D wasn’t happy with the free composting guide I give away to newsletter subscribers:
“You say I your compost guide to use cooked food!!! Isn’t that just asking for rats and maggots to come in invade giving them a invitation! Also I didn’t know you were in the USA lots of the things your talking about mean nothing to me so sorry I’m deleting your guide.”
You can’t win them all, but really – this is just silly.
Why would you NOT use cooked food in your compost? Do you think rats are particularly attracted to cooked vs. non-cooked food? No, rats love just about anything you throw their way, as do maggots.
Soldier fly larvae are maggots and they are great composters!
And rats? Come on. Bury things deeply, as I do in my “melon pits:”
Other gardeners are picking up the melon pit idea as well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NehFvRCv5A
That’s an easy way to add cooked food to your compost if you’re really afraid of rats and other vermin.
Or you can just compost in a closed bin.
I mean really… why throw potential soil fertility away? Compost everything!
Or just go ahead and delete my booklet. Not everyone is ready for extreme composting.
Or basic composting, as the case may be.
5 responses to “Cooked Food in the Compost is Bad?”
OK, I was about to say, now David is going too far! When I read the headline I thought you were cooking your food in a hot compost pile. lol Which, I guess you could, if you had a sanitized container, buried it in there, and got the pile really hot; but… uh… no thank you! :)
Heh. That’s a hilarious idea. Compost crock pot.
I think Justin Rhodes has an episode on his farm tour where a chicken farmer makes compost and creates added value black garlic by burying them in jars in hot compost. You have to be willing to get your hands dirty when you compost everything! The usual suspects tend to be the creepy crawlies that the squeemish tend to avoid, but hey we sacrifice all amenaties to the gods of soil improvement. Cheers from Evesham, UK.
Now, now, it’s not “deleting”, it’s “composting electrons”.
Can’t remember where, But I did see an article on just that years ago. Used a pressure cooker to keep the food separate from the compost it was cooking in.