How to Compost at Home in an Apartment or Small Space
Learn how to compost at home in an apartment or a small space. Simple bucket, bokashi and worm bin setups, plus quick fixes for smell, mess and fruit flies.
COMPOSTING & SOIL HEALTH
If you live in a flat, composting probably raises three worries. Will it smell? Will it bring flies into my kitchen? And where would I even keep it?
Those are fair questions. But your regular kitchen bin already holds wet peels and scraps, and it often smells worse than a well-run compost bucket. A healthy compost setup smells like damp soil.
You also get something back: dark, crumbly compost for your balcony pots and indoor plants, and a lighter, less smelly garbage bag to carry out every day.
You don't need a garden or a big budget. A bucket, a few holes and some dry material are enough to start this week.
Why it's worth doing in a small home
Peels, scraps and coffee grounds are what make your bin heavy and smelly. Take them out and the bin stays cleaner for longer.
Finished compost improves your potting mix and gives plants a gentle boost, so you may end up buying less fertilizer. It won't fully replace either one.
Balcony vegetables like chillies, tomatoes and herbs often do better in soil that has some compost mixed in.
You waste less. Food scraps that go into compost feed your plants instead of a landfill.
New to the idea? Here is a plain explanation of what compost is and why your garden needs it.
If you're unsure, start with the bucket method below. It costs almost nothing and teaches you how composting works.
Pick the method that fits your home
There isn't one right way. Choose based on your space, your patience and your budget.
The simple bucket method, step by step
Get a bucket with a lid. A 15 to 20 litre bucket suits one to three people. An old paint bucket (washed well) or a plastic storage tub both work.
Make air holes. Drill 8 to 10 small holes around the upper sides and a few in the lid, then 4 to 6 in the base so extra moisture can drain. Cover the holes with a scrap of fine mesh or net cloth to keep flies out. Air is what keeps compost from turning smelly. The next section explains where to stand the bucket and how to catch drips.
Lay a dry base. Add about 2 inches of dry leaves, cocopeat or shredded cardboard. Then add a handful of garden soil or old finished compost. This brings in the microbes that do the work.
Keep a small scrap container in your kitchen. Chop peels and scraps into small pieces. Small pieces break down faster and smell less.
Add scraps, then cover them. Every time you add wet scraps, cover them with dry material. Aim for roughly two parts dry to one part scraps by volume. If you can see food, cover it more.
Check the moisture. The bin should feel like a wrung out sponge. Too dry, add a small splash of water. Too wet or smelly, add more dry material.
Stir every 4 or 5 days. A stick or small trowel is enough. This adds air and speeds things up.
When the bucket is full, rest it. Close the lid and let it mature for 4 to 6 weeks, stirring now and then. Start a second bucket in the meantime, so you're never without a place for scraps.
Where to keep the bucket, and what to do about drips
Because the bucket has holes, it needs a spot where a little airflow and the occasional drip won't bother anyone.
Balcony, terrace or utility area (best): Keep it in the shade and out of direct rain. Stand it on a couple of bricks over a shallow tray to catch drips, and empty the tray whenever liquid collects.
Indoors with no balcony: Use two buckets. Drill the holes in the inner bucket and stand it inside a second, solid bucket on a couple of bricks or a small spacer. Drips collect in the outer bucket, and the inner one never sits in liquid. Keep mesh over the holes and empty the outer bucket every few days.
About the liquid: A little liquid at the bottom is a sign the bin is too wet. Add more dry material to soak it up, and don't use the liquid as plant feed.
If even that sounds like too much for your home, bokashi, a worm bin or the freezer method below are better suited to living spaces.
A quick word on the other methods
Bokashi ferments scraps in a sealed bucket with a special bran. It handles small amounts of cooked food, which most other methods struggle with. The bin smells slightly sour, like pickles, and that is normal. Drain the liquid every couple of days and dilute it heavily before it goes near plants. After about two weeks, bury the contents in a large planter or garden soil and let them break down further.
Worm bins use red wigglers, not ordinary garden earthworms. Feed them fruit and vegetable scraps, keep the bedding damp, and avoid heavy citrus, onion, meat and dairy. Worms dislike heat, so in a hot summer keep the bin in the coolest, shadiest spot you have.
Electric composters are the easiest, but they cost more and use power. What comes out is usually dried, ground food material rather than finished compost. Mix it into soil or add it to another compost system for a few weeks before using it around plants.
Freezer and drop-off is the zero-space option. Keep scraps in a sealed container in the freezer and drop them at a community compost point. Freezing keeps smell down until drop-off day.
What to add and what to skip
Good to add:
Fruit and vegetable peels and scraps
Coffee grounds and tea leaves (check the tea bag has no plastic)
Crushed eggshells
Dry leaves, shredded newspaper and plain cardboard
Cocopeat, used as a dry layer
Leave out (in a regular bucket, worm or terracotta setup):
Meat, fish and bones
Dairy
Oily or spicy cooked food
Large amounts of cooked rice, dal or curry, which attract pests
Pet waste
Glossy paper, treated wood and anything with plastic
Diseased plants
Onion skins and citrus peels are fine in small amounts, but a lot of them makes the bin too acidic and slows things down.
Keep it smell free and fly free
Nearly every composting problem comes down to too much moisture and too little air.
It smells sour or like ammonia: it is too wet or too packed. Add dry material, stir well and leave the lid slightly open for a day.
Fruit flies: bury fresh scraps under dry material every time. Keep a lid or cloth on top. Freezing very ripe fruit before adding it also helps, and a small bowl of vinegar with a drop of dish soap near the bin catches the strays.
Tiny maggots: these are usually black soldier fly larvae. They aren't harmful and they signal that the bin is too wet. Add dry material and they settle down.
Nothing is breaking down: it is probably too dry, too cold or too full of dry material. Add a little water and some fresh scraps, then stir.
How to know it's ready, and what to do with it
Finished compost is dark, crumbly and smells earthy, like soil after rain. You shouldn't be able to recognise the original scraps. A few eggshell bits or twigs are fine.
No garden? You can still use every bit:
Mix about one part compost into three or four parts potting mix when repotting.
Spread a thin layer on top of the soil in your pots and keep it away from the stems.
Top up your balcony vegetables, herbs and houseplants with it a few times a season.
Give it to a neighbour, a friend with a garden or a community garden.
If you're not sure how compost differs from potting soil, my guide on potting mix vs potting soil explains it. And if you do have a patch of ground, compost is one of the easiest ways to improve poor garden soil naturally.
If you live in India, the USA or Canada
India. Cocopeat and dry leaves are easy to find, and terracotta stack composters (often called khamba) are popular because clay breathes well. In hot, dry weather the bin dries out faster, so check moisture more often. During the monsoon, humidity makes it too wet, so keep it under cover and add extra dry material. Go easy on cooked rice, dal and oily curry.
USA and Canada. Balcony compost slows down a lot in cold weather, so in winter move to an indoor method like bokashi or a worm bin, or freeze your scraps. Many Canadian cities already collect food waste in a green bin, and a number of American cities offer curbside pickup or drop-off points, often at farmers markets. Check your local program first, because it may be easier than composting yourself. Also check your building or lease rules before putting a bin on a balcony.
Don't buy a fancy system on day one. Take a bucket, drill some holes, stand it on a tray, add dry leaves or cocopeat, and use it for one week. You'll learn more from those seven days than from any guide, and if you enjoy it, you can upgrade later.
Start Small
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