Credits: Su Kahumbu
Making compost is a good skill to have. You can make compost for your farm or to sell.
Any pile of vegetative trash can be turned into valuable nutritious compost.
Start by clearing an area 1 m wide by 2 m long
Sort pile of vegetative waste and select the largest driest pieces for the bottom of the compost pile.
Place this dry material in a layer about 4 inches thick across the entire 1 x 2 m floor plan.
Add a 4-5 inch layer of green material on top. These can be weeds, grass or vegetable waste.
Add a 4-5 inch layer of dry material, dried leaves are good.
Add a 3 inch layer of farm yard manure. This can be wet or dry manure and can be from all livestock species.
Try to keep the 1 m x 2 m shape by building upwards in a rectangular way.
Add wet or green materials between the dry layers, in this example banana stems are being used. Chop them up into pieces as seen.
Cover the wet material with 4-5 inches of dry material
Add another layer of farmyard manure. You can sprinkle a hand full of fire wood ash and a kilo of minjingu rock phosphate onto the pile too if you have it.
If you have grass or hay or straw that has been used in your livestock bedding, layer this too.
Try to ensue even spread of the materials you are using.
Add about 20 lt of water or EM (effective micro-organisms) sprinkled over every 5-6 layers to ensure all the layers get wet.
Dry manure needs quite alot of water. The aim is to have all the materials wet at the end of building the compost pile.
Keep building , alternating layers of 4-5 inches of green and dry/brown material and every 4 layers sprinkling a handful of fire wood ash and a kilo of minjingu rock phosphate if you have it.
The layers will be visible from the side of the pile.
Make sure you have added at least 40 lt of water or EM to your pile by the time it is about 3 feet high. Try to build it as high as your materials will allow. One meter high is a good height for a compost pile of 1m x 2 m
Drive a stick into the middle of the pile
Check to see if the stick is wet. If it is dry you have not added enough water
Cover you compost pile with banana leaves or hay or plastic sheeting to prevent it drying out.
Drive the stick back into the pile and leave it here .
In one week check the pile to see if it is heating up.
Do this by pulling out the stick and holding the compost end in your hand .
If it is warm your compost pile is doing well. If is is cold your compost pit is not working and you need to break it down and rebuild it again.
Leave the pile for one month checking each week to ensure it does not dry out. After one week turn the pile by mixing the outer sides into the middle of the pile. It will be about half the size. Reduce the size to 1m x 1m so that it can continue to heat up. If the surface area is too big the pile will cool down and will not breakdown efficiently.
For continuity, make a compost pile every week. This will ensure you always have compost ready for use and your farm crops and soils will be of very high quality.