Converting home waste into Black gold – My Lockdown Story

Gardening, reading about trees, plants, birds, animals and forests has been a continuous process which are very close to my heart. Although I have been frequently composting home waste due to regular office work and travel, I have been not able to dedicate much time towards composting home waste and garden waste into organic manure. I decided to use free time during lock down to not let out any kitchen or garden waste out of my house and to convert them into organic manure which could be used as a fertiliser in our backyard garden.

Keeping in mind the following objectives I kept my hands on the home waste: –

1. Not to purchase any extra bins, composer mix or other items which are normally used in households for composing;
2. Not to utilise exclusive space for this purpose i.e. to use the existing space in the backyard effectively to compose waste;
3. Not to generate any foul smell and discomfort to family members during this composing process.

At the outset, I wanted to confess that I easily achieved the above objectives with much easiness, effort and time and I am excited share my experiences here.

Collection of Waste:

I made it a point to collect almost all bio degradable waste generated from kitchen starting from vegetable and fruit waste, leftover food, spoiled vegetables etc. I also started collecting dry leaves, small sticks which are shed from our garden trees and plants.

Usage of Big Pot as compost pit:

I decided to use the idle pot which was lying in my garden to collect the wet and dry waste. I created a thin layer of coco-pit at the bottom of the pot and started collecting the wet waste generated from the kitchen and dry waste generated from the garden in equal proportions. By mixing the wet waste with dry leaves it was ensured that no foul smell generated from this entire manure generating process. In one week time the entire pot was filled with waste and it slowly started composting on its own and all that I did was to stir the waste and to sprinkle water once in a week to fasten the composing process and rest of the magic of converting the kitchen waste and dry leaves into manure was done by microbes.

At the end of one month I got enough amount of organic manure which could be directly applied to the plants and trees of our garden.

Through this process I was able achieve: –

1. Not allowing any wet or dry waste from our house to go out for more than one month;
2. Made an attempt to have a self-sustaining garden wherein the waste generated becomes a manure in itself.
3. A good hobby to pursue during this lockdown and kept myself active and to explore my hand on home waste management.  

Happy Gardening,

Durai Murugan