What is that in my balcony?
Guess what? my balcony is A Green Balcony, and that is a new label on this blog. My bro S loves growing stuff. He has nurtured a few plants, we have a Brahma kamal, Peace Lilies, Hibiscus and Tulsi in the decorative category and for the kitchen he grows Lemon Grass and Mint. I am helping him expand the green in our home but I will focus on growing something for the kitchen. In the upcoming posts I will share both my bro's and my experience on growing our greens in our balcony in this Metro.
This post inaugurates the new category on this blog. As our little balconies become green, we need to sustain them with compost and other care. We are also committing ourselves to Upcycling the waste generated by our busy Kitchen.
What you see in the picture above is called a Khamba, I purchased it from the Daily Dump clone in Sion, Mumbai just today. I am so happy to have this composting unit in my home. It consists of 3 large Terracotta pots of about 15 liters capacity each. The pot that sits on the floor is the one with a bottom. The other 2 pots are bottomless. They just have a rope grid in the bottom, as you see in the pics below. The middle and top pots are used for dumping the daily waste from the kitchen.
It's set up in my balcony at the further most end leaning against the wall for good support. Here is how I started it up.
Step 1: Filled half of the bottom pot with dried leaves.
Step 2: Put the empty middle pot above it. Notice the rope grid on the inside.
Step 3: Placed the 3rd pot on the top. It has the same rope grid, as the second on the inside. Covered it with a sheet of news paper.
Step 4: Added some dry leaves, to form a bed for the wet waste from the kitchen.
Step 5: Then added the wet waste from the kitchen, peels, used tea leaves, wasted food etc. Plastic should not be added, not even in traces. In my home we have separate bins for wet waste and dry waste (papers, plastic, glass etc.)
Step 6: Sprinkled 2 tablespoons of the Compost Accelerator. Sprinkled some water.
Step 7: Sprinkled 2 handfuls of sawdust on the pile. Covering the waste with saw dust avoids growth of maggots.
Step 8: Need to sprinkle 3 tablespoons of Neem after 3 days, to keep the pile fit and free from harmful microbes and fungi.
Step 9: Covered the pot with a lid.
Now every day till the pot is full, we will repeat the step 5 and 7.
I will share with you the happenings in our Khamba as we go along on this journey of composting at home the Daily Dump way.
These are the other accessories we got with the Khamba unit, a compost sieve (the pink basket), a short rake and a pair of gloves.
