Hi I'm Mrs Charles! Today I'm showing you how to make compost in a cup.
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Okay for this activity you will need a bowl and a spoon, a knife,
which your parents will have to help you with.
We need two cups with slits pre-done in the bottom, which your parents can help you with,
and a bowl that you'll place like that so you don't get your table dirty. You need
compost material, a cutting board, a couple of plastic baggies and a couple of rubber bands, a
quarter of a cup of dirt, which I pre-measured and I have some coffee grounds that you can use also.
Okay the first step is to take your vegetable and fruit scraps and cut them up into small pieces.
So, you'll want to make sure you've got a mom or a dad doing this with you so that it's done safely.
So, you're going to take the stuff you not going to use to actually eat and just cut it up into little
pieces. Make sure you're very careful when you do this. I've got cucumber here and we'll just,
the end of a cucumber so we'll just cut that into a small pieces. I've got a mushroom that's
not good enough to use so I can use that. I've got a banana peeling here and an orange peeling.
I have an apple core and a piece of zucchini. You
can use all kinds of vegetables. You can use grass clippings, You can use
whatever you have. You just want to make sure you don't use any meat,
dairy or seafood products. So after you've cut up everything take your
organic stuff and throw it in the bowl. Okay, now you're ready to add your quarter cup of dirt.
Pour that in.
And I'm also going to add-- I had some coffee grounds that I took from a K-cup
and you just put that in to it. You don't have to use that that's optional. So mix it all up.
Okay so we add just a little water to it to moisten the mix
and then you're going to fill your cups.
Then you're going to take your piece of plastic-- I like to use a baggie because it's already
got sides-- put it over like that and take your rubber band and
like that.
Okay how should you care for your compost cups?
Compost piles need sun, shade, water and movement so if you're doing this activity in warmer weather
you can put your cups outside in an area that has sun for part of the day. Bacteria and fungi
love to live in a warm environment. Now the shade keeps the compost from becoming too warm
because then it would dry up. Rain will keep it moist. If it doesn't rain you're going to
want to open it up and add a little bit of water and make sure you give the cup shakes
from time to time. That'll help it decompose faster. I did my experiment in the winter time so
I put my cup on a table next to a window. If you keep your cups inside you'll need to protect your
tabletop by putting a dish under water to collect the water that drains from the slits in the cup.
Mine became a little moldy. How long does this take? Well, it could take up to a month.
Your finished compost should look crumbly, dark and like beautiful soil and it should
smell like a forest floor. Mine took a long time but yours might take shorter
or longer to compost. You could experiment by placing your two cups in different areas
but you need to know that you might need patience because it won't happen quickly.
Now I'm going to tell you a little bit about the science of composting. Composting happens
in nature: fallen leaves, grass and plants break down these organic materials into compost.
Worms and pill bugs also help change organic material into compost.
Rain gives the moisture needed. When the material turns to compost in nature it begins to give the
plants around it good nutrients to be healthy and grow. It's a wonderful cycle. The compost you make
in your cups can be mixed into any garden you plan on using this summer. Just mix it into the
soil. Your plants will grow better. Compost is like fertilizer. Good luck making your compost.
I hope you had fun and that you can use it to help your seeds or plants grow this summer.
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