@brinybay-- I buy the 5 gallon buckets with lids. Home Depot is a better bucket harder lid to get off. Lowes lids are easier to get off, but their buckets crack easier. All green material meaning coffee grinds, all fruits and vegetables garbage that has not been cooked, egg shells, small amounts of bread, kitchen waste only into the bucket. If there is an apple, it should be chopped into smaller pieces. Keep pushing and fill it up. At all times make sure the lid is on tightly. Every time you add, stir a little. You will need to keep a brick or two on top. The lid will want to pop itself off. Also, anytime you open, watch where you put the lid. It will have alot of condensation on it. Once full just leave the bucket. Here in the Texas heat it takes 6 to 8 months of sitting. Stir once or twice. It becomes a dark green liquid and it smells. Never leave the lid off. I stack buckets on top of each other.
Take 1/2 of the bucket, add 2 qts wood ash, 4 cups epsom salts, 2 cups ironite and 2 qts alfalfa meal. Stir . Then I mix a couple of shovels of well rotted manure. I add water to get it to the top of the bucket. Now it's ready. If you are digging holes for plants mix it in the hole. Top fertilizer for roses, daylilies or perennials circle around plants. I put well rotted cow manure(no longer smells) thickly over mixture. Brown cuts green odor. You could remove a little soil first and put that back over. Plants like iris, I turn it into liquid feed and pour around them. There is an odor to the liquid but odor goes away after a rain. 2qts of mixture makes about 5 gallons of liquid. Always keep covered, no exceptions! Most of everything in there is free wood ash, food scraps,. You need the epsom salts and iron. Epsom salts in a bag are cheap at Sam"s or Walmart. You could pass on the alfalfa, there is a natural growth hormone in it and my plants grow better. Many blessings to you and may all your endeavors be successful.
