The mysteries of composting

Even though I have gardened for years I have never tackled the mysteries of composting.  I will be attempting to become a future composting master, or at least have a working knowledge of what I am doing.  So, taking the first step, I purchased a kitchen composter which is no more than a gallon or so size container with a top that I can put my kitchen scraps into.  I chose to purchase one, more for the asthetics than anything else. 
The list of kitchen scraps that can be put into your composter is as follows: 

• Coffee grounds and filters as well as tea bags
• Fruit and vegetable scraps, I also throw in the leftovers from my juicing machine
• Egg shells
• paper towels
• pasta and rice
• stale bread or cereal

Things not to put in your compost:

• Meats or fish
• dairy
• plastics, glass or metals
• bones
• weeds or sick plants
• charcoal ash from your grill

Once the kitchen compost bin is full I deposit the contents into a 5 gallon bucket, first I filled it with about 2 inches of garden soil, threw in the kitchen scraps and covered it with grass clippings.  I will continue on in this way until the bucket is full.  I will be acquiring about 3 more buckets and do the same.  I am hoping by the time I fill the fourth bucket with my kitchen compost and brown and green clippings that the first bucket will be full of lovely composted organic material.  I will then start the process of filling the first bucket once again.

The newest addition to my kitchen, the kitchen composter!  It is ready to do its job, notice all the lovely produce waiting eagerly.

Filling up the kitchen bucket, one scrap of produce at a time.

Kitchen composter all filled, now to fill up the five gallon composter bucket.  I mix brown and grass clippings with the kitchen scraps.

Almost full!  Now to sit back and patiently wait (hmm, the patient part may be difficult)  for Mother Nature to perform her magic. Soon there will be a bucket full of black gold, also known to gardeners as compost.