Happy St Patrick's Day. Weather St Patrick knew or not, I associate the color green with nature, in all forms, it is beautiful. It is a beautiful cloudy morning but soon the sun will make it's way through the clouds and shower it's abundance to the earth. No wonder, people in some parts of the world consider Sun as a god and dutifully offer their prayers everyday. Prayer, to me, is a way of expressing gratitude.
As a city-dweller all my life, I would not think working with trash could be something I will be excited about. Considering the cleanliness freak I am, I like to wipe away dirt and trash to as far away and as often as I can ( and so coexistig with me can sometimes make some people roll their eyes
).
The spring of 2016 is different. I started my first urban farm on half an acre plot on a rented house this year. I have to say hear that half an acre is only a fraction of the 100+ acres of property I am residing at. It is a beautiful farmland with amazing views of rolling fields in the back. Every morning, after waking up or after my tea, I sit on my stairs and spend a few minutes gazing the views. For someone who has spent all of her life in urban settings, an open area is a break from norm and oh so 'aha' experience for the eyes and the mind.
I am building a compost bin in my backyard so that I could use the compost as a natural organic fertilizer for my garden. After reading a lot of 'how-to' blogs and viewing 'how-to' videos on youtube to know how to build a compost bin, I started one of my own. I bought an old discarded piece of wooden box 3'x3'x3' to use as a bin to fill my composting materials. I drilled small holes in the bin on all sides to allow for air circulation. I filled it with alternating layers of dry branches, green leaves, old grass clippings and some food scraps. The hard part was breaking the branches of the shrub that I was putting in my bin. The shrub (shown here) needed a trim and I thought of using the branches for compost. I am not sure of the name of this shrub but here is a picture.
The shrub branches I was using was an alternative to hay as brown carbonaceous material for the compost. I did not own a shredder of any kind and breaking stiff branches by hand was time consuming. Professional grade shredders are a good investment but since they are expensive piece of machinery, I rather skip making costly investments in my first year. The material so far filled only half of my bin. Since I did not have enough food scraps at the time, I just started with whatever I have. I also added some top soil with grass in the compost so as to have earthworms in it to start the decomposing process. Earthworms truly are a gardener's friend. I watered the materials to make it damp, then covered it with a black plastic sheet and put a discarded wooden tray on top of it to keep the plastic in place. The black plastic sheet would protect the bin and it's contents from predators and weather. There is a fat groundhog in my garden that calls the garden it's home. Here is how my bin looks.
I plan to get the hot composting process taking place so that I can use this home-made compost this year in my garden. I don't want to wait for an year to get the end product. I had read somewhere that in order to speed-up the composting process the materials in the compost should be finely shredded. Well, they aren't in my case. I plan to add layers of food scraps every week in this compost and turning in the pile every two weeks to speed up the aerobic processes inside the bin. As an alternative to active material, I caught some earthworms from my garden and put them in the compost bin. I was laughing at myself while catching earthworms and feeling little awkward inside. The whole process of piling up trash and breaking branches and working on the bin was surprisingly new for me and hence the feeling.
My inner motivation for taking up this task was to experience how nature turns trash to something useful and seeing the processes unfold. I am trying to mimic the process as nature wold have done it without any intervention (over a long period of time). Compost, in it's natural form, is nature's way of giving back what we take from it. Pure magical alchemy.
Feel free to offer feedback in comments below.
).
The spring of 2016 is different. I started my first urban farm on half an acre plot on a rented house this year. I have to say hear that half an acre is only a fraction of the 100+ acres of property I am residing at. It is a beautiful farmland with amazing views of rolling fields in the back. Every morning, after waking up or after my tea, I sit on my stairs and spend a few minutes gazing the views. For someone who has spent all of her life in urban settings, an open area is a break from norm and oh so 'aha' experience for the eyes and the mind.
I am building a compost bin in my backyard so that I could use the compost as a natural organic fertilizer for my garden. After reading a lot of 'how-to' blogs and viewing 'how-to' videos on youtube to know how to build a compost bin, I started one of my own. I bought an old discarded piece of wooden box 3'x3'x3' to use as a bin to fill my composting materials. I drilled small holes in the bin on all sides to allow for air circulation. I filled it with alternating layers of dry branches, green leaves, old grass clippings and some food scraps. The hard part was breaking the branches of the shrub that I was putting in my bin. The shrub (shown here) needed a trim and I thought of using the branches for compost. I am not sure of the name of this shrub but here is a picture.The shrub branches I was using was an alternative to hay as brown carbonaceous material for the compost. I did not own a shredder of any kind and breaking stiff branches by hand was time consuming. Professional grade shredders are a good investment but since they are expensive piece of machinery, I rather skip making costly investments in my first year. The material so far filled only half of my bin. Since I did not have enough food scraps at the time, I just started with whatever I have. I also added some top soil with grass in the compost so as to have earthworms in it to start the decomposing process. Earthworms truly are a gardener's friend. I watered the materials to make it damp, then covered it with a black plastic sheet and put a discarded wooden tray on top of it to keep the plastic in place. The black plastic sheet would protect the bin and it's contents from predators and weather. There is a fat groundhog in my garden that calls the garden it's home. Here is how my bin looks.
I plan to get the hot composting process taking place so that I can use this home-made compost this year in my garden. I don't want to wait for an year to get the end product. I had read somewhere that in order to speed-up the composting process the materials in the compost should be finely shredded. Well, they aren't in my case. I plan to add layers of food scraps every week in this compost and turning in the pile every two weeks to speed up the aerobic processes inside the bin. As an alternative to active material, I caught some earthworms from my garden and put them in the compost bin. I was laughing at myself while catching earthworms and feeling little awkward inside. The whole process of piling up trash and breaking branches and working on the bin was surprisingly new for me and hence the feeling.
My inner motivation for taking up this task was to experience how nature turns trash to something useful and seeing the processes unfold. I am trying to mimic the process as nature wold have done it without any intervention (over a long period of time). Compost, in it's natural form, is nature's way of giving back what we take from it. Pure magical alchemy.
Feel free to offer feedback in comments below.
Update on progress - March 21, 2016
So far, it has been two weeks since I built my compost bin. Unfortunately, I am not getting the results I expected (or perhaps I expected too much from what I see on youtube and other channels). The pile has not heated up and the materials in the compost are not decomposing at all (I blame it on lazy earthworms). I have turned the pile three times in two weeks and added more kitchen scraps. After doing a bit more in depth reading on microbes and the processes that trigger decomposition, I conclude there could be two main reasons why my compost isn't heating up to desired temperatures. First, the brown materials (or high carbon ingredients) of my compost pile are too less and too big. I first thought I have put enough straw in the pile but I think the pile needs more carbon. My best bet would be to put more dry leaves in the pile. I can also put shredded cardboard boxes. Since I do not have a shredder to shred cardboard, I can wet it for a few days first before tearing it into small pieces manually (will make my work easier). I am arranging to get leaves for free from a local source as they are better alternative to cardboard.
Another reason for why composting isn't working in my case could be lack of mass in the compost bin. As per a report I read in an article by Cornell University, a compost pile less than 3 feet in height and 1 cubic yard in volume is too less a mass to hold up heat and trigger the decomposition process fast. My materials in my compost bin is 4'(H)x2'(W)x4'(L) in dimensions and it is only one-third full at this time. I guess the heat from such a small mass is escaping too rapidly. I will fix these defects in the next few days and in the coming weeks will have more update on what's happening in the bin.
Update on progress - April 24, 2016
Way down in the center of the pile, it is getting warm. Over the weeks I added more raw food waste in my compost bin. All the C:N ratio got a lot confusing for me to establish in the pile. So, to keep it simple, I kept adding kitchen waste and mixing and wetting the pile every 10 days or so. Every time I added food waste, I put a thin layer of straw on top of it. This help to keep any smell from food waste at bay. It is all working so well. I am hoping it will heat up more in coming days and I will keep an eye. Guess, composting isn't as fast as two weeks at all times as many experts online adverstise. It all depends on what materials you have.
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