I’ve often wondered if I could just bury my kitchen scraps in the garden bed instead of tossing them in the compost pile and waiting eight months for them to turn into fertilizer. Would that boost the fertility of the soil quickly, or create an underground environment that hindered root development?
I read through all my gardening books, and while they all heartily recommend composting, none say anything on the subject of direct burial. In theory, it would have to work, after all, it’s basically the premise of keyhole gardening. You toss your kitchen waste in a designated spot in the garden, the worms come and eat it, and leave their castings behind as they travel, enriching the soil.
So I turned to the internet, where there was a surprising amount of information on the subject. After reading a bit, the general consensus seems to be that bypassing the middleman is probably ok as long as you keep three things in mind:
- Chop the scraps into small pieces before burying. Better yet, run them through the food processor or blender. That way, a narrow trench can be dug, and the resulting slurry (sounds yummy, right?) can be poured into the trench and easily covered over. The small pieces will also decompose faster.
- Don’t overwhelm the planting area with buried scraps.
- Give the scraps in the trenches time to decompose before planting near them.
I decided to just go ahead and do it.
Since Bed #4 was essentially done for the year I started there. Between September 26 and October 15 I buried three gallon-size bags of kitchen scraps: old lettuce, onion skins, coffee grounds, banana peels, overripe tomatoes, eggshells, forgotten clementines and some very squishy grapes.
As you can see, I already broke rule #1. The pieces are chunkier than they should be, but I was in a hurry, and besides, nothing is going to be planted in this bed for four or five months, so they have plenty of time to break down.
I figure I’ll work my way around the garden like this, burying three gallon-size bags of scraps in each bed. Around the end of December I’ll check to see how the decomposition is progressing. If all is going well, I might have time for one more round before spring planting.