Composting
is a famous practice in home gardens and also it is a trend in organic farming.
Now organic farming is a famous gardening method in the world. In this method
compost take a huge portion. There are big composting sites at organic farming
yard. Also the municipal waste composting has made a solution for open dumping.
Anyway this compost is finally used as a fertilizer for plants. It is a very
nutritious natural soil amendment.
Compost is
rich with nutrients. Specially, it is provide micro nutrients to the plants.
These micro nutrients are doing a big role in plant’s body to grow and
maintenance, and also compost has more humus amount. It is important to enhance
the water retention capacity.
What
is compost?
Simply,
compost is an organic fertilizer that you make using dried leaves, straws, cow
dung, any organic material form kitchen and other any residuals from your
garden by an aerobic decomposition. It can be used as a soil amendment or as
a medium to grow plants. Compost has a dark brown or black color and has an
earthy smell.
There are
many ways to make compost, but in here I am discuss easy three methods to make
compost at your home garden. Let’s look at those methods of composting below;
Pit method Composting
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Making a pit for composting |
First, we have to make a pit for this composting method. The pit
should be made in a good drainage area and should have the facilities to
provide water. It will be easy if you create this near to the garden or farm.
The size of the pit is consisted with the available materials, required compost
amount. Therefore you can adjust it as you needed. For a home garden a pit with
30 feet long, 15 feet width and 2 feet deep one is enough.
What can we use as Materials to make compost?
Technically, compost may
be made from any organic material. There are possible materials.
- Green Manures- legumes
- Animal Manures
- Kitchen waste
- Garden residues
- Farm residues-hay, straw
- Paper & cardboard
- Municipal solid waste
- Some amount of decomposed materials. (To introduce microbes)
The
material’s size and shape are important to rapid decomposition. Small size
parts make a rapid decomposition and enhance the physical property of the pile
like Porosity and structure. And also it is easy to handle. The best size is less than 2
inches in the largest dimension.
Making a slurry solution for composting
This
solution is helps to provide microbes, K+, nitrogen, like ingredients. They are
helps to grow microbes. It is important to rapid composting. We need 5 Kg of
wood ash, cow dung (if you can use cow dung from wild castles it is better,
because, the farm animals are treated with antibiotics. So, the residuals of
them is harm to microbial growth), and 10Kg of old compost or humus. You can
change these amounts with your available materials and requirement. Finally you
have to mix then in 25 litters of water and make slurry.
Filling of compost pit
Fill the compost
pit with the materials up to 6 inches. Then spread out a layer of slurry
solution on composting materials. Again put a layer of materials on that up to
6 inches and spread out a layer of slurry solution. Do this several time and
got wet the pile with the slurry solution. After that you have to enter some
wood sticks to the pile. This is helps to check the temperature inside the
pile.(you can get it out and touch it to feel the temperature) You need to
cover the pile with a black polythine. It is prevent the emission of gasses
like NH2, NO2 during the composting. Keep this up to 14 days and
after that you have to mix the pile well and keep for another 28 days and do
the same and again in 56 days mix it well and finally in 90 days you can have
compost for your garden.
The mixing
of the pile gives a better aeration and aerobic bacteria can grow well. That
means you can have compost very soon. If you can give aeration by tubes, you do
not need to mix the pile. Simply you can enter some porous PVC tubes to the
pile.
Heap method composting
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Heap method composting |
In this
composting method, should not make a pit for composting. Just put the
composting materials and make a pile on the ground. The practices in above are
done in this method also. Finally you can get well decomposed compost within
3-4 months.
Composting bin making
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Composting bin |
In this composting, here you can make a bin like structure by
using wood sticks like in the picture. And put the composting materials in to
the bin. No need to mix. But protect with heavy rain. After about 90 days you
can have compost. You can collect the compost from bottom of the bin. Try
these easy methods to make compost easily in your garden. Comment your new idea
and purpose new methods.