Indoor Organic Gardening/Compost

[Gardner4life]

Hello I am rather new to gardening but would like to get involved with it. Doing some research I think I will try out tomatoes in a make-shift pot (probably using an empty gallon milk jug and some store bought potting soil to begin with.)


Anyway my question primarily revolves around the compost. I keep reading that making your own compost is far better than buying store-bought potting soil. I attempted to make compost a handful of years ago but it went terribly wrong, I know now that I had WAY too much green (nitrogen) in my pile, fed it far too many grass clippings, and it turned into a sloppy black mess that quite possibly left me with walking pneumonia Unfortunately that deterred me from experimenting with gardening/composting for a few years.

Now I basically have no outside space to create a traditional compost pile. I was wondering if anyone could give me advice on indoor composting, preferably without the use of vermicomposting or worms. I saw some self-composting bins online but I'd rather not spend money on these. (especially since they all have some form of feed that you have to keep buying for the compost to break down) I was wondering if I could compost with a smaller container that could be left beneath the kitchen sink. I know that compost has to reach a high temperature so I'm not quite certain if it's even possible to compost on a smaller scale. Would anyone here happen to know?
I'm rather cautious about this given my previous experiences in composting especially since I'm thinking about doing it indoors. Although I figure it'd be easy to "turn" and if this is even possible I know now that carbons are a 30:1 ratio to nitrogens so I am more educated on it at least.
Thank you for any feedback!

[applestar]

Are you avoiding vermicomposting out of squeamishness? I'd say vermicomposting would be the best small-scale -- as little as you want -- way to "compost".

If we are talking processing vegetable scraps and TP tubes, gerbils up to guinea pigs might be another way. -- You need some intermediary organism to process these materials. Aerobic compost pile requires a certain amount of space and mass to create the habitat for microorganisms and detrivores. There are a number of commercial "composter bins and devices" but you have to satisfy the basic requirements... And from all I'm reading, they more often than not fail to meet those needs or require more work from the gardener such as chopping the ingredient into small bits -- some people use a food processor or a blender. There are even some "under cabinet composter" but I don't know how effective mechanically heated and fan aerated composter the size of an under cabinet trash bin could be -- it would certainly be totally inadequate for my current needs... But I might have bought one back when I was a single carefree "YUPPIE" and living in a condo.

Vermicomposting (or black soldier fly maggots for that matter) would break them down too, and on a more higher level of food chain, the suggested gerbils.

If you are talking about bokashi "composting" -- yes that would be another way, using yeasts and bacteria to "ferment". You can actually incubate and ferment -- make -- your own bokashi. Though for this to be strictly successful, you will need to spend the initial outlay for the primary concentrated microorganisms. I haven't finished experimenting with this concept to I can't really say with any certainty, however. I mean I tried making bokashi from bokashi and got "something" but they say that's not really as rich and bio-diverse as when made from the primary. (I didnt like the idea of getting stuck buying bokashi either).

[rainbowgardener]

gardener4, you seem to be confusing two concepts, regular composting and worm/vermicomposting. They both give you an enriched organic soil amendment, but they are very different processes. The compost pile gives "compost" as its finished product. The worm bin gives worm castings ("poo") as its finished product. The compost pile involves turning, high temperature, mix of browns and greens. The worm bin involves none of that, just worms eating your veggie scraps and turning them in to poop. (Similar to what applestar suggested that gerbils, etc could eat your veggie scraps and turn them into poop or what we might call gerbil manure, but the worm castings are valued because very concentrated and fine textured.) Also worms require less care than gerbils!

So, a worm bin can be done on a very small scale, indoors. The compost pile cannot. I have done worm bins. I really don't recommend it for under the kitchen sink. To use up any significant amount of your veggie scraps, it would need to be a bit bigger bin than that. And I found that it was pretty difficult to exclude insects from it. I used fall leaves as the worm bedding, when they usually suggest shredded paper, so maybe it would be different with clean paper, but still, it is pretty organic. I had mine in the basement and it was fine.

Here's a couple good threads on worm composting, which will help you with how to do it:

https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/vi ... hp?t=18171

https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/vi ... hp?t=35062

Another confusion: " I keep reading that making your own compost is far better than buying store-bought potting soil."

Are you in the UK? In UK, they use the term "compost" to mean what in the US we call potting soil. But the compost that is a finished product of a compost pile is NOT potting soil and cannot be used as such, by itself. Potting soil (or I say potting mix, potting medium, since usually it has no actual soil/dirt in it) is very light and fluffy to keep it from compacting in container and keep it well drained. I do make my own potting mix and it has some compost in it, but also peat moss or coconut coir, perlite or rice hulls, and other ingredients. And I don't actually claim that it is "better" than commercial potting mix, just more environmentally friendly/ sustainable.

We say home made compost (from your compost pile) is the best thing for your garden, because it is a wonderful soil amendment when you are growing in the ground. You can't put it directly in containers. Worm castings from a worm bin would also be a good soil amendment or a good addition to potting mix in containers (better than compost for containers because so fine textured, lighter), but could only be an addition to potting mix. And unless you have a very large worm bin with thousands of worms, it will take you a long time to collect enough worm castings to make much difference.

Finally, you are not going to grow a tomato plant, except possibly the most dwarf varieties like tumbling tom or micro tom, in a gallon milk jug. Regular tomato plants are very large and require at least 5 gallons of soil/ potting mix.
Notice these plants over the girls' heads:


https://howthefudgedoyougarden.typepad.c ... 772970d-pi

But best wishes and keep talking to us. I'm sure whatever your situation, we can help you grow something!!

[applestar]

Just to nit-pick with Rainbowgardener ( ) there ARE varieties of tomatoes grouped as "micros" that CAN grow in a gallon size container. A few heirloom/OP varieties I know about are Chibikko, Mohamed, Venus, and Andrina, and one that is simply called Yellow Dwarf. I think there might be some hybrids out there, too.

They are tiny plants less than 10-12" tall with mostly Cherry sized fruits. Yellow Dwarf was tasty with somewhat bigger fruits. Chibikko was cute as a button with perfect little red round cherry sized fruits, but flavor was a little meh and the plant itself was disease prone. I'm still experimenting with them and need a couple of years of growout to be able to say for sure which ones are good eating. At the moment, I can't remember which ones I am growing this year.... I wonder if I did start any for this summer? I'm definitely starting some of these in the summer and growing them over the winter later -- I believe they are all determinate.

[rainbowgardener]

if you are going to get nitpicky applestar, I did mention the dwarfs including micro tom... you just know a lot more than me about all the different varieties!!