Apartment living and gardening has never been better! Check out the information below to develop nutritious composting for the garden and still live happily in your apartment!

When we make our meals with fresh, organic vegetables, there are always some form of scraps. Celery ends, carrot ends and peels, sweet potato peels, onion ends — you get the drift.

Compost Tea
When we have scraps, they go into the food processor to get chopped into tiny pieces. Then, they go into a gallon-sized pitcher and are just covered with water. The shredded scraps steep in the water until the pitcher is completely full, and then they sit for another 12-24 hours to steep.

Since the jug is full, once we’re ready to add more scraps, we have to strain the liquid off using my handy-dandy wire mesh strainer. That liquid makes an awesome compost tea — it’s rich in organic nutrients that have leeched out from the veggies. That compost tea goes to water the container garden we have out on the patio.

Dehydrated Mulch Compost
Now I take the veggie scraps and put them into the dehydrator. I typically let them dehydrate about 12-14 hours — usually overnight so the heat doesn’t make the apartment too hot through the day (particularly during the summer). When the scraps are thoroughly dry, they get one more spin in the food processor to make them as fine as possible.

The dried scraps get saved up in a gallon-sized freezer bag — along with dry, used coffee grounds, dry, used tea bags, and ground-up eggshells — until it is full. Then, they get spread around plants like a layer of mulch. As the plants get watered (manually, or when it rains), the water helps feed the plants through the dehydrated mulch compost.

We think the above is ingenious. The fact that you compost can be put in a gallon-sized bag is wonderful. If you have problem with your compost and odor, although we are assured you should not, all you need to do is stick the bag in your freezer. Then, when it comes time to use your compost – let it defrost, shake it up, and you compost is ready to do the job!

For more detailed information please go on over to Survival At Home. Apartment living can be great and more-so when we find homesteading type tips like this.