Adding a little bit of raw kitchen waste to containers can be OK, but unless you have tons of containers you aren't going to be able to process much of your kitchen waste. If you end up with a stinky, slimy, moldy blob with lots of flies, then you're growing more pathogens than doing good.

Coffee grounds are good soil amendments in moderate amounts, but high in nitrogen so too much and you will encourage lots of leafy growth and likely few fruits.

You're probably better off with a compact composting system like EM Bokashi or a small worm bin, and then fertilizing your pots with the worm juice or EM liquid. My wife used the Bokashi system on her Tokyo balcony to great effect. Some urbanites even keep a worm bin in a kitchen drawer.

Hi QS,

You might want to ask this over in the Soil, Compost and Mulch Forum, although it doesn't look like there is much in the way of recent activity over there, but someone may be monitoring for new posts and might have some suggestions for you.

Also, it's possible your question has been asked and answered on that forum previously, so you may want to go take a look even if you don't post your question there.

Betsy

Here is a link that might be useful: Soil, Compost and Mulch Forum

In a way you are talking about what is called "sheet composting" or composting in place and the best place for info on that methods is as Betsy said, the Composting forum. While one can read about tossing all sorts of things in with their plants - TUMS, aspirin, egg shells, banana peels, coffee grounds, blended kitchen scrapes, limestone gravel, dog food, moldy bread. and even laundry soap, etc. it is all considered junk gardening by most experienced gardeners.

But the whole idea of But I had read in another topic about someone just throwing things such as banana peels, used coffee grounds and eggshells in the container pots. with plants is rarely recommended for several reasons. Most would strongly recommend avoid doing it all together. Those things all work in a compost pile IF that pile is managed properly. They don't work in a pot. Sorry.

1) it isn't actually composting
2) it attracts pests and critters to the plants
3) as mentioned it can be stinky, slimy, moldy blob with lots of flies
4) and it does nothing for the plants

Composting requires time, weeks of it, and until it decomposes it provides nothing to the plant. It needs mixing/stirring now and then to work and that would be difficult to do in a pot. It also requires water, often more than the plant could tolerate and requires diverse ingredients to work, a balance of carbons and nitrogens. Easy to do in a pile, even a really big container, but not in a pot.

The most common solution to composting with limited space is Vermicomposting which requires only a small box type container and it too has its own forum here full of info.

Dave

If you have no space and want to compost, I'd suggest you use Bokashi. It's a mix of Effective Microbes, common local microbial strains, plus its food. You just put your scraps+meat+diary products in a bucket, sprinkle the Bokashi bran over them and cover your bucket tightly with a lid. It's really easy to use, you can check it out for yourself.