Vitamix’s Countertop Composter Turns Table Scraps Into Plant Food

I’ve a new box-shaped gadget in my kitchen that takes the meals you place in it and turns it into one thing akin to soil. This is the Vitamix FoodCycler FC-50, a cubic-foot machine with a cylindrical interior chamber that is concerning the dimension of a seaside bucket. Fill that bucket with meals scraps, let it churn away for a number of hours, and open it to seek out one thing that appears like dust, additional giant fish-food flakes, or some mixture thereof. My spouse Elisabeth retains a yogurt container labeled “Fresh Dirt” subsequent to the FoodCycler to retailer its output. Sometimes the output smells just like the faint whiff of trash in a metropolis you’ve got by no means visited. Sometimes it virtually smells nice. Elisabeth, who’s been on a kombucha-brewing kick these days, did a batch utilizing simply the scobys and spent tea leaves, and all of it got here out smelling like an unique scent {that a} parfumier may fold into an eau de cologne.

I instantly received misplaced in determining who this system is made for. Chez Joe in Seattle, for instance, now we have a metropolis bin for yard and meals waste. The trash truck picks it up and carts it away each Thursday. I preserve a compost bucket on the kitchen ground, together with a mini model of it subsequent to my prep space. I even have a bag within the freezer with rooster bones and scraps like leek greens, onion tops, and Parmesan rinds, and each few weeks when the bag fills up, I flip its contents into a pair quarts of inventory. Growing up in New Hampshire, we would wing corncobs into the woods from the again deck, and all different veg scraps went into the expansive compost pile on the again fringe of the yard. If Mom and Dad wanted dust for his or her good-sized backyard, they’d simply dig up a bit. Now, once I want dust for my rooftop planters, I purchase a brand new bag on the ironmongery shop.

In these instances, the FoodCycler would have restricted worth. I do not assume there’s no use for it, however as soon as I had it in my kitchen, I noticed it is solely going to serve a tiny little area of interest—and I can not fairly work out who matches inside that area of interest. Perhaps you are in a suburb the place there is no food-waste recycling program, and also you’re uninterested in throwing cooking scraps within the trash. Maybe you wish to experiment in making some form of tremendous compost, and the considered a $300 gadget is extra interesting than a $10 bag of dust from Lowe’s. It may very well be that you do not have room for a compost pile otherwise you need one thing to feed to your indoor gardening undertaking throughout a frosty winter.

Dirty Computer

Composting is an effective factor. It does not eradicate the issue of meals waste, however it does one thing productive with what may in any other case find yourself fertilizing an previous sofa on the dump. It feeds your soil, including vitamins that make crops completely happy. Technically, the top product of composting known as a “soil amendment” or “nutrient source,” although Vitamix refers back to the FoodCycler’s output as “fertilizer.”

I known as Andy Bary, a soil science researcher at Washington State University. He’s additionally coauthor of an excellent, brief “Backyard Composting” bulletin that I plan on sharing with all of the gardeners in my life. He rapidly homed in on security.

The finish product of composting achieved unsuitable can transmit pathogens into the meals you develop in it, and that’s lettuce you don’t want to eat. Regular backyard compost goes by means of a section the place a well-tended pile will rise up into the low- to mid-hundred levels Fahrenheit for a number of weeks, then “cures” at round 100 levels for one more few months. If there are pathogens within the heap, they’re cooked or dissipate over a couple of months. I went down fairly a rabbit gap attempting to determine if a several-hour prepare dinner within the FoodCycler was sufficient to prepare dinner out any pathogens. According to the oldsters at Vitamix, every batch spends 5 to eight hours at or above 158 levels Fahrenheit, which Bary stated “appears good for me to cowl pathogen discount.”

Bary additionally identified that “only a few” yard compost piles rise up to the appropriate temperatures (they’re typically too small to get scorching sufficient), however in the event you wait 60 to 90 days, something unhealthy will dissipate and you should utilize the nutrient supply with out fear. Leaving meat merchandise, particularly rooster, out of your compost will prevent complications and bellyaches.

You can put some animal merchandise—like chicken bones and other scraps—within the FoodCycler, however I discovered to proceed with warning. I made the error of sprinkling some round my parsley, and the soil grew mould to emphasise my error. This is the type of stuff you must flip into the soil.