Composting in the Backyard

When it comes to wastes collection, the local city government of Baguio City strictly imposes the "No Segregation, No Collection" policy. Segregation of biodegradable materials from non biodegradable are to be done by everybody in every household in all the 125 barangays in the city. Before anyone can bring their trash bag into the collection area, they have to make sure that they did a proper segregation of biodegradable materials from other kinds of wastes or else the barangay council who are manning the disposal area in the barangay will not accept the trash bag. This policy has prompted us to make our own compost pile in the backyard. Before we converted the old pigsty into a rabbitry, we were using one corner of the last compartment in the pigsty as a composting area. What we did to hasten the decomposition process of the compost pile is to put a black plastic tarp over it and this heats up the compost pile faster. Then twice a week, we would turn the compost pile over and spray it with a little water, just enough to make the compost material moist. Once the compost is ready, then we bury it in the soil in the garden beds. We water the garden beds lightly and then wait for a week before we start planting the vegetables. We do not use chemical fertilizers in our garden, which makes our vegetables organically produced. This is our goal in having a vegetable garden in the backyard, to produce organic vegetables for our own consumption.

 

Chopped leaves and kitchen wastes for the compost bin.

Big plastic compost bin with shredded and soaked newspapers.

The shredded and soaked newspapers with about 3-4 inches thickness goes in the bottom first.

Then the rest of the chopped up leaves and kitchen wastes goes in as well. When the bin is about half-way full, then we put in the earthworms.

After we converted the old pigsty into a rabbitry, we didn't have the space anymore for a composting area so I bought two bins for composting purposes. We drilled some holes at the bottom and near the top for ventilation purposes because we were going to use earthworms to convert the wastes into a rich organic fertilizer. We have plenty of gumamela bushes around our property that serves as a fence. My husband trims these gumamela bushes regularly and we give the tender shoots and leaves of the plants to our rabbits. The rest of the trimmings are cut into smaller pieces and thrown into the compost bin together with some vegetables and fruit peelings from the two kitchens. Between my own kitchen and that of my sister-in-law's kitchen, we generate a lot of kitchen scrap for the compost.