting the waste straight into planters or new beds.

The really exciting thing about kitchen compost bins is that you can put ALL kitchen scraps in them, including meat, bones and processed foods.

You do need at least two kitchen compost bins. One which you use to deposit your kitchen scraps for a fortnight. The second is left closed for a fortnight to ferment all the contents.

Although 'Bokashi' is the name most widely associated with kitchen compost bins, there are a few other makes available and you can use any good quality plastic bucket and make one yourself. Making your own kitchen compost bin means adding a drainage tap and ensuring the lid fits well. Plastic taps sold for use on rainwater barrels are ideal for this purpose.

The key to successful kitchen composting is ensuring the correct yeasts and bacteria are added to the kitchen scraps.  The easiest way to do this, is to purchase sacks of bokashi starter.  These products are usually rice husks or sawdust which is innoculated with the correct micro-organisms.  But, there are ways to even make this kitchen compost 'starter' yourself with a little patience, some yogurt and newspaper.

For anyone with little garden waste but a desire to compost kitchen waste a kitchen compost bin is ideal.  The fact you can put all your kitchen waste in is fantastic.  Plus, unlike vermiculture there is no maintenance involved.

Schools in Japan have been recycling their dining hall and kitchen waste using the Kitchen Compost system for years.  Now this is becoming standard practice in the US too.  If schools can safely use a kitchen compost bin so can you!

If the Bokashi Composter really isn't your idea of easy composting what about an Automatic Composting Machine? Okay, the price is a tad more alarming than a plastic compost bucket, but when compared to some of the new compost bin tumblers they're not actually that bad.

To use an Automatic Composter is super simple too. The machine is a heavily insulated recycled plastic box (well it's a bit more complicated than that, but heck we don't want to make one, we just want to know how it works). The top opens up to allow food scraps, sawdust and so on to be put inside. This waste sits in a tray which is warm and is regularly turned. In addition air is sucked into the chamber drawing odours and excess moisture away. Every so often a trap door opens and allows the finer particles of partially composted material to fall into a curing chamber below. Again, the waste sits until it is completely composted.

Then, finally you are called in to get involved. A red light will indicate that the compost is ready - all you do is empty it out into the garden. Truly 'hands free' composting.

The NatureMill Composting Machine is probably not for everyone, but for those with neither the power nor inclination to be shovelling huge volume of organic matter, or manually turning their compost heap, it can be an exceptionally good idea.

The use of electricity seemed a little against the concept of composting to me, when I first heard about these. But looking into them a bit more closely, the power consumption is very low (the makers estimate about the same as a nightlight). You see, the electricity is used to keep the waste moving and draw air in, neither of which are high energy jobs. The machine is so well insulated that very little power is needed to keep the compost warm, most of that work is done by the compost bacteria and micro-organisms themselves.

Again with this form of Kitchen Composter you can put in meat, fish and dairy food, which means that little bit of power stops an awful lot of waste being driven off to landfill. But, there is one proviso; really tough things which could get caught in the motor are not recommended. Fish bones are fine, but meat bones are not, and neither are really fibrous things like corn husks. But, if you are willing to put in a little effort and smash or cut these things up first, the Automatic Kitchen Composter will eat them all for you!

Plus, unlike the Bokashi Composter which really needs to be indoors, the Automatic Compost Machine can go quite literally anywhere. As long as the electricity supply is suitable, it will continue producing a new batch of compost every week or so, even if outside in the snow and rain!

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