Soil fit for gardening can grow the best plants if well maintained. Making compost, whether in agricultural land or a home garden, is an affordable and environment-friendly way to maintain healthy soil used for planting. Instead of buying fertilizers, you can actually make good use of materials through pit composting that ordinarily go to the trash already.
The compost works as a natural form of soil fertilizer coming from organic materials such as domestic waste, especially those food leftovers in the kitchen and dead leaves in the yard.
How to start pit composting:
Gather the waste materials you can use for your compost. For a simple compost from kitchen leftovers and home trash, never include non-biodegradable materials as the waste used in compost is expected to rot, and the nutrients released during the process get absorbed by the soil. These nutrients become available for the plant to use.
Select where in your garden you want to grow your plants, then dig your compost pit there. Consider the size you need for planting and the number of waste materials you can provide for the compost. For a typical home garden, you may need to dig anywhere between 4 to 8 feet for your compost pit.
Put your gathered organic wastes such as fallen leaves, plant cuttings, wilted stems, overripe fruits, fruit peels, unused vegetable leaves, and food leftovers into your compost pit.
Fill the pit until it reaches ground level. After which, sprinkle a liberal amount of ammonium sulfate on its surface. You may also substitute chicken manure for ammonium sulfate. However, be careful when using this and make sure you have ready soil to cover it for hygienic reasons. This also prevents flies from hovering over your pit.
Cover the pit with a very thin layer (about 15 centimeters thick) of waste materials to create an additional level to the compost.
Wet the soil completely with water.
Sprinkle lime or calcium carbonate over the soil, then add another thick layer of organic waste materials.
Water the soil completely, then sprinkle lime or calcium carbonate over the soil’s surface again.
Repeat steps 5 to 7 at least three more times.
Allow the waste materials in your compost to decompose for about a month or so. Once the soil fully absorbs the nutrients from the compost, you can start planting in the area.
Tips for composting
You can also earn money not only for recycling non-biodegradable materials but also when making compost out of biodegradable materials. Without the need for any investment in machines, you can simply gather waste materials and sell them to farmers and gardeners who prefer to use organic fertilizers by making compost pits. Instead of simply throwing your trash away, it can provide you with extra income or even become a simple green business idea.