What do you do with those scraps, shells, and coffee grounds when the weather turns cold and the ground freezes?
I'll start by sharing that we have less house waste to compost in the winter time. Most of our meals are soups, stews, and casseroles. They contain some kind of meat that prevents composting any leftovers (which is a rare occurrence.) All the trimmings from the veggies were composted in the summertime when we prepared them for the freezer, canner, or dehydrator.
At the beginning of fall we tilled most of the compost we had into the garden. Then we started a new compost pile when we did the fall cleanout of the chicken coop. Any kitchen scraps we have will go there along with the wood ash from the wood burner in DH's workshop . Even when the ground is frozen, the chickens will visit this pile every day to scratch through and look for bugs and to eat the tidbits they like. Their stirring, along with the heat from the manure, keeps the pile from freezing. Eventually, we will get days that are too cold for even the bravest chickens to venture out but, in our area, those temps come and go. We call them "cold snaps" because they aren't permanent.
By the time the coldest weather is on its way out, I start saving my eggs shells and coffee grounds in a separate container to put in the garden with the tomato plants- to help prevent blossom end rot. Some of the coffee grounds also go around the blueberry bushes for the added acid. The compost that we kept over the winter is put in the garden and the deep litter in the chicken coop becomes the spring compost pile that will go into the next fall tilling.
When we had goats their manure and bedding also went into the two piles at the same time as the coop cleanouts. This cycle has been successful for us for many years.
