Mrs Busy

My composting kambha has settled into gobbling up my kitchen waste.

Lovely little video by a teenager. Just one observation, maybe Mr Busy could also make it his job to compost?!

Composting dairy - Compost at last?

Began in September 2011, and finally I harvested some compost!  I think I have the hang of it now, how wet it needs to be and how much to fuss over it, etc etc.

But I wonder if it has to break down further than this?  It has stayed at this level for the past few weeks, and I am wary of making it moist at this stage for fear of causing it to rot.

I've added it to my potted plants, and will keep an eye to see which ones flourish and which don't.  Fellow blogger, Anita Kumar, warned me that depending on what went into the compost, plants take to it differently.

So I have just put a bit in various pots and shall keep an eye on them.

My kambha comes from Daily Dump, and they put out this little educational video recently.

Kambha stays unaffected by cyclone Thane

We were out of town when cyclone Thane crossed the Madras shores.  There were strong winds - one of our sea-facing windows worked open and broke with the constant banging - and a lot of rain.

The composting kambha of mine sits on the terrace under a ledge, but open in the sides.  I was worried that I would come back to find a soggy mess.  Went to take a peek today, and was much relieved to see that it was doing fine.

Things look a bit more moist than when I left, but no troubleshooting required.

Looking forward to some compost in 2012.

Composting diary - troubleshooting

Just as I was feeling smug about my trouble-free khamba debut, I ran into my first "trouble".  I had not checked on the bottom-most, empty (thus far) pot, since it was well empty, no?

With two pots filled with composting garbage, it was time for the semi-composted middle pot to move to the lower pot.  When I peered into it, it was far from empty - it was filled halfway with water, and there were maggots swimming merrily in the watery sludge - EWWWWWW!  The water was rain water, which I should have realised would have entered via the side openings when we had our monsoonic depression and heavy wind and rain last week.

Emergency action!  Take the pot down slosh it all out, clean well and sun!

That was yesterday.  So, today I went and refilled it (dry and clean) with a little sand at the bottom.  This is Unit C.  Moved the dry, semi-composted Unit A stuff into it and moved Unit B above it.  With all the rains, Unit B is more wet than I like - it will definitely breed more maggots, so I have added more dry leaf.  Let me see if this works.

Should add even more dry leaf tomorrow I think.

Composting Diary - Beginning

September 24th 2011:  Have begun composting with a khamba that looks like this.

I have kept it on my terrace in an area where there is light, cross ventilation, some sun, but it is protected from the rain.

The khamba is rather ingeniously designed.  The top two pots have little vents for circulation, covered with guaze to prevent unwanted rodents' entry.

The instructions say that the bottom of the middle and upper pots, which just have some netted cords running through, need to be lined with newspaper, which I did, before dumping my organic waste.

I am putting all veggie and fruit peels, egg shells, used coffee powder from my filter, tea bags, tea leaves and stuff like dried leaves from my potted plants.  I have so far filled up one pot, which is now in the middle, and am halfway through the next one.

Happy to report the absence of foul smell and fruit flies or other such stuff, (so far at least).  The reason could be that the place I have kept it is airy and so the aerobic microbes are more?

The bottom most pot has a lining of sand.

The middle pot's waste now has blackened and shrivelled, but has not yet become like this.