Those Stinky Kitchen Scraps

I remember it well...my grandma kept a plastic gallon-sized recycled ice cream tub (the round kind with the plastic top) nearby in her kitchen for collecting leftovers and scraps for her compost pile. I was unaware what happened to the contents once they left the kitchen, since I was not a big enthusiast of garden labor in the roasting Mississippi summers and preferred tromping around through the woods "exploring." I'm thankful for the luxury of that time she gave us to do just that...which is probably one reason all things have come full circle and now I'm the one wanting to put in the garden.

That was one stinky ice cream tub, though...whew!!! In went peels and discarded veggie tips and leftover morning oatmeal and onion skins. It wasn't emptied until it was full. Closed and sealed, you got only a whiff of the rotting contents, but opening it to add more and WHOA NELLY...disgusting! Ah, memories!!

We've tried various containers for our kitchen scraps. If this is any commentary on modern consumption, our scraps overflow anything we use to collect them. I tried the ice cream tub thing. It just fills too quickly, and we don't have a compost pile yet, since we've been burying the scraps in the meantime. J is just too afraid of luring snakes to an open compost pile, and we have little or no green material here to add to it, and no time to go deliberately hunt any down. We're not mowing a lot right now in the winter, though the grass is still green...it just grows slower right now. But we need the clippings to be thrown back by the lawnmower into the lawn to keep it from burning later in the intense heat.

Oh for a place that does not require a lawn or "curb appeal"! I'll ALWAYS want curb appeal, but NOT the suburban sort. I think lawns are a silly invention, and certainly NOT a requirement for beautification. But American society has its conventions, unfortunately, however idiotic some of them have become. I'm all for disking is all under and putting in gardens right up to the roadside, or maybe a mass of flowers like cosmos, with mown paths. I suppose folks think they need time, and they want little upkeep, which is the tradeoff in our commuter lifestyle.

That's why we want to move further out...away. But I digress.

We got a nifty magazine in the mail today that features organic products and gardening items. They had the neatest kitchen pail with a charcoal filter top, and it looks fairly good sized, like a tall medium-sized kitchen garbage can. It claims to be Stink Free. It looks big enough to handle all the red onion peels we'd want to throw its way. But the better news was the selection of vermicomposting kits this magazine offered. Yes, I'm certainly a babe-in-the-hay beginner! I had no idea you could plop that kitchen waste into one of those worm houses, let them do their thing (I'm sure it comes with instructions and is a little lengthier process), and voila! Wormy composted goodness!!

(Laughing!! Oh the things we begin to cherish...)

I want one!!

That's on the wish list. For now I'll be trying to seal the top of the plastic tub before the reek of yesterday's leftovers hits me in a Wave of Stink...

;-)