TOPICAL COMPOSTING TIPS -
  Plastic compost bins will continue to work at low temperatures, but if you have a wooden compost bin, wrap it up well with several layers of cardboard, bubble film or old carpet. Put a wormery in a shed or outhouse.

Raw kitchen scraps
During the winter we have lots of raw fruit and veg peelings for composting, but not much else. So how can we use them to make compost, not a smelly, soggy mess?

Luckily there are several ways: –

In a compost bin
When you only put kitchen scraps in the bin, they rot down very slowly and start to stink. This is because the heap gets too wet and airless when there is no fibre to absorb the moisture and create air pockets.
What to do:
Mix in crumpled or shredded paper or card; cardboard egg boxes, kitchen towel and the centres of toilet rolls. Straw or guinea pig or rabbit hay bedding will also work well. A couple of handfuls of topsoil sprinkled over the mix will introduce soil bacteria to help the composting process.
With low winter temperatures composting happens slowly, but this mixture will gradually produce good results and there will be no unpleasant odours.

In a wormery
Visit our Worms and Wormeries page.

In the Green Cone
This is designed to handle raw and even cooked kitchen scraps. A basket is sunk into the ground, with its rim at soil level. Two plastic cones, an inner black and outer green one with a lid, are screwed to the basket. You can add up to 2 caddies of food scraps every week and over 2 or 3 years [3 in the Borders], this will rot down into first class compost. The air between the black and green shells heats up and is pumped through the rubbish in the basket. Provided you don’t fill the Cone above ‘basket’ or ground level it will work well and there will be no unpleasant odours.

In the Green Johanna
This composting unit is also available from Green Cone. It sits on the ground and will process raw and/or cooked food when mixed with garden waste. A special ‘winter jacket’ can be added during the winter.

In a Bokashi bin
Bokashi is the Japanese word for ‘fermentation’. Bokashi bran has a molasses base and is enriched with microbes that will help it act as an accelerator. Raw or cooked scraps are put in a sealed bucket. A thin layer of bran is sprinkled on the scraps, and this is, in turn, covered with more food scraps. Once the bucket is full, it should be left to ferment for 2 – 3 weeks. It will not have changed its appearance but can now be added to a compost unit. A second bucket is used while the first one is fermenting.

And don’t forget Trench Composting
This was a traditional way of composting kitchen scraps over the winter. Dig a trench to at least a spit’s [spade’s] depth [2 spits are better, if you can.] Place the dug out soil to one side of the trench. You then put a bucketful of scraps into the trench and cover it with soil to conceal any smell of of decaying vegetation. Work along the trench, layering the scraps till it is full. This will rot down nicely producing a rich bed, ideal for runner beans! You should not try this method if you’re troubled by foxes or badgers – they will quickly sniff out the food!

There are lots of ways to compost successfully, even in winter.

For a summary of the different bins see Which bin for kitchen waste?

Previous "Home Composter "pages you might find useful:

 Reusing your Christmas decorations
Making your own Potting Mixes
Harvesting Last Year's Compost
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