Sunday, 19 January 2014

Composting

Just sharing what I do with wet kitchen waste.  I have been doing this for years but thought it would be nice to share this here for those who are interested in recycling kitchen waste to fertilise their plants and trees and keep the earthworms in the garden happy.



1. Kitchen waste which can be kept for 2 to 4 days (depending on your tolerance on the smell, the amount of kitchen waste and where you store them before recycling.  I confine myself to vegetable and fruit peelings, left over rice, beans, tea leaves, etc.  No meat or fish is used though sometimes I smuggle in some prawn shells.


2. I dig holes of about 6 inches deep (minimum) though if you can dig a deeper hole
 it would be better.  This hole was dug beneath the lone mango tree in  my garden. If the hole is too shallow, the rodents will be able to get at the recycled items.


3.  This pile of kitchen waste consists of overripe pear cuttings, 
vegetable peelings, onion skins and carrot peelings.


4. Cutting the peelings into smaller pieces (using a scissors, or what have you) 
helps the breakdown of the kitchen waste.  I mostly chop the kitchen peelings using a chopper or kitchen knife before accumulating them for recycling.  In this photo I am using 
a pair of garden scissors to cut down the bigger pieces into smaller pieces.


5.  Mixing the kitchen waste with soil (about equal parts if you can) 
helps the breaking down process further.  

6.  A thorough mixing of the kitchen waste and soil helps to reduce 
the odour as well as hastens the composting process.


7. When you are satisfied that the kitchen waste has been thoroughly mixed 
with the soil and buried sufficiently deep then you can pat the soil down.


8.  Here, I am adding a little more soil on the top of the buried kitchen waste.


9.  Here I have replaced the pots of plants (in this case bonsai) over the spot 
where the kitchen was buried.  This helps to prevent rats and moles 
from digging into the soil to get at the buried kitchen waste.






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