The Starchy Kitchen Scrap That Helps Your Compost Pile Thrive

Is your compost pile looking a little sad? You're not alone. While throwing food waste into a kitchen compost bin is an easy way to repurpose kitchen scraps, there's an art to cultivating a healthy and rich mixture that will enhance the health of your garden. 

Tips to improve compost quality range from the logical (like adding corn husks to your pile) to the barely believable (both human and pet hair are good for a compost heap, apparently), but the biggest secret to composting is balance. A healthy compost heap is rich in carbon and nitrogen, and teeming with microorganisms like bacteria and fungi. One of the best ways to encourage microorganisms to move into your compost bin is to offer them a hearty meal. Specifically, bread. It's a win-win. When you add bread to your compost pile, you get rid of the tough slices at the back of your breadbin, or the last of the weekend's bagels, and friendly fungi and bacteria get a delicious yeasty treat.

In general, adding processed foods to a compost heap isn't advisable, which is probably why many cooks and gardeners assume bread shouldn't be added. But Ashley Esakin, the founder of Gardening in Canada, is a proponent of composting bread. "Absolutely, it's easy to compost," she told House Digest, adding that, when properly composted, bread scraps "can increase diversity."

A compost pile that's rich in carbon, nitrogen, and microorganisms starts with the right ratio of greens to browns. Greens are nitrogen-rich materials like fruit and vegetable scraps, grass clippings, and coffee grounds, while carbon-rich browns include hay, eggshells, sawdust, and paper and cardboard such as egg cartons, which are perfect for composting. A healthy compost pile is two to three parts browns to one part greens, with plenty of microorganisms working to break both down.

This is where that past-its-best bread comes in. That slice someone saved for making delicious homemade croutons and then forgot about might not be appetizing anymore, but it's still useful. As Esakin points out, "[A] benefit is that it contains yeast, which is a microbe meal we don't often find in soil. So this can increase diversity." Diversity in microorganisms is important, as they do different jobs, with fungi breaking down acidic waste while bacteria generate heat to aid decomposition. All you have to do, is chop up the stale bread and add it to the compost pile, preferably digging it in a bit.

Whatever you add to your compost pile, maintaining that browns-to-greens ratio is important. If you're adding bread, Esakin says, "Mix it in with lots of browns, sawdust, leaves, shredded cardboard."

Bread isn't just a delicious treat for microbes, it's also a favorite of rodents, birds, and bugs. Acknowledging this, Esakin told House Digest, "The only word of warning is critters will all be more likely to hang out."

Personal tolerance for compost critters varies based on factors like where you live, the size of your garden, and the placement of your compost heap. "For me personally, I dislike critters ... so I stay away from a lot of processed foods, meats, and eggs," admits Esakin. Other gardeners are happy to add whole raw eggs to their piles, figuring the essential minerals they add are worth additional visitors and the strong smell. However, milk and dairy should be avoided unless you're a composting pro, and meat isn't suitable for most home composting.

Whatever your composting philosophy, cutting enticing scraps like bread into small pieces that will break down quickly and burying them deep in your compost pile should minimize critter activity. Maintaining that balance of green to brown materials will also help keep bugs and beasties away, as will investing in a sturdy compost bin with a well-fitting lid.

Static Media owns and operates Tasting Table and House Digest.