Composting Tip: Use your Freezer!
Updated: Mar 10, 2021
Don't want to keep a container for compost scraps on your kitchen counter? Here's a tip: Keep it in your freezer!
My husband built me a beautiful three-bin compost system for Mother’s Day a few years ago so we could compost our kitchen scraps and yard waste into soil for our newly-planted garden. My biggest question was how I would get the kitchen scraps out to the compost bin. I didn’t like the idea of keeping a compost bucket on the counter, because I’m not the best at doing things RIGHT when they need to be done (hello, fellow procrastinators! High five!) and I was afraid it might get stinky when I inevitably forgot to take it out every day. Also, the fancy counter containers that have filters to avoid stinkiness are not cheap.
So, I came up with the idea of putting a gallon-size zipper bag in my freezer. I just get out the bag when I’m prepping food, toss the compostable scraps in there, and stick it in the door of the freezer until it’s full or I’m ready to take it out to the compost pile! (Or, to be honest, until my compost helper is home from school to run it out there.) This works great for me. I just rinse out the bag after my kiddo dumps it, then start a new collection of scraps! My son was so impressed to see the soil in the third chamber of our compost bin this spring and see how all those runs up the hill with the bag of food scraps paid off! As I write this, some of our finished compost is now nourishing a patch of potatoes and the rest is soon to be turned into our square-foot garden boxes.
Since I started keeping compost scraps in the freezer, I’ve come to learn that there are biodegradable food scrap bags that could save the step of rinsing out the gallon zipper bag; I could simply purchase these bags to throw in the freezer and toss into the compost bin. However, the reviews on how well they actually break down in the compost pile are mixed, so for now I’ll stick to reusing my zipper bag!
If you don’t compost but are interested in starting, fear not. If I can do it, anyone can. There are TONS of resources online and you may even find classes in your community. You can read more about a three-bin composting system here: https://thehomesteadinghippy.com/3-bin-composting-system/int
Happy composting!