In the wintertime, people composting outdoors are not getting much accomplished because it's cold outside. There is an alternative that is done indoors, vermi-composting. All you need is a bin the size of a recycling bin; a container for your food waste; shredded paper: peat most; some dirt or compost: and the key ingredient, worms to do the work.

Allison Stuart with the Onondaga County Resource Recovery Agency explained the set-up.

“You lay down shredded paper. Make sure it's nice and moist but not dripping wet. Sprinkle in some peat moss. It's a little dense than soil. It helps the air circulate around better. Then you put in soil on top of that. Add your worms, which are red wiggler tropical worms. Then put the food scraps in with them. Cover them up to avoid the odor problem and put the lid on and that's it,” said Allison Stuart, OCRRA Recycling Aide.

It's not a labor-intensive process.

You put the bin together, maybe once a year. You harvest it at the end of the year. You add food to it maybe twice a week depending on how much food waste your family creates.

You use the same food waste as in an outdoor compost system like fruits, vegetables, coffee grounds, eggshells and then let the worms do the work.

That's the good thing about indoor composting as opposed to outdoor compost piles. The worms do the mixing for you. You don't have to it all. As they move through the soil, they are doing the mixing themselves.

You don't to worry about the worms looking to move out of your compost bin and into your yard, red wiggler worms are tropical and need a temperature of at least 50-degrees to survive.

Once the compost is finished it can be added to plant soil. It's much better than any fertilizer and it's all natural. It'll get great results in your garden too.