QUESTION: Can I just throw kitchen scraps in my garden?
ANSWER: Pretty much. One method of composting is called trench composting, which, instead of letting compost break down and mature before adding it to the soil, kitchen scraps are just tossed into the soil in a trench and buried under a layer of soil in order to decompose directly in your garden beds.
Just keep your kitchen scraps in a container with a lid, like a bucket, saving back potato peels, fruit and vegetable scraps, citrus peels, greens, bread, coffee grounds, and eggshells that you would otherwise throw away. Once the container or bucket starts to fill up, take it out into the garden, dig a trench between two crop rows or in an unused bed and spread the kitchen scraps out into the trench and bury them with soil.
In around six weeks, the kitchen scraps that you buried should have decomposed and you should be left with some high-quality, nutrient-rich humus. As the kitchen scraps are decomposing, don’t plant anything directly over them in the trench until the compost has matured. However, growing crops will not mind the composting of scraps taking place between their rows. Trench composting is by far the simplest method in which you can recycle your food waste to the benefit of your garden soil.