I've been very interested in composting for quite a while. Composting has been called black gold by some, and no doubt its a succinct term. There are 2 major benefits:
- Reducing household waste - it seemed a complete shame to be throwing away all the organic kitchen waste needlessly.
- Access to raw material for plants, since soil is somewhat at a premium in highly urbanized areas
Composting is also an essential step in the so called circular economy.
In early 2020, after reading through gazillion resources and watching umpteen videos I was ready to get started. Then started the major task of selecting what kind of instrument to use for household composting. I looked at a large variety of these, and finally selected a rotary composter. The best one in India seems to be made by Spintech. Unfortunately right when I was ready to place the order, the world went nuts.
Anyway, next few months with Covid etc, my plans went for a toss. In the meanwhile, I started looking at DIY methods of composting, and narrowed down on 2 methods that have been used since ancient times - burying and pile (and therefore bin).
Burying was not an option since there isn't enough open ground with soil at my premises to do this, and I mainly wanted to do this on the terrace where all the plants are.
The 2nd option, ie building a DIY pile bin is what I went with, and it turned out to be simplicity itself and at 0 cost.
Finally getting started
So here's what I started with on 26th Oct 2020 - 3 big pallet boxes that I took from a neighbour.
I started composting in the 1st box, while storing other material in the other boxes - mainly browns - coco peat that has been expanded, cardboard boxes from various deliveries of eggs, vegetables etc.
The pile method needs to have a large enough pile to start with, so I'd gotten my neighbours to contribute their waste as well hahaha.
Note that its very important to have a 50:50 mix of greens and browns. Greens are the household organic waste from the kitchen - vegetable and fruit peels mainly - and produce nitrogen.
Browns are dead leaves, grass, and similar garden waste, and when thats not enough can be supplemented with coco peat and shredded packaging material, paper etc.
The pallet boxes are kept covered to keep out rodents, or cats using the pile for litter etc.
Letting nature do its job aka taking a casual approach to composting
When one reads all the gardening & composting stuff on the Internet, one might imagine that its all very difficult and needs preciseness. Stories abound about stinky compost piles, maggot infested, wet soggy masses leaking liquid and so on. But composing is not some new woke invention - its been done for ever, so I didn't really feel the need to follow all the precise steps etc.
I didn't follow some common recommendations
- Using a commercially available compost starter
- Keeping separate piles
- Shredding the waste material really small
I turned this pile into a continuous compost pile. Which means, I drop in new organic waste every day into the same pile, instead of starting a new pile and letting the old one cook.
Happily, its worked out for me.
One of the things I was really afraid of was getting a fruit fly, and hence maggot, infection, or ending up with a pile of soggy stinking compost. In this I've been very lucky - the resultant compost is rich, dry and fragrant. I've not had to deal with any pests either.
What goes in?
Just about anything goes in. Here is today's offering to the compost gods. I even throw in tiny fish heads. No cooked food though (except rice), unless it be minuscule quantities.
Examples of material that goes in - vegetables bits and peels, fruits bits and peels (even hard skin like pineapple, but well chopped), leftover rice, bread, curd, egg shells, and all garden waste - dead flowers and leaves.
Large material needs to be chopped up as best as possible, like I've done here with musk melon skin.
