Tuesday 28 April 2015

How to do composting at home

Don't waste your kitchen waste,its a resource. Use it to make Compost .
Composting is a process of recycling  kitchen and garden waste.
Its a very easy process.Its really amazing to see how nature works.  
Satymev jayate episode  'don't waste your garbage'  encouraged me to do waste segregation and composting. One scientist( don't remember his name) in this episode gave a perfect example to think us seriously why should we do composting. He said 'you eat banana but if you don't give it back to nature (just wasting it by dumping  in landfill which again got mixed with plastic) your next generation will not get banana in future.So do composting,make environment clean and green.





Formula for Aerobic Composting: Carbon+ Nitrogen+ Oxygen.

Carbon   - dry leaves,sawdust,wood scraps,cocopeat, pencil scraps etc.
Nitrogen - Food scraps, coffee ground/used filters  ,tea/tea bags,cut flowers/green leaves,corn cobs,eggshells etc.
To start you need:
  •  A pot/plastic bin with 1 or many holes
  •  Kitchen waste (uncooked only if doing at home) - Nitrogen
  •  Dry leaves - Carbon
  •  Khurpi /broken stick to mix pile
  •  A newspaper 
  •  1 spoon curd/buttermilk (To start aerobic process) 
  •  Lid to cover pot




 Process: 

1. Take a pot with one or more holes in it. For oxygen.
2. Keep a newspaper to soak extra water.
3. Add a layer of soil or compost.I used soil for my first batch.
4. Add vegetable/fruit scraps - (nitrogen/Green).
5. Add dry leaves  -(Carbon/brown). Its better to dry out semi dry leaves and then use.Also crush them before mixing to pile to make process better.
 ( Nitrogen and carbon ratio should be 1:3. 3 parts of dry leaves etc and 1 part food scraps ,exact ration is not required ,just mix enough amount of both).
7. Make a layer of kitchen waste and dry leaves again to form a heap.
8. With kitchen waste add 1 tbsp of curd/buttermilk to activate process.
9. cover heap with a newspaper or dry leaves like shown in below image. This step is necessary to avoid flies.

10. cover pot with some kind of lid.
I have kept one plate under the pot to collect if any excess liquid is coming out which is called 'Leachate' ,which is very nutritious for plants. You will get very little/few drops in a day,which is unnoticeable. Some people collect it for a month or so n use in plants.

11.Next day add greens and brown and mix different materials. Add them in composting bin.After adding mix follow 9th(cover heap with newspaper/dry leaves) and 10th(cover pot with lid) step daily until your bin/pot is full.






12. Turn your pile regularly to produce a sweet smelling pile that will decompose faster.
     After 6 to 8 days pile will look like below image:



13:  Once your pot is full ,use another pot to continue this process. turn pile in first pot once in a week. After 30 to 45 days,your compost will get ready.In summer it takes lesser time than winter.

`13. Final product (compost)  looks like below image.
14. Sieve the ready compost (see below image) and use for your garden. There are some undone part once you sieve you can put leftover in next pile.This again help next pile to work faster.
Once you take out ready compost from pot and if second pot is filled ,use this first pot to continue the process.
                                                 Enjoy the touch of fine compost
                             

TIPS:
1. Add piece of lemon to avoid flies. 
2. Avoid cooked food if you are composting at home to avoid smell,it will also make process slow.
3. Pile should be moist (not soggy or dry). If its dry add more vegetables and if its too wet add dry leaves or cocopeat.
4. Break material in small pieces to make process faster.

For more tips and faq please check below link.

When you tell people about composting  they will say' very good thing' but get hesitate to start process. So I created 'go green-way to go' group to help my friends and beginners. If you are finding it difficult to continue this process. Please join this group,we will work together to make it a fun activity.
Go Green-Way to go






      

1 comment:

  1. Thankq for sharing such a valuable information with tips.

    ReplyDelete