This free kitchen scrap compost planner helps you balance weekly kitchen scraps with browns you have at home, and get a weekly add-and-cover routine. Kitchen scraps are wet and nitrogen-rich, so without enough dry browns to cover them, a pile turns soggy, smelly, and fly-prone within days. It runs fully in your browser, so nothing you type is sent to a server. You need no account and no sign-up to use it.
The add-and-cover routine is the whole secret of smell-free kitchen composting. Every scrap add gets a thick brown cover the same day, so flies cannot reach food, smells stay trapped, and the pile keeps the air gaps it needs to heat up.
To use the tool, fill in the boxes on screen and press the calculate button. You can change any number and calculate again as often as you like. The result updates at once, so you can test different plans side by side and see which one fits your garden best.
For example, take 5 kilograms of kitchen scraps a week with 8 kilograms of browns available. The tool shows 10 kilograms of browns needed, a balance of minus 2 kilograms, and 3 scrap adds a week. That shortfall tells you to save more cardboard or leaves before the pile grows.
In summer, kitchen scraps arrive fast with salads and fruit, while dry browns get scarce, so stockpile shredded cardboard in spring. In autumn, leaves flood in, so that is the season to build up a browns store for the whole winter.
Tip: Keep a browns bucket beside the compost bin. When browns are within reach, covering scraps takes seconds instead of being a chore.
Tip: Chop scraps small before adding them. Small pieces break down faster and are easier to cover fully with browns.
Tip: Add scraps in the middle of the pile, not on top. Buried scraps heat up faster and never attract flies to the surface.
The most common mistake is tipping a full kitchen caddy onto the pile and leaving it bare. Uncovered scraps smell within a day and bring fruit flies in swarms. Cover every add the same day, with no food showing at all.
Common question: What browns can I use at home? Shredded cardboard, newspaper, dry leaves, straw, and sawdust from untreated wood all work well.
Common question: What kitchen scraps should stay out? Meat, fish, dairy, and cooked food in large amounts suit bokashi better than a normal pile.
Common question: How often should I add scraps? Small adds every two or three days beat one huge weekly dump, because the pile stays balanced.
Families composting kitchen waste, flat dwellers with a small bin, and new gardeners fighting smells and flies use an add-and-cover routine. It also helps anyone whose pile works in winter but turns sour every summer.
Keep a note of your pile dates and results through the season. After a few months you will see which mixes heated fastest and which plans finished on time. That record is worth more than any guess, because it comes from your own garden and your own waste.
Before you build the pile, read your plan once as if you were doing it tomorrow. Do you have the browns, the space, and the dates clear? If anything looks unclear, fix that line before you start. A plan that needs no guesswork works far better than a bigger plan that confuses you.
This tool is free to use as often as you like. Bookmark it and come back whenever you start a new pile or plan a harvest. A clear plan helps you compost with less smell, fewer flies, and more finished compost for your beds.
Remember that every result here is an estimate for home composting, not professional advice. Your local climate, your waste mix, and your bin type all shape the real result, so use the tool as a starting point and adjust it to your own garden.