Gardening - its therapeutic and definitely a ‘down to earth’ experience!

[This is a copy of my article in THE ALTERNATIVE e-magazine]

Uma Bhat   Jul 12, 2014

My journey with growing what I eat:

Uma Bhat in her OTG

What motivated you to start gardening?

“The best place to find God is in a garden. You can dig for him there.” – George Bernard Shaw

In this stressful rat race driven life, I went in search of a new hobby and it so happened that Mother Nature attracted me towards growing veggies, composting and upcycling – it was a magical connection that she (Nature) herself made with me, without me going to her!

I started off with simple greens like methi, coriander, tomatoes and the joy I felt in seeing the seeds sprout, the joy of seeing the tender Methi leaves waving in the breeze,the joy I felt seeing first ever tomato, has no other match! I slowly started connecting with nature and realized what I have been missing.

Her bountiful harvest

Challenges along the way

I started off as a hobby, which later on became a passion. I used to literally dream about gardening and composting when I began. I used to wait for the weekend to begin so that I could shop things for my garden. Working for my garden never exhausted me!

However there were few challenges in the beginning,

• Only space available to grow is on the Terrace of my old home, with not such a strong foundation. I cannot keep heavy mud pots and heavy soil on the terrace. I overcame this challenge by using cocopeat + compost + little soil (rather than complete soil as the growing medium.)
• Specially since the maintenance is all organic – Pests – Few of my early tomato plants were a failure due to Aphid/Mealy Bugs attacks. OTG group in Facebook came to rescue! I have now been learning to deal with them in a natural way.
• Monkey menace: I have always been happy to share my harvests – with squirrels, birds, relatives and friends and tenants. However, my OTG once had a monkey group attack who threw the pots, harvested half grown veggies and that made me very sad. I overcame that by covering a portion of the terrace by grills.

Here’s how she monkey-proofed her terrace garden!

Tools used, technology and more

My first sources were my husband Hoysala Garudanagiri’s friends who bought few veggie plants at home. A few weeks later, looking at my interest in gardening, my father-in-law Harsha Garudanagiri, an agriculturist, sourced a few veggie seeds and boom, my garden was thriving!

Today I have around 150 containers (big and small) growing veggies like Tomatoes, Zucchini, Cucumber, Methi, Coriander, Curry leaves, Palak, Amaranthus, Raddish, Bhindi, White raddish, Red small raddish, Brinjal, Green Chilli, Cow pea, Wheatgrass, Herbs, Mangalore Cucumber, Water Melon, Pineappple, Pumpkin, Ginger, Misc greens and Ornamental Flowers.

As the days progressed, I researched on ways to give maximum nutrition to my plants, which made me start composting (Khamba and Vermicompost) at home. I have worked on making more than 15 batches of “Black Gold” – which I use for my plants.

Recently it was my birthday and my relatives and friends gifted me seeds!

Motivation that keeps you going?

“While we teach, we learn.” – Seneca, Roman philosopher

• Once I setup my garden, my friend and relatives started visiting and appreciating the garden, which acted as a boost for me to grow more and also inspired them to think of growing. They asked questions on how to start off with, the maintenance, the cost involved and they decided to go for it. I know many of them having atleast few plants growing in their mini gardens. I was happy that people were motivated.

• People who smelled the aroma of the compost I make at home, were surprised to see how thekitchen trash can become such a source of nutrition of the plants. I explained my friends and relatives on how to make this a part of daily chore rather than thinking of it as an additional task. I explained them the importance of segrregation from source (home) – which is the ultimate solution to the Waste management issues we currently face.

• I have also been involved in ‘seed sharing‘ event in “Oota From Your Thota” event – it is a fun driven event, where we get to meet experienced and beginners in gardening and share the seeds we have grown, share our experiences on gardening.
• My husband enjoys harvesting, we make fun dummy’s at the garden with the harvest. (Bird Nest, Flower Bouquet)

A flower bouquet?

A bird’s nest?

Garden Secrets

As a beginner, I wanted to get my hands dirty and try out everything possible! I wanted to sow EVERY type of seed and harvest everything. Gradually here are my lessons learnt -

• Go slow, grow what you really want : I learnt from my experience that I need to grow what I really want. To quote a funny instance -  I sow’ed two ladies finger plants since we all love that veggie. And one fine day, I got to harvest 9 lady finger, which had to be shared among 6 of us at home  Since I have the garden on the terrace, I need to be considerate of space crunch and be selective about what I grow and is sufficient for my family.
• Start off with easy veggies like – Greens (Palak, Amaranthus, Methi, Coriander), Tomato, Cucumber – they being easy and less maintenance, boost our confidence to reach for more challenging veggies.
• Go for Heirloom variety rather than Hybrid – Heirloom seeds are the native variety – which is better quality wise and tastewise – so I would want to opt for Heirloom than Hybrid variety.
• Start Composting! You would be saving on buying compost from stores + doing a big favor to yourself and the nation by being a part of successful waste management.
• Save seeds – Too many hybrid varieties are being introduced, due to which the originality of the veggie is slowly being lost.  Seed saving is easy!
• Learn about  friend and foe bugs – Few insects are helpful as they are the pollinators and some eat the foe insects that indirectly protect our garden.
• Stick to Organic – During pest attack, we would be tempted to try out those insecticides and pesticides. However, Never-ever go that way – as the whole moto of growing organic would be lost.
• Finally, enjoy the experience and share the harvest!  – Growing vegetables is not a destination, it’s a continuous process to be enjoyed right from preparing the soil to consuming the harvest. This experience make the veggies more precious than the ones we spend money and buy from stores. And the joy of growing and sharing has no comparison!

A chilli plant

I believe everyone should grow their own organic veggies and attain self sufficiency and I look forward for that day when I distribute food for free, for the poor.

The harvests from Uma’s OTG

Do check out our other articles in our series ‘The Kitchen Gardener’ – covering Lavannya’s, Indira’s, and Arati’s homegrown stores, among others.

The Kitchen Gardener is a fortnightly series on urban farmers who grow fresh produce in their backyards leading to growing people, community and a more sustainable earth. From journeys of starting to challenges along the way and practical wisdom, the kitchen gardening series helps you kickstart your own food patch wherever you live.

Composting: Why I make “black gold” and why you should too

[This is a copy of my article in THE ALTERNATIVE e-magazine in my blog]

We never practised waste segregation at home, always dumping everything together. Then, one day we started to come across smelly streets, every street bombarded with unattended waste from each house.

This was a few years back when Bangalore was flooded with smelly roads as the dumpyards were no longer accepting any additional trash, and thus BBMP made “rules” to separate dry and wet waste so that it could be sent out for recycling.

We followed it, but not willingly. Our mind was tuned to the fact that this was an “extra” effort.

We did it, because it was a “rule” and they would not take the waste away if it was not segregated, and we always had in mind, “Ah, what an extra job is this.”

Waste segregation’s not an extra job any more though!

Months passed by, and one fine day, I came across the home gardening concept. The first day, I felt childishly happy planting my garden; by the second week, I found my vegetable saplings growing; a month later, I saw beautiful flowers on them; and two months later, I harvested the first ever crop which I knew I’d put effort into! Even though the quantity was less, I was happy since I had worked to get it!

Gardening drew more of my interest towards it, day by day. I felt addicted to it and to make my veg garden bloom even more, I started to research the best possible combination of soil and manure, when I came across the word “compost”. I hadn’t realized all these years that so much of kitchen waste that we dump in the trash could be so beneficial for my plants!

This was the moment I realized the importance of waste segregation. This was the moment I realized it is every citizen’s responsibility to ‘Reduce-Recycle-Reuse’ as much waste as possible—the world is just filling up with trash!

I did not delay any more; I did not want to waste days and wanted to start making the “black gold” (compost); I could not bear to see the rich products being dumped with the other trash, so I got my first compost pot from Daily Dump.

Me with my Daily Dump kambha

I am now so pleased that I can manage my kitchen waste so well and so easily (I don’t have to even worry about smelly bins/pests/rats). I am happy that I am contributing my small bit to nature, which gives us so much in return.

It takes just 10 minutes of my daily time to compost and I am so eager to make my first batch of black gold!

Harvesting compost

Components of compost

Nitrogen – waste kitchen vegetables (no bones and meat).

Carbon – Dry leaves/shredded paper/cardboard pieces.

Microbes – This is essential to decompose the matter. Cow dung or sour buttermilk, ready-made microbes, are available from DailyDump.

Air/Oxygen – This being an aerobic process, we need to stir the mixture once in 4 days.

Moisture – The pile needs to be moist for microbial activity. Moisture needs to be adequate, do not make it too wet nor too dry.

Some important points to note:

Minimum duration for compost to happen is 3 months if all the 5 ingredients are adequately provided.

Do not use the compost before 3months. If it is not done yet, it could burn the roots of the plants.

Maggots are good for composting process. However, if you find many maggots, sprinkle a spoon of red chilli powder or neem powder to decrease their population.

If your compost is smelling, the carbon content is not sufficient or the pile is too wet or regular stirring is not done. Identify your case and troubleshoot accordingly.

What types I have been practising

I practice two types at home currently: Khamba composting and Vermicomposting. Both are easy practices that anyone could start off with. The main differences are:

Khamba Composting

1. Does not require earthworms.

2. Requires regular stirring for oxygen.

3. Feed the khamba/bin with fresh waste every day.

4. Can dump any vegetable waste.

5. End product is good quality compost.

These are the kambhas that I use

Vermicomposting

1. Requires earthworms (Red Wiggler).

2. The worms themselves move up and down the bin, and they do not require stirring.

3. Feed weekly twice, the kitchen waste veggies as and when they accumulate should be of quantity that could be (even on daily basis) handled by the worms, else it could start smelling.

4. Cannot feed acidic veggies like onions, tomatoes, lime, and lemon.

5. End product is best quality compost, since the earthworm droppings are very nutritious for the plants.

Earthworms in my vermicomposting bin

My helping resources

I have been a disciple of Vani Murthy. The work that she and her team have done on waste management is abundant. I started off by watching her composting videos on YouTube. They were very simple to understand and follow. I got to meet her personally during the “Oota From Your Thota” events, where she was kind enough to share some earthworms to encourage me with vermicomposting. Now we are in regular touch as she answers all my queries on composting.

Compost tea recipe

Brew “compost tea” – your plants will love it!

Materials required:

Two handful of compost/vermicompost

10 litres water (soft, chlorine-free)

Handful of jaggery (for growth of beneficial microbes)

Fishtank pump

Small rope

A small stick

Old sock

Bucket

Procedure : 

Take the sock, fill it up with 2 handful of compost, tie it with the rope to the stick to suspend it in a bucket of 10 litres of water (as shown in the picture).

Add a handful of jaggery to the water.

Leave pipe from fish tank pump and switch on the fish tank pump – continuously for 48 hours.

This process ensures the microbes in the compost thrives.

Making compost tea

Preparation duration and usage:

Keep it ON for 48 hours and use the brewed CT fresh (dilute it with water 1:10 ratio). Do not store. Spray it on the plants or pour the tea to the pot.

Benefits of Compost Tea

Boosts immunity power of plants – the beneficial microbes in action.

Spraying it on leaves, ensures protection against bugs (aphids/mealybugs) and diseases.

Highly nutritious for the plants – organic fertilizer.

Composting is a sweet addiction I enjoy and one I encourage my peers, friends and relatives to get addicted to. We are not utilizing the important and rich resources available if we are not composting. I feel it is every person’s responsibility to spread the word on importance of composting. It is the ultimate solution to the waste management issues we face today.

How to harvest compost made at home?

Harvesting Compost is THE MOST exciting phase, we would have waited for months together to see, smell, and feel this BLACK GOLD.

It is the ultimate bliss, because it is YOU who has converted the waste to something so rich and nutritious for the earth.

YOUR effort to payback to the Earth has reached this point of harvesting it!

So take a moment and celebrate. YOU have made a difference! :)

(Pic Courtesy : Internet)

[PS : The term "Harvesting Compost" means - to prepare it to be used for the garden right away]


I have tried three ways of composting :

1. Khamba Composting
2. Vermicomposting
3. Bokashi Composting

Each one has a difference in harvesting technique.

When is the compost ready for harvesting?

Generally the compost is ready to be harvested when you dont see any raw food particles, it is black in color and when you smell it, it should smell earthy (Remember the wonderful aroma of first rain of the season? Yes, "smells earthy" means that way!)  

If you are still unsure, you do the test on if the compost is ready to harvest.

1. Harvesting from DIY Bins or Khamba

Depending on quantity of compost generated, spread out the compost onto a newspaper, or a  tarpaul sheet, if it is too moist, let it dry in shade for about an hour (not in direct sunlight!) and you could either use it directly in the garden or you could sieve it for finer texture and use it. Put back the bigger pieces in the bin for another round. If you need this khamba compost to be more nutrient, feed the compost to wormbin (Red Wigger Earthworms). Earthworm castings would be much more nutritious for the plants.

Is it mandatory to Sieve the compost? 

No. 

Compost is sieved for finer texture (usually it may have bigger particles that need 2nd round of composting. Example : Mango seeds) 

Compost is also sieved to get rid of bigger dry leaves, that have not yet decomposed 100%. If we use unsieved compost, with bigger leaves for germination of new seeds, the leaves may block the way of the seeds.

If you are using unsieved compost as addition to existing potting mix, these dry leaves in unsieved compost act as a good mulch! 

So, it totally depends on your preference. Nothing is really "right" or "wrong"!

2. Harvesting from Vermicompost Bins

There is no harm if you use the compost from your worm-bin directly into the soil, which contains worms. Do you remember "Earthworms are farmer's best friends" thingy back in school? However, we too need the worms for the next round of compost pile right? Hence harvesting from wormy-bin.

Knowing the shy nature of the worms (they always settle at the bottom of the pile, they do not like sunlight), the traditional method is to spread out the compost from worm bin as small piles (see below pic), let it stay undisturbed for an hour (so that the worms settle at the bottom most portion of the pile) and then remove the top portion of the pile with hand. (Do not expose this to direct sunlight; Beaware that rats and rodents LOVE earthworms, so ensure you are around somewhere)

This is the traditional way, but time consuming. 

Vani Murthy showed us a hack for a faster and easier process. The trick is if we know what the worms like the most, we can attract them to it and the worms would move towards it, automatically emptying the compost pile for us to use them directly without much effort.

                         

So you could use either a WORM TOWER (video)or a generally available FRUIT BASKET (with holes) (video), fill it with moist mature cow dung (do not use fresh cow dung. Use which is about 15 days old)

(Click on the hyperlinks above to see the video by Vani Murthy. You should be the member of Organic Terrace Gardening (OTG) Facebook group to be able to view them.)

3. Harvesting Bokashi Compost

Bokashi Composting has 2 stages. 

In Stage 1, we keep filling the bins with veggie waste and bokashi bran powder until the bin is full. We drain out the leachate using the taps in the bin once in 4 days. This leachate finally drains out and none is produced. Then this bin is kept air tight for 2 weeks or so, until fermentation takes place (white fungus like substance is formed on top) and this Stage 1 is then called 'complete'.

Once this stage is completed, we can either transfer the contents directly to the pot, as bottom most part of the containers for a fresh seed sowing (do not mix in potting mix yet, it is too strong for the plants and can burn them). So that by the time, the seed germinates and grows roots, this compost would have decomposed within the pot itself. This is excellent way of handing waste and not waiting for compost process to complete and shift it to the pots. 

If not, go to Stage 2, where you follow the process of "Layering" and after about 50-60 days, the compost is ready to be used in the garden. If you want to enrich this even more, toss it to the vermicompost bin and the worm castings would make the best compost for your plants! 

[Click on pic above to see Bokashi Compost Stage -2 Progress video. This is ready to be harvested.]


I HAD to put this below picture in my blog to beautify the post even more. This is a collage of just a few's harvested compost / "Black Gold"  from my radomly picked OTG friends.

[Pic Credits : Asha Balakrishnan‎,Bharath Rajashekar‎,Prabhath Vijayan,Priyanka Khaitan‎,Rakhee Chowdhary‎,Sanjana Rao,Uma Hoysala,Vani Murthy,Varsha Samuel Rajkumar‎,Amrutha Joshi Yuvaraj‎,Uma Karnu,Shashi Thorwath‎,Senthil Velan Ekambaram,Kiran Pattar,Rajagopalan Raman,Pavithra Ch‎,Renu Mittal]

The good news is that more and more of us have started to practice it and benefit the soil. We need not have a garden to start composting. Composting is a responsibility to manage our waste at home itself.

A few of them are really keen on HOW TO COMPOST, we just need to spread the word. Awareness and Education on it will fill up the gap.

So, kudos to you all of you who already practice it and like I always say Keep Inspiring!  :)

5 Tips to Speed Up Your Composting

Without our intervention, composting occurs naturally in the environment. However, it can take many months or years as the composition has to set down correctly.

This is Leaf Compost that was a natural process of leaves falling down and being composted naturally (may have taken several months), without manual intervention.

[Pic Credits : Srikant Kapuganti ]

When we compost at home, we are creating a 'man-made environment' for fastening this process, which STILL can take about minimum of 3 months - 6 months (depends on how well we setup the process and what composting method we use)

When I began composting (with Khamba), I was so so eager to check it each day and hope that it would have been done today, tomorrow and so on. The curiosity was too much for me to handle and I started researching online on how much time it would take, whether it is possible to fasten the process and I was glad to see the answer as YES!

Here are some tips :

1. Chop chop

Let you practice any type of composting, slicing works for all kinds! Always chop the veggie waste for faster breakdown. (pieces should not bigger than a lemon)

         

                     

2. Use "Accelerators" 

Accelerators are the substances that contains "microbes" that faster the process, hence the term. 

If you are practicing Aerobic method - i.e, a DIY setup or Khamba, use either of :

• Sour buttermilk
• Cowdung slurry 
• Panchagavya
• Readily available Microbes powder /remix powder / De'grade powder. 

Easiest and readily available in every home is - Buttermilk.

  Cow Dung Slurry, Panchagavya, Buttermilk

[Pic Credits : Vani Murthy]

• If you are going for Bokashi Composting, the Bokashi Bran itself serves the purpose.

3. Pickup those Dry Leaves!

If you are composting using Aerobic Method, ensure you use lot of dry leaves as a source of carbon. (Composting requires Nitrogen (Kitchen Wet Waste) and Carbon (dry leaves or shredded paper) in 1:30 ratio)

4. Do not fill the Compost bin till the rim!

For your aerobic composting bins, ensure there is enough space for air circulation at the top. Do not fill it 100% .

5. Ensure the right moisture

The pile should be damp, but not soggy. Moist compost pile ensures the microbes to be active. Keep turning the pile for enough oxygen to pass through.

[Don't forget to see related blog posts at top right corner of the blog.]

Ways of Composting at home

I started my composting journey by the end of year 2013 and the main purpose of why I started was to save $ from buying "organic" compost from stores and make my own at home. 

However later on, I realized the actual need of composting at home was not just to feed the plants, but also that it was my responsibility to manage my kitchen waste at my home itself. This awareness did not come to me overnight, but as and when I started digging deeper into the matter of necessity of composting, the Mandur landfill issues and the importance of segregating waste at home.

It is always a learning experience, which can be never ending. But the more I was successful with it, the more I wanted to make it better and quicker. 

In this post, I discuss the Composting ways I tried, my experience (good or bad) on these ways. You could decide the best way that would go for. 

[Disclaimer : Here, I am mentioning about the products/brands I have used personally. I have no experience on using their competitor's products, hence I am not comparing the different vendor's results here. So, there may be multiple vendors for the same product, which you may research in the net and opt per your wish.]

So, we should first understand that there are two main categories of how microbes decompose organic matter: 

• Those that need air (Aerobic) 
• Those that don't (Anaerobic)

- Aerobic Composting needs the pile to be turned (mixed) often, so that the oxygen reaches it for faster breakdown.

- Anaerobic Composting is quite opposite,where the microbes thrive when there is no oxygen and so we need to press down the pile for the air bubbles to escape. It does need accelerators. I have tried Bokashi Bran.

The ways I have tried

• Aerobic
• Khamba Composting (from Dailydump)
• Vermicomposting (DIY bin and "Leave It Pot (LIP)" from Dailydump)

• Anaerobic 

• Bokashi composting with EcoBin

Differences

Each one has its own setup and maintenance.

Method	Aerobic / Anaerobic	Materials Required	Frequency to dump	How much in the bin per day?	What can go	What cannot go in	References	Troubleshooting
Khamba	Aerobic	1. DIY Bins or Khamba from Daily Dump stores. 2. Rake 3. Accelerators : Sour buttermilk or Microbes powder	Daily	No restriction	All veggie waste	Refer this.	dailydump.org	Click Here
Vermicomposting	Aerobic	1. A dark bin 2. Red Wiggler worms 3. To setup the worm bed: coconut husk, mature cow dung, shredded cardboard/paper	Twice a week	Lesser quantity; Worms cannot eat more than their size. If you feed the bin in excess, it starts stinking.	All veggie waste	- No citrus peels (orange,lemon,lime) - No Onion - No Tomato Worms breathe through their skin, these can get acidic for them and they perish.	Click Here	Click Here
Bokashi	Anaerobic	1. Bins (inplace of your dustbins) 2. Bokashi Bran (microbes)	Daily	No restriction	All veggie waste	Anything, except liquid (water, milk or fruit juice)	http://myecobin.in/	Click Here

Table 1 - Different Procedures to Compost

Method	Time and Effort	Harvest Time	Procedure to harvest
Khamba	Stir once in 4 days	Minimum 3 months	1. After you get an earthy smell, sieve the compost and use it in the garden.
Vermicomposting	No stirring required	1 month	1. Spread out the vermicompost on a tarpaulin sheet in heaps. The worms will settle at the bottom; remove the top portion of compost by hand. [OR] 2. (Easiest) Place mature cow dung in an old fruit basket (with holes) on top of compost pile for about 2 weeks, Maximum worms get into the cowdung basket and you can remove the compost. [OR] 2. Use worm tower
Bokashi	No stirring required	50-60days	1. After STAGE 1, either use the pickle directly as bedding in new pots. [OR] 2. Proceed to STAGE 2 by layering it and harvest after 2-3 weeks

Table 2 : Harvesting Compost

See my Harvesting Vermicompost Pictures and Preparing Vermicompost Bed here.

Harvesting Compost - My Pictures

1. Khamba Compost Harvest

2. Vermicompost Harvest

3. Bokashi Compost Harvest  (After Stage 2)

See Bokashi Compost Video here.

Method	Very Very Common Problems	Cause	Solution	References
Khamba	Stinking and many maggots	Pile is too damp	Some maggots are good. But if in excess, spread out the compost pile and let it dry in shade for 2-3 days. (# of days depends on how much the pile is wet. Put some neem powder or red chilli powder for maggot population to decrease.	Refer my video on Troubleshooting Composting Issues
Vermicomposting	Worms escaping out, perishing	Environment is not suitable - Either too acidic or too dampy. Or Ants attack.	Place the bin on a plate filled with water, to stop the ant movement. Do not put acidic food in the bin.	Refer this article.
Bokashi	Stinking leachate	The leachate is not drained frequently	1. Tilt the bin for leachate to ooze out. 2. Put some jaggery below the filter basket for microbes to be alive in the leachate if draining time is not going to be < 4 days	Refer this.

Table 3 : Very Common Problems Faced.

Additionally, see my article in THE ALTERNATE e-magazine on Composting here.


Feel free to leave a comment below if you would like to know something more apart from what is mentioned in this post!


A question that may interest you :

(Click in the pic above to read the whole thread)

PS : Do check out my friend's blog on DIY Compost Bin too if you are a DIY person!