Nowadays, everyone seems to follow the “going green” movements in order to help the environment. Still, people are asking what they can do to help. The easiest and simple way to start is with your food scraps. You can convert your food scraps into compost. This is a great way to remove your unwanted food scraps from your home without dumping them into the bin. You will not only save up on trash bags but also produce soil which is rich in nutrient for all of your gardening. Here are the steps on how to reuse your food scraps into compost.
Things that you need:
- Food scraps such as fruits and vegetables
- red or earth worms (plump and pink)
- newspaper
- 10 gallon glass aquarium with screen lid
Steps:
- Fill newspaper strips into a 10-gallon aquarium. Push them down firmly to make sure that the newspapers strips are compact but still have a little bit loose composition. Add your worms to the aquarium.
- Place the fruits and vegetables scraps into the aquarium. Raw vegetables and fruits such as banana peels, orange peels and cherry pits are the best to use for making compost. Avoid using processed foods or meats as these attract pests. Soon, the worms will begin to eat the food scraps and digest the fruits and vegetables to produce nutrients.
- When the aquarium contains more compost than newspaper, stop adding the food scraps. This is the time for you to begin harvesting your compost. It takes as little as two months or up to two years for a compost to be ready for harvest.
- To harvest the compost, remove any large food scraps or newspaper from the aquarium. Push the compost to one side of the bin and in the other side. On the opposite side, place fresh bedding of newspaper strips and food scraps.
- Throw the compost when the worms have moved to the freshly bedded side of the aquarium. Replace the empty side with fresh bedding and more food scraps. To encourage the worms to move to that side, cover the freshly bedded side of the aquarium.
Create a nutrient rich environment for your plant by mixing the potting soil with your food scraps compost. You can also place a little bit of your compost in a bucket outside of your home. Let the rain to fill up the bucket. Then water your plants with the compost “tea”.
Additional Reading:
http://www.ehow.com/how_4968881_create-compost-food-scraps.html
Image Credit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/suavehouse113/536902862/
