Countertop composting at our house

Composting is a lifestyle that extends from the garden on to the countertop.

We have a new addition to our garden: a compost bin made from Western Red Cedar.

And I think we loved the way it looked and smelled so much that we both second-guessed our intended use for it. But, we made the commitment to reducing our waste, and we are seeing it through.

The bin is a 2-foot-by-3-foot ‘New Zealand’ style compost bin that sits in a garden bed in our backyard. It’s not a realistic walk on most days to add our scraps to the bin, so we have been using a covered container by the back door to collect the kitchen scraps.

But like most things in life, it’s easiest to make a change in habit when it’s easy to make the change.

So, after researching and worrying about possible smell from kitchen scraps building up indoors, we are switching to a countertop collector.

There are degradable bags that you can line a countertop composter, and there also are odor reducers you can sprinkle to help neutralize odors. And I’ve learned that if you add some more brown (dried leaves, scraps of paper, newspaper, etc.) to a bin that smells, it helps keep the smell from fermenting under control.

Click here to read how we built our compost bin.