Compost! Compost! I hear it all the time from my friends, gardening blogs or magazines. I didn't try it myself, thinking its a cumbersome process or probably lazy! Was dumping all the kitchen organic waste straight to the trash.
When I started planting seeds, around the same time, my husband suggested, lets separate the wet garbage and dry garbage. And I thought, why not try composting instead.
That's how we just started keeping separate boxes to collect recyclable trash, organic waste and the everything else garbage in separate trash cans.
This cascade box sits on the kitchen counter top. All the vegetable/fruit peels, rinds, chilli/other vegetable stalks, eggshells all go here. You can use an icecream box too. When you open the box, you will get a pungent pickle smell, which I have started liking *wink*. Once the container is full, I take it out and dig the ground, 2-3 feet deep. Fill it up with green and brown waste (explained below) and top it with plain dirt. I have no fancy compost drum or 3x3 box yet, which I keep reading in many blogs. In future I might build one. But in the meanwhile, I'm just digging pits in a row, filling them up, turning the soil once in a while and checking if the compost is getting ready.
Compost attracts earthworms and other beneficial organisms.You could find some worms and add it too.
The formula for composting is to have a right mixture:
Green - wet, high-nitrogen materials like coffee grounds, tea leaves, fruit and vegetable scraps, chopped leaves or grass clippings, flowers, weeds, eggshells, grains.
Brown - dry, high carbon materials like dry leaves, twigs, hay, corncobs, nutshells, newspaper, paper towels, pine needles, sawdust, straw, wood chips, wood ash.
DO NOT COMPOST:
I noticed Black Soldier Fly visiting the food scrap buried underneath and they have been working a lot too in producing the soil.
Try it, you will love making your own compost and let me know your experience, tips or ideas.
Happy Composting!
When I started planting seeds, around the same time, my husband suggested, lets separate the wet garbage and dry garbage. And I thought, why not try composting instead.
That's how we just started keeping separate boxes to collect recyclable trash, organic waste and the everything else garbage in separate trash cans.
This cascade box sits on the kitchen counter top. All the vegetable/fruit peels, rinds, chilli/other vegetable stalks, eggshells all go here. You can use an icecream box too. When you open the box, you will get a pungent pickle smell, which I have started liking *wink*. Once the container is full, I take it out and dig the ground, 2-3 feet deep. Fill it up with green and brown waste (explained below) and top it with plain dirt. I have no fancy compost drum or 3x3 box yet, which I keep reading in many blogs. In future I might build one. But in the meanwhile, I'm just digging pits in a row, filling them up, turning the soil once in a while and checking if the compost is getting ready.
Compost attracts earthworms and other beneficial organisms.You could find some worms and add it too.
The formula for composting is to have a right mixture:
Green - wet, high-nitrogen materials like coffee grounds, tea leaves, fruit and vegetable scraps, chopped leaves or grass clippings, flowers, weeds, eggshells, grains.
Brown - dry, high carbon materials like dry leaves, twigs, hay, corncobs, nutshells, newspaper, paper towels, pine needles, sawdust, straw, wood chips, wood ash.
DO NOT COMPOST:
- Meat bones, fish scraps, fat or other scraps from meat, as they will attract pests
- Aluminium foil/ tin cans
- Colored paper
- Diseased plants
- Pet poop
- Plants sprayed with chemicals, pesticides.
I noticed Black Soldier Fly visiting the food scrap buried underneath and they have been working a lot too in producing the soil.
Try it, you will love making your own compost and let me know your experience, tips or ideas.
Happy Composting!
