How to compost indoors with no smell
In this guide I’ll teach you how to turn this:
into nutrient dense compost like this:
all without needing an outdoor compost bin and with NO smell!
Sidenote: this method should prevent bug infestations but because its winter in Minnesota and all the bugs are dead I cannot fully attest to its efficacy
Compost is the science of rot and only requires two components: Material that provides Nitrogen that we’ll refer to as greens from here on out, and material that provides carbon that we’ll call browns.
Greens are any fruit and veggies scraps in the kitchen. This includes the tops of peppers, onion butts, expired leaf greens, the butt ends of bread, etc. I keep a bag for my greens in the freezer. The low temperature kills any fly larva/eggs that may be in your food which keeps them from propagating in your compost bin.
Note: do not add any kind of dairy or meat product to your compost bin. They cannot be properly processed by this kind of system and there are specific methods for breaking down this kind of material.
Browns are things like cardboard, brown paper bags, egg cartons, etc. Keep in mind you don’t want to use cardboard that feels waxy. The kind of stuff your 6 pack comes in is probably not super suitable for a compost bin.
Now what can you use to hold your compost. A lot of places sell these metal bins for compost. While these are cool and viable they are often pretty expensive and not very big. I want everything on this blog to be as low cost and accessible as possible and these metal bins aren’t it.
I use plastic containers to hold mine but I try to be mindful of what kind of plastic I use. From what I’ve looked into it HDPE plastic (theres a number 2 in the recycle symbol) is the safest plastic overall. Do not under any circumstances use plastic that has a 7 in the recycle symbol. For more information here is an article about using plastics for composting.
Now you’re ready to start composting. You’ll need your browns, greens, bucket, and something like a coffee grinder, blender, food processor, or even a mortar and pestle.
Use a sharp knife to cut the top of your container open, leave a bit of the plastic attached as it will function as a lid on a hinge. Layer browns in the bottom of the jar. Use your blending device of choice to break down your green matter and place a thin layer on top of the browns then cover the green layer with more brown. Repeat this process until you run out of green matter.
This method of composting uses oxygen, or aerobic, chemical reactions to break down material. You want as much contact between brown and green matter as possible in order to speed up reactions. You also want significantly more brown matter than green about 80% brown to 20% green.
to prevent smell make sure you cover the final layer of greens with a sizeable portion of brown material. This carbon will prevent any smell from escaping. If theres no smell bugs will, in theory, not be attracted to the jar preventing infestation.
From here you can let the matter sit until its ready for harvest. you’ll just need to turn it about every other week which i do by taping the lid shut and shaking the container.
You can tell when its ready because it will smell just like soil and any mold that had formed during the process will be gone.
Now you have beautiful compost thats ready for your garden! You can sterilize the compost by running it through the oven but I have yet to try that myself. Happy composting!
