This is my first winter doing this. I use the Bokashi method of composting and I have a small tumble thing in the backyard. I am way too lazy to keep a compost pile. You can save your egg shells and do nothing with them but put them in a container and bury them with your tomatoes.

Good luck!

We keep our compostables in containers in our shed. When everything thaws in the spring we add it to the composters.

Thanks for the quick responses. Keeping containers in the shed is a good idea. I can have my 12yo add shoveling a path to the shed as part of his shoveling routine. Our compost is so far from our house that I just haven't bothered during the winter, but walking it out to the shed is do-able. I was feeling some guilt when I realized snow isn't an impediment to composting for everyone else while I was reading the garbage disposal thread.

We don't have any obstacles to getting to our compost bin in the backyard, but don't have a good holding system for the kitchen. For the past 4 years or so, we've been putting compostables into a plastic food container in the sink; when it gets full we take it outside. But it's kind of gross. Are there any good indoor containers out there that are handy to use and carry and easy to clean?

I use the Lee Valley compost pail with the bio-bags. I keep it in the garbage pull out in the back bin. I take it out to the compost tumbler once a week. It never smells. I compost egg shells.

My compost tumbler is close to my back door.

Here is a link that might be useful: Lee Valley

I have a black plastic bin composter that I use during the winter. I keep my compost bucket in the kitchen just like summertime, and empty into the bin. I have hens, so I add some hay from their run every once in a while for "browns". I also compost eggshells in it. My daughter cleans the hen's roost area avery day and adds the droppings to the bin, which really gets things cooking as soon as it warms up.

My compost bin is located on the path to my garbage bins, so it is accessible year round, even if I have to brush snow off the lid to open it. Although it has been frozen solid for 2-3 months, I keep dumping in my kitchen waste. By the time it warms up so that things will actively decompose, it will have undergone so many freeze/thaw cycles that the contents practically melt away.

Thanks for all the great input, everyone. I think I may look into one of the compost tumblers to keep by my back door. We've always just had a pile that my DH maintains. He chose the spot in the yard back when we first moved in and I was still trying to figure out which colors to paint. I never thought about changing the site or method because he's the chief gardener in the family. But since I am the chief cook and therefore the producer of all of the indoor stuff that would be composted, a tumbler makes sense to me.

we shovel a path to the back- is also a path back to the greenhouse, so gives me an excuse to peek in there and see that everything's OK.

I also use a Lee Valley compost pail with the bio-bags- but the SS one. If I don't feel like shoveling off the deck and stairs- I will pop the bio-bag into an old ice-cream pail on the deck- racoons and such stay out of the bio-bag though they;ll make a mess if I just leave compost open on the deck.

I use old coffee cans to store my compost until I take it out to the compost barrel. I'm in FL, so don't have any hints on keeping things over the winter.

In case you didn't know....there is a composting forum on the gardening side of Garden Web - everything you ever wanted to know about composting is discussed there. They're a very friendly and helpful group!

Here is a link that might be useful: Composting Forum

I keep a plastic bag in the freezer for compost. I can't stand the smell when you lift up the top of the container, otherwise.

We live in northern New Jersey, so we have been dealing with a lot of snow lately, but we have never stopped composting and taking our stuff outside. We too have a garbage disposal, but don't use it all that much. We keep a composting bucket with a lid under the sink, and 2 composting bins outside, in our far back yard next to the garage. We compost egg shells, produce waste and coffee grounds. We started this whole system when we renovated our kitchen, which was done in Aug. 2007, and now everyone is into it. Yesterday one of my daughters stopped my husband from throwing orange peels into the trash can. It has to go under the sink, and about once a week or every other week, one of us (usually my husband, although he and I are supposed to take turns!) takes the stuff to the big bin, which has a twist on lid. The animals never bother it. You have turn the material in there every now and then to keep it "cooking.'' We decided to buy a second composter for outside last fall, to let the old composting material in the first bin completely compost while we add new material to bin number 2. The material in bin one should be ready by spring, and the one in bin 2 year later. It's no problem at all. We also walk our dog in the winter, twice a day, rain or shine, so if you can do that, you can take the composting bucket outside less often. Good luck.

I am in Western NY state & we have alot of snow - I compost year round, and bring home coffee grounds from work to compost, too! We have a countertop bucket & use bio bags & dump that into a bucket by the back door. When the bucket is full we trudge out to the compost pile. It is cool to see it cooking in the winter!

It would drive me crazy to not compost year round - what a waste of good stuff! I love the idea of freezing it; we don't get too much smell as we fill our countertop bucket about every 2-3 days, and I also put torn up cardboard in it - I compost paper towel & toilet paper rolls.

OOooo- paper towel and tp rolls!! What a good idea! I always feel like the trouble with kitchen-only composting (when you don't have the fallen leaves and such to add, beause they are under the snow!) is lacking because you are puttin in all "greens" and no "browns". I never thought of cardboard! Does it compost as quickly as the other stuff?

I suppose you can also use the produce of your paper shredder as a source of "browns". Can you think of a better use for junk mail???

We have two of the same stainless steel buckets from Lee Valley that raehelen showed a picture of. They're great because the lid fits really securely, so the it doesn't smell for days, even in the summer. (I know this because I'm lazy :0) In winter we hold out until one of us can't take it anymore, then that person (usually DH) schlepps out to the compost bins. In the snow we just wear boots. But I'd say we do it less than once a week.

serendipity, that forum is just too hilarious! I can't stop reading and am learning a lot between laughs.

I've always been a bit of a fairweather composter, but to read about these guys racing each other to starbucks to steal their ucg's from the dumpster or using "golden liquid" to speed up the process makes me want to get more involved (but maybe not that involved).

We keep 1-2 empty half gallon milk cartons on the door of the fridge. Once they're filled, I dump them in the compost then throw the carton out. (I avoid buying milk in plastic containers.) Keeping kitchen waste in the fridge also means no smell or fruit flies.

I'm very happy with my giant tumbler, bought on Ebay, since it is low maintenance. Hubby gives it a good turn every so often. We keep the tumbler in the sun hoping to speed up decomposition. It is next to our garbage cans so there is always a path shovelled.

Have used a counter top can in the past, but this is much less trouble.

Thanks to all for caring about Mother Earth!

Budge - isn't it fabulous?

I, too, have learned alot from reading that forum and the folks there are very friendly and happy to share their knowlege. But I'm with you as to how far I will take the whole composting thing....:-)

We have three backyard composters and I am amazed at the amount of compost I get every time I empty them, especially since not much happens out there during the winter.