Ingredients of Compost

January 23, 2009 By Leave a Comment

ingredients of compost

    In my previous posts, I have been discussing about compost—its importance and how it is made. There are actually 2 kinds of materials or ingredients that we can make as compost. Generally, they are grouped as browns and greens:
    Browns
    Browns are eaten by the microbes and they give them energy. They are dry and mostly from dead parts of plants. They need to be moistened first or mixed with moist ingredients.
    1. Autumn leaves
    2. Hay straw
    3. Dry leaves
    4. Dead plants
    5. Saw dust
    6. Wood chips
    7. Brown weeds
    Greens
    Greens are moist ingredients and they usually come in the color green but not all. They are mostly from kitchen wastes. If you leave in a community, don’t use meat scraps and bones because they tend to attract pests. Alternatively, use compost pile.
    1. Green plants
    2. Green leaves
    3. Fresh leaves
    4. Vegetable peels and scraps
    5. Fruit peels and scraps
    6. Tea bags
    7. Scrap of Ground coffee
    Your compost should have a good mix of browns and greens. The mix will bring air and moisture which the microbes need in order to digest the browns and the greens.
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How to Make Compost

January 21, 2009 By Leave a Comment

how to make compost

    It is very easy to make a compost pile. My nephew who is in the 5th grade learns about this in school and even has a project for one of his classes. I actually got this information directly from his notes.
    It is not actually you who will make the compost. It is the microbes—the bacteria, fungi and other living organisms that break down organic matter to compost. The only thing that you need to do is to make sure that you provide these living organisms the things that they need so that they can make the compost. Just like most living things, 3 things that microbes need are food, water and air.
    The foods that the microbes eat are the organic wastes from the kitchen or from the yard. You can put left-over food or part of meat that you didn’t eat like chicken bones. You can also put the peelings of fruits and vegetables. From your yard, you can put the trimmings from your lawn or fallen leaves.
    The microbes need moisture. Normally, the wastes from the kitchen are good sources of water for them. But if you don’t put kitchen wastes and only used dry leaves, the microbes may not be able to work and make the compost. You can water the compost pile if you don’t use wet kitchen wastes there.
    It is also very important to give enough air to the microbes. You can do this simply by thoroughly mixing all the ingredients and organic matter that you put in the pile. The microbes that make the compost are aerobic which means that they need air for them to continue with their work.
    Making compost is only a matter of taking care of the needs of the microbes that will turn the organic waste into compost. They need food, water and air. You provide them with these and they will work to give you the compost that you can use as natural fertilizer to you vegetable or fruit garden.
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Composting for a Green Earth

January 19, 2009 By Leave a Comment

compost

    Compost is a natural soil fertilizer that is made from materials that were once living or parts of living things. The most common materials used for compost are the wastes from our kitchen and yard such as dead leaves. Compost used as fertilizer is not harmful to the environment and it reduces the waste that goes to our landfills. Composting is one simple way to contribute to the green revolution.
    Much of the work in composting is done by the environment. All you have to do is to separate the organic wastes and put them either in a compost bin or directly onto your garden soil. When you put the leaves and fruit peelings into the soil, the wastes will rot while the nutrients are being absorbed into the soil. This is a very basic explanation and I will elaborate on this on my next posts.
    We should encourage our communities and individuals to make compost in their homes. There are many mothers in the Philippines stay at home who can do this. It is aid that the wastes in our landfills are made up of 30% wastes from the kitchen. We can reduce our wastes by 30% and help make our country green if we make compost at home.
    If we don’t have any gardens, we can earn selling compost. Big companies who make chemical fertilizers can also gradually turn to organic fertilizers such as compost. Farmers and vegetable growers always need good soil for their produce and so there is always a demand for fertilizer. Composting is simple, green and can even be a good green business idea
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Going Green with Organic Vegetable Gardening

January 14, 2009 By Leave a Comment

organic vegetables makati

    I have just found out that organic vegetables are sold in a bazaar near our office in Makati. The bazaar in Salcedo village is organized by residents of the subdivision. I’ll try and see what kinds of organic vegetables are sold there and if there’s a difference between organic vegetables and the mass produced vegetables I usually buy in supermarkets.
    Even here in the metro, I hear a lot of mothers who turn their backyards into a vegetable garden. There are even some exclusive subdivisions that offer large tracts of land. The idea is to provide a farm for the homeowners without leaving the city.
    Organic vegetable gardening is one good way of going green. If you have a backyard that is lying there, why not turn it into a garden? It is a lot of work but many people say that it is very rewarding to take care of a garden.
    My grandmother used to have a vegetable garden in her backyard. It has tomatoes, squash, eggplants, cucumber, calamansi, pechay, and many other vegetables. She didn’t have to go to the market for her vegetables. She saves a lot and she also receives extra income because her neighbors buy vegetables from her.
    When I grow old, I want to go into organic vegetable gardening too like my grandmother. I like to grow my own vegetables. I can be sure that there are no pesticides and not synthetic pest controls in my garden. I will be 100% sure that the vegetables that my family is eating are safe.
    Right now, the only thing that I can handle is few pots of herbs in my apartment: basil, rosemary and I always have a pot of aloe vera. I think it’s a good start.
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