6 Different Ways To Compost, No Matter Where You Live

If you are curious about

compost

, but you don't know what it is or how to start practically at home, this video is for you. This is Kevin Espiritu from Epic Gardening,

where

my goal is to help you develop a greener thumb. And you know, when I started gardening, I didn't understand what

compost

was or how to do it. And that is what we are going to demystify in today's video. Let's first talk about what it is and why it is so important. And secondly, we're going to go over six

different

methods so that no

matter

who you are,

where

you

live

, or what your circumstances are, there is at least something you can do to start using some of that food scraps, that green waste, those brown waste from your property, and turn it into super rich compost for your garden.

So without further ado, click the Like button to get tons of epic compost. And let's get into the video. By the way, if you

live

in an apartment, I haven't forgotten about you. At the end of the video, I'll go over three

different

countertop compost bins that you can use to make better use of your food scraps. Quick priming on compost in about 30 seconds before moving on to our six methods. Number one, what does it really do for us? Well, it enhances the nutrients in our soil that soil life can break down further and make bioavailable to our plants.

Number two, improves water retention. When you add organic

matter

, your soil can retain more water. It is actually one of the best

ways

to improve clay soil. So there are a lot of benefits and it's really just organic matter that breaks down. Bacteria, fungi, insects, and all sorts of things break it down into smaller and smaller pieces so that eventually your plants can absorb it and create epic harvests. Okay, now let's get into method number one. Well, method number one, no surprise there is the tried and true hot composting. Now what you're doing with hot composting is making sure that heat doesn't escape from the system because this is just an accelerated version of normal decomposition.

Now, what you see here is called Biostack. It is a three by three by three foot system. In fact, I think it's no longer available, which is a shame because it's a really good system and it has these covers. But what I like most is that it deconstructs into thirds, which means you can use the compost however you want. You can feel at home and use exactly what you need. But the number one benefit of hot composting is that it can be done in large volumes. And again, at a minimum it takes a cubic yard to get that biological activity going.

But many people, including my friend Charles Dowding, do this on an incredible scale, and in fact, the compost you generate on his property is all the fertility you add to his garden. It has a system of three or five containers. They are huge containers. In fact, you can watch my journey with it and it's fascinating to see how he does it. But the profit is faster, the profit is more volume, but the disadvantages are that there is quite a bit to manage. You must raise it to at least 110 degrees. In organic certifications, I think you have to routinely raise it to about 160 degrees Fahrenheit, which means you have to turn it quite frequently.

You have to manage the different amounts of carbon and nitrogen, which is a 25 or 30 to one ratio between carbon and nitrogen. You have to make sure it's humid enough and there's enough air, so there can be a lot to handle here. So, if you are lazy, you might want to go for the next method. If you are a lazy gardener and I confess that I am sometimes like that, then the second method will be perfect for you. It is passive or cold composting. Indeed, imagine that compost pile you saw in tip number one, that you simply stop turning and stop managing.

That's exactly what we're talking about. Now I have a little garden container here where I keep all my, you know, greens and browns that I'm pruning. So I have this bougainvillea here, or if you're my Filipino grandmother, you would call it bougainvillea. And I don't want this here, so we're going to delete it. Now this could be cut into very small pieces and mixed in the middle of my hot compost bin and it would break down very quickly. Or as I will, and do quite often, I just chop it up a little more and leave it in this container until I want to transfer it somewhere else.

And you just build it up, build it up, and let nature do the work. What happens there is that bedbugs and earthworms often appear. Many different things will come. What are the disadvantages of this? Number one, it's much slower. You're not taking advantage of all the inherent benefits of hot composting, so you're missing out. Number two, if you throw food scraps and other things in here, it won't be protected and therefore you'll probably get more pressure from rodents and pests. And really that's all. The benefits are that it is extremely easy. You just set it and forget it.

You're basically mimicking the forest floor or that natural decomposition process. So if you're a little more lazy, this may be the perfect method for you. The third method is actually a method that I don't have on my property at the moment, although I used to compost this way, and it would be using a compost tumbler. So test your imagination and pretend that this is a compost cup. I'm going to put some on the screen too, but they were basically invented to solve two of the annoying problems of hot composting. And that would be managing that aeration and mixing the components so that there is al

ways

fresh material in the middle so that most of that heat and that biological activity can decompose the fresher, undecomposed material.

So what you're usually going to do is have a one or two chamber compost tumbler and what you're going to do is fill it up. You still have to have that large amount of material. That, that space and that volume still need to be filled so that this biological activity can be perpetuated. But then what you'll do is, let's say I filled this whole glass and they're usually in, you know, little holders of some kind. And what you will do is turn it every two days. This way you will be able to manage the mixing and aeration much better.

Now, this has some important advantages. The advantage that stands out the most is that you make fertilizer faster. You know, a lot of these dryer companies say, "You're going to compost in two weeks, three weeks." I think that's still a little aggressive. I would say a month, two months, and that's still faster than hot composting, especially at these larger volumes. Now, why don't I have one and why am I using a bell as an example of a compost cup instead of one? Well, I had one. I used to have the Yimby compost tumbler (Yes in my backyard), I think it was called.

And what I personally found is number one: it was still a bit of a pain to drive. Number two, if it ever rains, it will leak because there need to be holes in the glass for it to actually work, right? You can't just seal it completely. I had some really annoying problems with having tons and tons of black soldier fly larvae, also known as maggots, which isn't necessarily the worst thing, but at high volumes it can be bad. And honestly, I found it to be a little more annoying to handle than my hot and cold compost pile in the front yard.

Now, there are some important benefits if you are in smaller spaces. If you're in a yard, if you really have pest problems in a hot or cold compost bin, then picking it up off the ground, turning it over, and turning it over faster can be a very good idea. So I don't want to overdo it, it's just not for me personally, but it may be a fantastic option for you. Method number four, which is my favorite method, is vermicomposting, also known as vermicomposting. Now, the bag you see here probably doesn't look like many of the bags you normally see.

In fact, I made a video on how to build a stackable worm bag for about $20 or $30 that I highly recommend if you prefer the more stackable method. This is what is known as a flow-through system, so it is a completely sealed single chamber, which I really prefer for both ease of use and smell. It doesn't really look like a worm bin. No insects flying in and things like that. So I really prefer a continuous flow and specifically this bag, the Urban Worm Bag. But really worm composting is fantastic, first of all, intellectually interesting. It's so fun to see how these worms interact.

But what you're doing here is adding some bedding, so that's kind of a base layer. Consider coconut coir, shredded paper, and things like that. The next thing you do is take the food scraps and cut them nice and thin. The smaller the better because there is more surface area to work on and you are layering. So, you make a couple of centimeters of bedding, a couple of centimeters of food scraps, etc. And then you add some worms. In this case I added about two pounds of worms to start and those are the only worms I've added and it's been about 18 months.

And they simply regulate themselves. If there is not enough food, they will not reproduce as much. If there is excess food, they will reproduce like crazy and quickly take advantage of it. And so it's a fantastic system. And what happens is you're basically putting things on top and the worms make their way through. So let's say this is completely full. It's completely full, I have layers of bedding and food scraps on the top 50% and let's just say the worm droppings are on the bottom. Those are their droppings, which are basically our fertilizer. Well, they don't really like to live in that.

And these worms, the red wigglers, they like to climb up and they'll be in this top 50%. Now, when I go down and pull this cord here and squeeze out some of that worm castings, there won't be many worms in there, which can be a problem with some of the stacking systems. So once every two weeks I can take out a good amount of worm castings, which are about 1-1-1 NPK, and add them directly to my garden. And I'm adding a ton of microbial life, some great micronutrients, some great trace minerals, and it's just a fantastic way to make compost really quickly at home.

Method number five is the most exciting. If you don't have enough space and you only have enough room for maybe a five-gallon bucket on top of that, if you want to compost things that you shouldn't compost, like dairy, fats, oils, bones, meat products. If you have that and want to use it, then the Bokashi composting method is the one for you. Now we have to give a radical change to all the methods we have talked about because it is anaerobic, which means without oxygen. And that means we have a completely sealed five-gallon bucket. I now have a full video on exactly how I built this tank and the results.

I went straight from a two to three week process from food scraps to final burial to results. So I recommend you check it out. But in a nutshell, what Bokashi is is that you are using an inoculated brand name type of product. It's basically lactobacillus and a couple different strains of bacteria, and the branding overlaps. Let's say you put some branding on the bottom, leftovers, branding leftovers, branding leftovers, and then you put a cover on top and let it be. What's happening there is that it's fermenting. It's actually kind of pre-digesting this and then when you're ready, which is usually about two weeks, you throw it in the garden, bury it and it just disappears.

It just disappears. It's fascinating how quickly it happens. On top of that, you can also throw it in your hot compost bin, your passive compost bin, and it will decompose even faster. So Bokashi has many different benefits. Let's go ahead and look inside, because I haven't opened this in a while and I'm a little scared of what I might find. Well. The moment of truth is here. Let's open it. Prepare my nose. This was the plate I used to seal it. So it has a little bit of growth. It's not a big deal though. Now down here you can see there's quite a bit of white mold growth and you might think that's bad.

It's actually not that bad. Actually, that's what you're supposed to see. Now I can take all this stuff right here and it looks a little bit, you know, it actually looks good, and bury it and it will decompose extremely quickly and be bioavailable to my plants. So let me leave this alone and move on to our final method. Our sixth method, which is the height of laziness or efficiency, depending on how you look at it, consists of simply taking food scraps and burying them directly in the garden. Now, I really can't say much more about this that my friend Mark from Self Sufficient Me hasn't already said in an absolutely fascinating video that went absolutely viral.

So I highly recommend you watch Mark's video to see what happens when you bury fish, when you bury tomatoes, when you bury food scraps right in the garden and it stands the test of time. But they will decompose and you will see good fertility in yourgarden. Now, some of the disadvantages could be that if you are burying things like fish heads or food scraps and you have burrowing pests, then they will probably dig it up and as a result, dig up your garden. And for that reason, most of my composting happens in my passive or hot compost bin depending on how well I'm managing it or in my worm bin because they are sealed and I can protect them from any type of pests scavenging.

But if you want to bury, you certainly can. So apartment people, I didn't forget about you. I have been an apartment person and this is how I have solved it. That's why this one is called Chef'n EcoCrock. It's just kind of a cute little countertop compost bin. And you might be thinking, okay, well, if I'm in an apartment, I can't really compost. Well, if you don't want to use one of the methods we've talked about, this is a great way to simply collect food scraps and you can drop them off at a local compost recycler. So, you exchange food scraps and get compost, which is a very good way to do it.

You are outsourcing your compost, but in exchange you are giving away food scraps. This one is really good because it is sturdy. This is like a porcelain type material. Nice top. But what seals the deal for me is boom, you have a removable bucket that you can take out and it has a little odor capturing filter in there. Now there are a couple more that I like, but obviously the one I have is the one I like the most. There's the Polder, which is about a gallon in size and has a bit of an industrial look.

And then there's the Epica, which is probably the most popular, at least on Amazon, and I think it's a 1.3 gallon stainless steel look. It's basically the same as this one, but I think it looks a little less cool. So if you're in an apartment, this can be a great way to collect and reuse food scraps. Whatever method you use to compost, I think it's important that you at least try one of them. Even if it's just grabbing that compost bin off the counter, swapping it for some food scraps, and really practicing using the products in your home.

Your kitchen, of course, your coffee grounds, your egg shells, your chopped vegetable tips and their reuse. And see what it can become. Because remember, you know, for example, this bean plant, how much we use it. We use the beans. We didn't really use the rest of this. And then we should do something with that. And we should find ways to reuse it and make the most of it. So I hope this was helpful. If so, tell a friend, leave a comment, like, subscribe. And until next time guys, good luck in the garden and keep growing.