Compost – the first ever batch

Today, my first batch of homemade compost is ready and has been used for the potted plants !! Am so thrilled and also a little sad that I didn’t start it sooner. I just used an empty terracotta pot, the kind you use for putting plants in, with a hole at the bottom and started collecting the vegetable and fruit waste that is generated at home. I didn’t put any lemon peels, except that, everything else. Bala’s advise was super, to add some curd and lots of turmeric. I kept the pot covered and outside in the balcony, stirring it every few days. It did compact and then I added some dry leaves and just stirred it again. It took nearly two months but today I got nice, dry compost !!

I had never done home composting before and ever since I saw the program on Satyamev Jayate and before that meeting Poonam who has setup an organization called Daily Dump, I got interested. Then ofcourse Bala told me, she has been a daily dump composter for many years and that it was easy. It was easy, except a few bumps along the way – it got mushy and wet, there were worms and sometimes it smelt bad, but composting is a natural process and finally it does happen :):)

I have now bought the Green Techlife home composting bins … Let me see how that works out. Will report out later.

Would urge everyone to please start and do home composting as we need to soon start waste segregation at source like many developed nations do. As more of our villages become urbanised, waste management will become critical and we have forgotten anyway how our grandparents and great grandparents lived … They didn’t waste a thing and only used bio-degradable plates made of leaves, that could then be used to feed the cows and all the left over food went to the cows, the cow dung was used in many ways – the cycle was complete. We can’t go back to having cows at home, but we can certainly do some small things like home composting, rain water harvesting, cycling or walking to work, switching off lights … Really easy, small steps, but they all add up.

Am a dedicated home composter now and very happy about it.