Yes, there is composting...but composting takes time. And you can not put kitchen waste into compost every day. So: what to do with the daily kitchen scraps? We don't have chicken (yet) or pigs to feed the kitchen leftover to. We have a small land (in tropical/subtropical climate) and so far I just dig it somewhere in the soil. But I am running out of places to dig holes Any ideas?
we keep worms. we don't eat a lot of meat here so we don't have bones or fats that often to deal with. a few buckets, use an old t-shirt (without holes) to cover it with a rubber band to hold it on. we use a combination of earth worms and composting worms and don't have holes in the bottom to drain off liquids so i make sure i don't put in too much wet stuff unless there is also some dry stuff going in too. once a year i take the buckets and empty most of them out into the gardens, but keep some worms to restart the process (and also bring some earth from the gardens back in the bucket too so it can be recharged). all very simple and low cost. at present i have 16 buckets and one larger bin and that gives me enough capacity to handle our regular scraps plus when Ma decides to feed 50 people. p.s. i dehydrate certain scraps on trays as then they can be held until i get enough to put in the bins, and it also prevents certain things like potato peels and other root veggies from growing in the buckets. dehydrating them also helps control the moisture levels as then i can add water if needed.
Thank you for your replies!!! I live in Taiwan, climate is mostly above 25+ Celsius/ 77+ Fahrenheit. Humidity mostly 80+%. Everything starts to mold immediatly and everthing that is not covered with a thick layer of soil will be found by insects, roaches and mice. I didn't cover the kitchen scrap thick enough and we had some roaches. After a while mice took over and the roaches disappeared. And now I almost stepped into a snake...therefor the mice start to climb the banana trees and live there. It's a nice eco system here. We will start experimenting with worms...and sooner or later have chicken... Thank you again for your input... Regards Frank
if you don't mind the mice i think that's a nice ecosystem. around here mice tend to want to come inside the walls/house and even nest in my car. snakes only work a part of the year (the rest of the time it is too cold and the snakes are hibernating). hmm, could you put the veggie scraps in a crock with some vinegar in the water to keep them from molding? they would still spoil but it would be via the acid loving bacteria/fungi and maybe not smell so much. if you cover with a cloth (with something to hold the edge down so that flies can't get in and out) then that may work to aggregate wastes and then you could go out once a week and bury them. meat scraps can be processed another way (certain larvae will clean it up , but i think they're pretty smelly too, i've not had to do this so i don't know this process for sure).
