Still Green :)

Here's a kitchen garden and composting update !

 My tiny saplings are now well-grown plants :). Though I know tomato is one of the easiest plants to grow, it is still a thrill to see so many tomatoes on the plants. Waiting eagerly for them to become a bit redder so they can be harvested. Lots of rasam and tomato chutneys in my future!

 The brinjal plants had some problems with worms on the leaves, but are doing well, and today we made sambhar with my first harvest :).

My first batch of nearly done compost - this is sieved and just about ready to use. Apparently the most brilliant thing to do is to put some earthworms in it and leave them in for a week to 10 days. I'm just bracing myself for this, as I have no excuses to NOT do it (feeling squeamish is not an excuse ;)) - have the earthworms in my pots/ground anyway and it would be crazy to not try it out. I have access to this wealth of information from so many veterans out there - thank you Facebook!

Going Green!!

In years past, all the hoop-la about Green Activism has not always inspired me to go out of my way to join the bandwagon. In fact the holier-than-thou attitude displayed by some used to only put my back up and not feel like making any effort at all! Along the way, we tried to do our little bit by installing solar heaters when we built our house, setting up an elaborate rain water harvesting mechanism, and trying to maintain a small garden and potted plants wherever possible(for which the rainwater helps nearly 7-8 months of the year!). We have also always tried to get our children to follow the rules of saving electricity and water (which of course usually consists of -"Oh why have you left that light on again?" and going and switching it off ourselves :)!). But most of this stuff was not "going green" for the sake of it, it just seemed appropriate and fit into the scheme of things at that point of time!

Switch to the Present: It was World Kitchen Garden Day on Aug 28th(Sunday) and our local enthusiasts had organized an event aptly called "Oota from your Thota" (Food from your garden) at BTM Layout. The venue was very close to where I stay and I thought this was definitely a time to get past the excuses and sow the seeds for my kitchen garden! I managed to get my hands on a few saplings, and also picked up some packets of seeds to get into full steam once I have my terrace in shape. I am starting with Tomato, Brinjal and a wonderful Beans plant which already has some flowers/beans sprouting from it!

The tomato and brinjal have now been transplanted to bigger pots and are doing pretty well (read: I haven't managed to kill them yet!).

The other life-changer at this event was the presence of Daily Dump which is an organization I've been following for a very long time on Facebook and on their site. It was a bit daunting to get into the big bad world of composting, but when I actually connected with them, and heard about the process more in detail, my enthusiasm kicked in completely. I gave them my details as they didn't have any more of their Khambhas(pic below) left over.

Kudos to them for promptly following up the next day and delivering the apparatus by Monday evening itself - so I'm now 2 weeks into home composting and completely loving how empowered I feel about lessening my home waste going to the landfills and clogging our environment. I would love to contribute more to this cause and thought I should start right here on my blog :). I'm definitely no big expert on this process so no point in posting any big dos/donts - you can find most information on their site in detail, but I felt that I  should try to dispel some of the big fears most people (including me) have about composting which daunts us from starting out on it.

1. Composting is a smelly affair: No, not at all! This was definitely a big question for me as I'm paranoid about stuff like tying up wet waste before disposal so it doesn't smell the next day. It depends on the composition of your waste to an extent, but you can initially keep out cooked or non-vegetarian food and start with vegetable waste to see how it goes before starting to add all your wet waste to your compost. My experience has been that if you stir it often enough so it has adequate air, the smell is not very annoying at all. You can also spray organic lemon sprays or homemade concoctions if you feel the smell is too strong for you, but I have not got to this stage yet and I have started putting cooked waste in my composter already. Moreover the Khambhas as provided by Daily Dump are closed units so not like an open Compost pile which may be more difficult to maintain.
2. Composting takes up a lot of your time: Again, you would be surprized at how little time it takes. It is adequate to stir the pile once in 3 days, so on other days you would hardly take a minute to dump in your waste and close the lid. Even on days when you stir the pile it would only take about 5 minutes. On some days you can expect some maintenance activities like moving half-done compost to a separate pot which would take a bit more time - but these are once in a month activities. Of course to get to the stage where the waste turns into compost takes 2-3 months, but daily maintenance is more to do with intent than making time!
3. Composting needs a lot of tools/apparatus: Jump across to the Daily Dump website - the main thing is the Khambha that is the set of 3 pots, which you would just place somewhere and not be handling all that much afterwards. Other than that you just need something to stir the pile, you can even use gloves and stir with your hands if not too queasy - I enjoy doing that as it's the best way to really stir it well :). A couple of additives like an accelerator to help the composting process, neem powder to contain insects and maggots - these are once in a week items and not necessary for daily use. And that's all - you're set!

It's a great way to add your small contribution, and if you have plants or a garden at home you get wonderful compost that you can use instead of looking around for organic/non-chemical stuff. So yes, I'm apparently turning into one of "those" Green holier-than-thou-ers now, and weirdly enough - it feels GREAT !!! :) Watch out - I might be telling you next about how to recycle/reuse your kitchen vessel washing water ;).