Home composting

Give your garden a boost with home-made compost. Your kitchen scraps and garden cuttings (items you might have thrown in your bin) you can create a product that can be used on your garden and reduce the amount of compost you need to buy.

• What can I compost?
• What do I do first?
• Where can I get a compost bin?
• Help, I have a question
• What is a wormery?
• Can I compost without a garden?

What can I compost?

For unusual items ask the experts

What do I do first?

Decide if you want to buy a compost bin or use a compost pile

Choose where you want to put your compost bin

Keep a container in your kitchen to put your peelings in. You can buy a special kitchen caddy for this or use an old ice cream tub. You could put the container on your kitchen side and peel directly in to it.

Where can I get a compost bin?

A compost bin is useful if you want to start making compost. It will stand in your garden waiting for you to feed it with more organic material. You can compost without one but a shop bought bin can help make your compost pile look very tidy as it keeps all the material in one place.

• Buy or request a compost bin online through a scheme run by your local council. Brent, Ealing ,Harrow, Hounslow and Richmond residents can use a reduced price compost bin offer from Get Composting. Visit the website for compost bins and accessories which will be delivered direct to your door.
• Buy one from a garden centre or DIY store
• Build a compost pile instead of buying a bin

Help, I have a question

Composting can be easy but sometimes something might smell slightly wrong, or turn a funny colour. Find out more by asking the experts.

What is a wormery?

A wormery is a closed container with several compartments. You put your food waste in the different sections and the worms living in the container will eat their way through it leaving compost behind them.

Worms like your kitchen waste. As well as eating peelings they will also feed on cake, pasta, rice and cereals. They eat quite fast so there shouldn’t be much smell from the wormery.

You can even have a wormery in your home. But, be aware that the worms can escape and in summer it could attract fruit flies.

Can I compost without a garden?

It is possible to put a wormery indoors, but there is another way to compost in your home. Bokashi is an enclosed system that will compost all your food leftovers including meat, fish and cheese, as well as your peelings. Put all your food into a specially designed container, sprinkle it with the bokashi bran and wait for your food to be transformed.

After the composting takes place you will be left with a nutrient-rich liquid and compost. So if you haven’t got a garden, you’ll need to find a use for the compost. Perhaps give it to a friend or family member, or use it to grow vegetables in your home or in windowsill boxes.