If you decide to go organic in your gardening adventure, which I highly recommend, you will more than likely want to start composting.
Composting is beneficial in many ways. One, it reduces household waste and over time reduces your contribution to your local landfill. Two, it encourages earthworms to visit your soil, which increases nutrients going to your plants, thus increasing their health and vitality (without the use of excessive fertilizing). And three, even without earthworms, the nutrients provided by compost are better than any fertilizer on the market.
Of course, compost doesn't happen overnight, it takes time for food waste to decompose. To help your garden immediately, put food scraps directly on the soil. If planting in garden beds, put food scraps in bed, mix in the soil the best you can with a hoe or shovel, try to chop up larger pieces as much as possible to help speed decomposition, then put new soil on top of the food scraps covering completely. Ideally, you want to do this a few weeks before planting any seeds or plants in the beds, to allow the nutrients to fully "soak" into the soil. If you are not using garden beds, simply mix and chop the food scraps into the soil the best you can and try to cover completely.
Creating a compost bin is simple and cheap. The main things your compost bin needs is, a lid; this helps keep animals out of your food scraps, you don't want to feed the local raccoon population, holes; holes allow for the compost to "breathe", and allows for rain to enter the bin, which greatly helps the decomposition process, and lastly your bin needs to be made of a material that helps retain heat. Decomposition creates heat, which speeds along the decomposition process, plastic, wood and metal are all good insulators of heat, which make them good materials for compost bins.
I decided to convert an old, plastic tote into a compost bin. Below are the steps I took to create my compost bin.
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