All About Composting
Composting is no doubt a worthdoing activity as for as farming or gardening is concerned. Compost is a decomposed organic matter. Organic matter is necessary for plants to grow well and a key to obtain excellent produce. Organic matter provides minerals to the roots, helps to retain soil moisture, good for soil porosity which provoids oxygen to roots. I have come to know many stories of composting by many friends in gardening. All they found it a good and excellent job.
Composting is not a difficult job. It is quite easy. Make a dig in your nearby place where smell may not be a big issue. Put all your decomposeable household waste, leaves, vegetables and fruit covers etc in that dig and cover the hole with mud/soil.Left it for some months after 3-4 months you will find a good compost ready for filling your pots, flower bed and other plants.
Composting is no doubt a worthdoing activity as for as farming or gardening is concerned. Compost is a decomposed organic matter. Organic matter is necessary for plants to grow well and a key to obtain excellent produce. Organic matter provides minerals to the roots, helps to retain soil moisture, good for soil porosity which provoids oxygen to roots. I have come to know many stories of composting by many friends in gardening. All they found it a good and excellent job.
Composting is not a difficult job. It is quite easy. Make a dig in your nearby place where smell may not be a big issue. Put all your decomposeable household waste, leaves, vegetables and fruit covers etc in that dig and cover the hole with mud/soil.Left it for some months after 3-4 months you will find a good compost ready for filling your pots, flower bed and other plants.
The raw materials used are mixed plant residues, animal
dung and urine, earth, wood ash and water. All organic material wastes
available on a farm such as weeds, stalks, stems, fallen leaves, prunings,
chaff, fodder leftovers and so on, are collected and stacked in a pile. Hard
woody material like cotton or pigeon pea stalks and stubble are first spread on
the farm road and crushed under vehicles such as tractors or bullock carts
before being piled. Such hard materials should in any case not exceed ten percent
of the total plant residues. Green materials, which are soft and succulent, are
allowed to wilt for two to three days to remove excess moisture before
stacking; they tend to pack closely if they are stacked in the fresh state. The
mixture of different kinds of organic material residues ensures a more
efficient decomposition. While stacking, each type of material is spread in
layers about 15 centimetres thick until the heap is about one and a half metres
high. The heap is then cut into vertical slices and about 20-25 kilograms are
put under the feet of cattle in the shed as bedding for the night. The next
morning the bedding, along with the dung and urine and urine-earth, is taken to
the pits where the composting is to be done.
The
site selected for the compost pit should be at high level so that no rainwater
gets
in
during the monsoon season; it should be near to the cattle shed and a water
source. A
temporary
shed may be constructed over it to protect the compost from heavy rainfall. The
pit should be about 1 m deep, 1.5-2 m wide and of any suitable length.
The
material brought from the cattle shed is spread evenly in the pit in layers of
10-15
cm.
On each layer is spread a slurry made with 4.5 kg dung, 3.5 kg urine-earth and
4.5 kg of inoculum taken from a 15 day-old composting pit. Sufficient quantity
of water is sprinkled over the material in the pit to wet it. The pit is filled
in this way, layer by layer, and it should not take longer than one week to
fill. Care should be taken to avoid compacting the material in any way.
Turning:
The
material is turned three times during the whole period of composting; the first
time
15 days after filling the pit, the second after another 15 days and the third
after another month. At each turning, the material is mixed thoroughly,
moistened with water and replaced
in the pit.
The pit method
Generally,
composting is carried out in a corner of a field and in a circular or
rectangular
pit. Rice straw, animal dung (usually pig), aquatic weeds or green manure crops
are used and often silt pumped from river beds is mixed with the crop residues.
The pits are filled layer by layer, each layer being 15 cm thick. Usually, the
first layer is of a green manure crop or water hyacinth, the second layer is a
straw mixture and the third layer is of animal dung. These layers are
alternated until the pit is full, when a top layer of mud is added; a water
layer of about 4 cm depth is maintained on the surface to create anaerobic
conditions which help to reduce losses of nitrogen. Approximate quantities of
the different residues in tons per pit are: river silt 7.5, rice straw 0.15,
animal dung 1.0, aquatic plants or green manure
0.75
and superphosphate 0.02. Three turnings are given in all, the first one month
after filling the pit and, at this time, the superphosphate is added and thoroughly
mixed in. Water is added as necessary. The second turning is done after another
month and the third two weeks later. The material is allowed to decompose for
three months and produces about eight tons of
compost per pit.
