Composting is an ancient practice; chemical fertilizer is a recent invention.

Composting is an ancient practice;

chemical fertilizer is a recent invention.

Composting is a traditional farm practice passed on to us

since the start of agriculture.

Dr Abe V Rotor

Make your own organic fertilizer for home gardening.

Urban Home Composting

Composting is a nature-friendly activity, a key to successful gardening and farming. It is both hobby and business. It is art and science. It supports sanitation and beautification programs. It is a small, but noble contribution, to help our environment maintain its balance.

Dr Abe V Rotor

Living with Nature - School on Blog
avrotor.blogspot.com

Compost is the best soil conditioner. Mix compost with soil medium in equal amounts for potted ornamental and herbal plants.

But it's complicated, what with little scientific background - can one produce compost? Many people ask. Will it not invite pests and vermin to breed? No, in fact you get rid of garbage that may just accumulate, and not picked up regularly. Have compost and garbage bins separately: The part that is not compostable is picked up by the garbage collector.

Keep those that are raw materials for composting. Everyday you collect the following: dead leaves you sweep on the backyard and sidewalk, wastes and droppings of pets, peelings of fruits, overipe fruits and spent vegetables, ash from the stove, and top or surface soil.

What do these materials contribute?

Leaves and stems make up the bulk, they provide the main materials and "bed"

Animal and poultry wastes and droppings, food leftovers, provide high nutriernts in the compost..

Fruit peelings, overripe fruits, vegetable wastes, provide enzymes that hasten composting. Papain in papaya is the best enzymatic digester.

Top soil contains microorganisms such as Trichoderma, Acetobacter, Bacillus, . that serve as inoculants, in lieu of commercial inoculants.

Ash contains Potassium, serves as filler for easier tilth.

For the bin, a 50- to 100-gal unserviceable plastic bin with holes and cracks for aeration and drainage.

Avoid putting plastics, cellophanes, broken glass, cloth and the like.

Please follow this procedure we adopt at home in Quezon City. The photos hereunder were taken from our home project.

Place plastic bin in a shady corner, check drainage to keep the place clean. Cover properly but must not be airtight.

Make it a routine to put into the bin the materials mentioned, by layer with this sequence: 1) leaves (compress to 2 or 3 inches), 2) kitchen wastes and droppings, 3) soil (scatter liberally, about one liter). Water regularly and moderately (sprinkle, 1 liter)

Repeat layering. Notice content subsides naturally. Don't disturb. Don't overwater. Probe to test slight rise of temperature. This is good sign. Composting is going on.

Sometimes you forget feeding the bin regularly. That's all right. Nature is not in a hurry. You can have your compost after six months. But you'll be surprised to find the compost at bottom of the bin ready for harvesting earlier.

You can either invert the whole bin and harvest from the bottom while the top is yet to mature. Or, cut a convenient hole on the side near the bottom and harvest, allowing the content to subside.

There is such term as tempering (or seasoning), or in the case of wine, aging. Composting follows this natural process. Look for indicators:

1. Earthworms start building their nest, occasional presence of centipede, sowbug, millipede, beetles.

2. There is no odor of decomposition, absolutely - just the musky smell of earth.

3. There is no increase in temperature. It means heat generation by decomposition has completely stopped.

4. Original materials, specially leaves, have totally lost their structure, which means cells including their cellulose walls have been broken down.

5. Spongy consistency. Have a handful sample, pressed in your palm, then open. The sample simply crumble softly.

7. Use compose soonest possible, Mix with ordinary soil as medium for potted plants. When using solely, don't apply directly at the base of plant. Apply in furrow and cover with soil to prevent direct exposure to sun and air. Water properly.

8. Don't expect plants to respond immediately. Unlike commercial Urea which releases nutrients immediately and one-time, compost releases nutrients slowly with the rhythm of the plant's development. In fact compost delivers trace elements (eg, Bo, Zn, Fe, Cu, Mn) which are very usefulness for the plants, and health of consumers - environmental balance as well.

9. Compost builds a sub-ecosystem within the root zone where beneficial organisms from earthworm to Rhizobium form a self-sustaining community. Such community is enhance by good aeration, tilth, moisture absorption and retention, capillarity (rise of water between soil particles), adsorption as well as polarity of ions, etc. No commercial fertilizer can provide these benefits.

10. Compost moderates sudden temperature change, acidity and alkalinity levels, ion exchange (eg, Free Nitrogen and Nitrate (NO3),
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Composting is a natural, biological process in which microorganisms use organic materials as food and leave a residue of digested organic matter that is nearly completely decomposed. Composting is the same as the decomposition that happens to all living things when they die, except that you control composting in order to provide optimum conditions for the microbes, and the process takes place in a specific location so that you can collect the product. - Eric Sideman, Ph.D. Composting in the Back Yard or on a Small Farm
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Spread compost on lawn. Put more on balding and yellowing areas. Don't expose compost under the sun without watering the lawn. The earthworm is the most reliable bio-indicator of a mature compost (or a part of it). Compost may lose its nutrients specially Nitrogen if it is not harvested and used in time.

Compost bins for the backyard and small farm. The most practical compost bin for the home is an unserviceable plastic baldi. Below, raw materials (leaves, pet and kitchen waste, soil), and finished product after 3 to 6 months.

What's the key to making compost? It's nature's process, we call it microbial decomposition. The agents of decomposition are countless from insects to bacteria, fungi, and porotozoans. The act on the organic materials as their food, releasing digestive enzymes that break the organic compounds (protein, carbohydrates, cellulose, fats, etc.) into inorganic compounds and elements. These are reassembled to become nutrients for the next generation of living things - which include the vegetables, herbal and ornamental plants we grow in our gardens and fields. ~

Nature's Way of Composting

Rosette arrangement of leaves of Fortune Plant (Dracaena fragrans) works like a funnel, trapping dead leaves, droppings of birds, reptiles, bats and insects. It serves also as a watershed, collecting water from rain and dewdrops that condense from fog and mist. All these are ingredients in making compost at varying levels and stages at the axils of the leaves. The final product is humus, which fertilizes the plant itself, epiphytes and lianas, and generally the surrounding environment.

Aerial composting holds the secret of self-sustaining ecosystems where epiphytes and lianas, orchids and bromeliads grow on trees and rocks. The final and stable product which is humus, is carried down by rain and gravity to fertilize yet another community of organisms on the ground and understorey levels. Which explains the high population density and rich diversity of organisms in rainforests.

This tree-borne bomeliad has a crown that collects water to form a pool that spills down to the lower leaf axils forming a series of pools where insects, frogs and even fish breed. So with a host of protist organisms. It is a compost tank, where the final products of composting are absorbed as plant nutrients by the plant and the host tree and its symbionts. The organic matter ultimates becomes a part of the forest floor.

Organic matter is a product of composting leaves and other plant debris. It is harvested as natural fertilizer for growing vegetables, ornamentals and various crops in gardens and farms. Commercial organic matter is increasing in demand as natural or organic food is becoming popular in lieu of chemically grown crops.
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Increasing consciousness of the public on the dangers posed by chemical fertilizers and pesticides has led to the fast growing popularity of natural farming. Actually the key to natural farming is the use of organic fertilizer derived from composting farm wastes such as animal manure and plant residues after harvest. Although comparatively low in nutrient value, organic fertilizer improves soil structure and tilth, enhances biological and nutrient balance, and supplies trace elements absent in commercial fertilizers, thus improves farm’s productivity in the long run.
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Lesson on former Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid Dr Abe V Rotor and Ms Melly C Tenorio 738 DZRB AM, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday

Composting is a traditional farm practice, passed on to us since the start of agriculture on the Fertile Crescent, and most likely in other places like ancient China, many centuries BC. The principle involved is the same, although the technique has been improved a lot.

There are three components to produce ideal compost:

animal manure (and chicken droppings),
crop residues (hay and stalks, weeds, fruit peelings, etc), and
loamy soil.

All you need to do is to make several layers of these materials one on top of another, either in the form of a pile (preferred during the rainy season), or in a shallow pit (for the dry season), of any dimension that is suitable. Install some bamboo tubes to serve as posts and “breathers” to allow air circulation in the pile or pit. The breathers work like chimney. Punch the nodes to make a continuous tube, and make several holes staggered along its length. Moisten the pile as needed. Too much water is not advisable.

Composting also uses seaweeds (like Sargassum) that litter coastlines; scums and algae growing on lakes and rivers; rinds and peelings of cacao, coffee, pineapple, and the like; corn cobs and husk, rice stalk and rice hull ash in rice and corn lands. Then we have a lot of coconut husk and leaves, and copra meal wastes in coconut areas; guano (bat droppings) in caves; and a long list of materials from wastes in fishery, slaughterhouses, food manufacturing. Lest we forget, the biodegradable materials by tons and tons which urban centers are turning out every day. The biggest bulk is domestic waste which the Chinese have developed a technique to converting it into humanure for their farms and gardens. A recent composting technique is with the use of biological agents like the earthworm (vermiculture).

To hasten composting, farmers practice microbial inoculation with Trichoderma (fungus), Rhizobia (bacterium), Anabaena, (Blue Green Alga), Nostoc (also a BGA), Saccharomyces (yeast, an Ascomycetes fungus), and many other microorganisms ubiquitously occurring in nature.

What really is the secret of compost in enriching the soil? Here are the benefits.

1. It contains both major and minor elements (chemical fertilizers are specific only to the elements they supply).

2. The release of nutrients is slow but continuous, allowing both crop and soil to adjust properly.

3. The organic content of compost improves tilth (ease in cultivation), as well as the physical structure of the soil.

4. Compost enhances favorable microbiological condition of the soil. Fifth, it improves retention of soil moisture.

5. It makes working on the soil a lot easier because of its porous nature.

6. It stabilizes soil acidity (pH).

7. It is not only a good source of income; it is a dollar save.

8. Composting, sanitation and beautification complement one another. ~

With spiraling cost of chemical fertilizer and its cumulative residues that pollute the rivers down to the sea, and destroy the ecosystem, it is time to go back to this ancient practice of composting. It is the solution to many of our problems in meeting our need for enough and healthy food, and in helping keep the balance of nature.~