inspiration

Towards the end of last year, I decided to take on a new challenge into 2025 – organic farming based on own homemade manure. I was curious to experience first-hand what it’s like to compost kitchen waste from scratch blending knowledge acquired through online resources while fusing in own ideas as well based on locally available materials.

It has now been 6-months since this new challenge began. And I wish to share my journey while answering a few questions which could hopefully inspire somebody else in one way or the other – because both good and bad learnings are an important part of life. To start off, one of my biggest take-aways through this experiential journey is that things don’t always go as per what you have read or learnt in theory. So be prepared to fail and rise back up or change course when practical kicks in.

I did not visually document my journey as such, so this post will attempt to use the power of memory expressed in words to share the findings. However, in case you wish to read more or watch educative videos on how to produce organic manure or liquid fertilizer at home, rest assured that there are plenty of videos on Youtube and articles online regarding the subject. In short, knowledge is readily available for consumption!

1. Setting up of the composting unit and required materials

To set up the unit, you require two buckets (inner chamber – a bucket with perforations at the bottom and outer chamber – which is essentially the liquid fertilizer collector); feedstock, water; and depending on the type of decomposing method you prefer  – aerobic or anaerobic, you may need a catalyst (e.g. natural yogurt or molasses for the bacteria or if you like enzymes); the top bucket cover if you opt to go for anaerobic fermentation which means no air should make into your composter.

In my case I used an old 20-litre bucket – it was broken and therefore already had a hole at the bottom. I inserted this into a non-perforated a slightly smaller bucket which served as the liquid fertilizer collecting tank. If you prefer, you can have both buckets pre-crafted or buy a ready-made unit from a local agro-supplies dealer. But it is easier to do it yourself to ensure there is as much re-use of materials readily available in your home, including broken things that you would otherwise dispose. For the feedstock I mostly used organic (uncooked) fruit/vegetable/food peelings/leftovers (e.g. melons, citrus fruits – be careful with portions of this, kales, traditional vegetables, mangoes, bananas, fallen tree leaves, eggshells). I also added a small pinch of old carton pieces (to replace saw dust) although not too sure if this helped the process as I was concerned it is already chemicalized during the production process. It is advisable that everything going into your pit bucket is cut into small pieces for faster composting and avoid in-organic matter, including cooked food since these slow down the process. As well, try to avoid infected organic matter. Dry leaves off plants are also good to add to your compost mixture.

2. Strike a balance in the mix of organic waste added to the composting pit

There is plenty of information available online regarding the types of feedstocks to use in your kitchen composting unit. One of the things I came to learn is that you must strike a balance between acidic vs alkaline residue or minerals concentration within the composter so that you don’t have too much of a single element at any point in time. I never used a specific formula to decide the ratios of what goes into the pit – it was mostly based on the kitchen waste that we had for the period I was piling the composting bucket until it was finally full. However, I would later learn the hard way that you have to be careful with the combination as earlier because it affects the pH level or generally the mineral proportions – as the saying goes, too much of anything is dangerous – even for plants. For example, 3 weeks into the process, I decided to spray our vertical vegetable garden using the already piled liquid concentrate in the collecting bucket. A few days later, I noticed the plants’ leaves which were originally green and healthy had started yellowing. Something was off! It was either the plants were soaked in water (unlikely), or there was a high content of a nutrient, and this was doing more harm than good to the plants. In this case, turns out the nitrogen content was too high.  I had purposed to do the foliar spraying every fortnight or so – but stopped immediately to monitor the plants. Let’s just say the damage control effort didn’t quite salvage the situation, but the yellowing stopped as new leaves sprouted. 6 months later – I look back and ask myself how I would do things differently – for example, spraying just a small portion of the kitchen garden or running the trial on a few pot plants first and monitor the results for a few days to a week before applying the whole concentrate everywhere. This goes back to the basics of bioscience – you don’t roll out a new product on bios before you have fully run lab tests/trials and understood the side effects and how best to remedy them.

3. Frequency of adding waste into the compost bucket and sunlight exposure

In the first month, I added kitchen waste at least twice a week and each time would also add a few parts of water. In my case, I had no formular for the water ratio, I mostly used observation to check that the compost was adequately moistened and not too soaked. Once the inner bucket was full and could take no more food waste, I stopped the additions.

If you are fermenting aerobically, it is important to ensure there is leeway for airflow for the bacteria. In my case, I opted for anaerobic fermentation, so everything was airtight. However, I would open it occasionally over the 6 weeks period to mix up the feedstock. I set up the composter in a place with access to sunlight/heat but not extreme. The heat helps to speed up the composting process. So, if you live in a rather cold or say winter region – the process will take longer.  It is also important to monitor the temperature level in the fermenting bucket. If you happen to visit large composting farms; you will notice that some use thermometers. In my case, this was not a major concern as the set-up location was not too exposed to heat and generally had cool air flow (windy). The temperature was just about right.

4. Duration to get the liquid fertilizer ready. How long should one wait?

The longer the fermentation process, the more mature and richer in nutritive content the fertilizer ripens for boosting your plants. Some online literature indicates between 12 days to 6 weeks, several months and even years for the ancient farmers who have traditionally applied organic farming practises especially in the Asian countries. In my case, I harvested the liquid in the initial weeks and that didn’t go well as earlier shared. I therefore decided to be patient and wait a longer period and recently harvested the 6-month fermented liquid. I must say that it does look like the real thing and the smell is also relatively more manageable. It is however not odourless as some online resources suggest. I poured it on plants last weekend and so far, there is no yellowing which I take to mean it is blending well with the plants. Or it’s too early to tell. There are no instant results in farming, I think.

5. When does the compost get ready for use?

In this experiment, I had set out mainly to harvest the liquid fertilizer because I am a small space farmer who does either vertical or pot planting. Hence readily absorbable foliar fertilizers or concentrates poured directly into the soil are my priority. However, as is expected – the soil nutrients need to be restored hence the organic manure is also important to have. 6-months in, the compost is not yet fully ready, but most of the food content has been broken down. I have now transferred it from the bucket to an old tyre where it will hopefully complete the composting process and then dry in readiness for mixing with the soils for the next planting season. I think full composting can take as long as long can be – depending also on if you had organic catalyzers or not – and you have mastered the process. It requires true patience if you ask me.

6. Some of my lessons learnt/key take-aways?

• Home preparation of organic compost or liquid fertilizer has been a craft dating back to ancient days. In Japan for example, there has been a long tradition to use liquid organic fertilizer and sometimes they decompose it for several months to years (Bokashi fertilizer).
• Liquid fertilizer can readily be sprayed on plant leaves or poured into the soil. However, you may need to dilute it with equal or higher parts of water in case minerals concentration is too high for certain plants in your kitchen garden or pots (especially the young ones). The fertilizer ideally works for any plants – including succulents.
• For the compost manure, full decomposition can take a while. In my case it has been 6-months and there are still a few remnants of plants still visible which means the process isn’t complete yet as it all needs to turn into ‘soil’. Once the process is complete, the next step is to allow the compost to fully dry before you can add it to your garden soil.
• There will be bad odour emanating from your pit, which is a rather negative outcome especially if you live in a neighbourhood (air pollution). If you, or your neighbours get easily disturbed by strong awful smell, I would be quick to say don’t try this at home. In my readings, I gathered that there are tested and proven ways to minimize the bad odour effect during the composting process – I probably didn’t take enough time to research and learn the whole process well. Something I would probably aim to improve on in future.
• Avoid adding ‘infected’ plants into your compost pit because some of the pathogens might later on affect your healthy plants should the diseases be propagated within the organic fertilizer or manure.
• Is it organic if you are using plastic buckets in the composting process? Well, this is a question I am also struggling with. Hopefully we find an answer sooner or later. All in all, I would say everything has pros and cons.

7. Ultimately, Would I do it again?

Easy answer is probably not because it was a bit of a struggle for me. I also feel the process has been rather long – which was a real taste of my patience. There were periods in between where my plants needed nutrients, but I was afraid to try the ‘half-baked’ liquid fertilizer because of the yellowing outcome at week 3. The odour was also a bit too much – going by the reactions anytime I opened the bucket to mix the feedstock. Again, it could be because I didn’t take enough time to learn the process and get it right – so there is a challenge there to try and get it right should I decide to go down that road again. I however enjoyed the experimental learning process. All in all, I would still wish to explore and understand small space organic farming further but will probably stick to buying already organic manure or liquid fertilizers from experienced biofertilizer farmers. Professionals exist for a reason, right?

Until the next post, happy experimental endeavours.

And in the spirit of World Environment Day 2025, let’s aim to reduce-re-use or recycle waste to make our planet healthier and better us and the future generations!