The end of the Awali Compost

 

                   Our first compost in 2014-one pen and one drum on sand

 Back in 2014 I set up a compost in my garden. It had one pen made of recycled wood at the end of the garage and one old chemical drum fro food waste. Over the years that expanded to 8 pens and 4 static and 2 rotating drums. We collected grass cuttings from the local park, garden waste from neighbours gardens and up and down our road, cardboard boxes and used flip-chart paper from the Academy and the recycling bins and food waste form three houses. Mr Jaworski also bought us all his grass cuttings, leaves and garden waste.

              Collecting grass cuttings from PSP in the Awali compost wagon
 

When I went into hospital for my hip replacement I asked people to stop donating their compost materials in July 2020 and when the weather cooled down a bit to 37 degrees in October I asked my gardener Shji to arrange to bag up the compost, emptying 4 pens, and to move the waste that had not rotted down onto the 3 remaining larger compost pens. It took 4 of them all morning from 5 am to 10 am to complete the job. Then I had to contact everyone who had asked for compost to come and collect it and pay their two bd a bag. 

             120 bags of compost awaiting collection - 9.10.2020
 

Year	Garden waste in	Compost out
2015	359	63
2016	286	121
2017	187	5
2018	800	50
2019	325	63
2020	61	137
6  yr Total	2018 bags	439 bags

 

 

      The garden waste which had not rotted was all consolidated in 3 composts

In 6 years we had 2018 bin bags of garden waste in and that produced 439 bags of compost so far with about another 100 bags to come in January. So 2000 bags rots down to 500 bags , or reduces by about 75%. For those that donated I gave them one free bag of compost for 6 bags of garden waste. JJ had 12 bags, Matthew 8, Alpesh 1 and I offered some to Hani at the park ( our biggest donator). They all very quickly came to collect their freebies, and JJ even emailed me to remind me I still owed him one bag ( we initially only bagged 11 bags back in September) .

                It takes a lot of time and effort to make 120 bags of compost
 

However after that no one came ( Typical Awali expats!). so as usual I made a loss as I had to pay out to have the compost bagged ( 60 bd) for a wheelbarrow ( 12 bd) and Jake's wages to water the composts weekly, Turn the rotating composts and add cardboard, flip-chart paper etc to keep the heat in. 

 

                        Jake, the farmers boy, covering the full compost

I keep explaining to people that like making compost is like making a good Christmas cake, you have to get the right amount of each ingredient ( Grass cuttings, leaves, garden waste,  shredded paper, cardboard etc) , avoid things that do not compost ( wood, plastic, Pampas grass, cans,gardeners gloves, ,hedge cuttings , cigarette packets etc). You have to keep it moist but not too wet, turn it regularly, and keep the acidity right- the guy from Al Moayed Landscapes was telling me that you cannot add lemon or egg shells to compost but you can add oranges) .We and Matthew's wife next door keep the egg shells in a separate bag and crush them and then put them on the plants directly as they like the calcium.

 

                                           DIY Compost pen for sale - 20 bd

We learnt over time  that the compost pens need to be a certain size as well. Too small and they fill too quickly but then rot down to 25% of the original size so then you have an empty pen. If you add new compost on top of the old the good stuff at the bottom is ready but the new stuff on top of it is not, so you have to move 75% of the material to get to the 25% that rotted. So we made the second lot of pens larger but found then there was simply too much material to rot down so it took a lot longer. Back in 2017 we took 187 bags of garden waste in but only got 5 out. Like I say to people, "its not fast food". You don't come up to place your order "I have 5 bags of grass cuttings, can I have one bag of compost". Its like sending a parcel from the UK to Bahrain! You drop the grass cuttings off and the compost arrives 2 years later!

            Nature is smart, the good rotted compost is always hidden at the bottom
 

So in 2018 we subdivided the larger compost and Kuya Dino added 4 more new ones on the patio so they had a concrete base. Make sure you have drainage ditches all around the compost as the goodness does not only come out in the form of a bag of compost when its finally rotted. We water the compost with recycled water twice a day and this picks up all the nutrients in the rotting compost and comes out of the bottom as "Compost tea"which is a liquid fertiliser. We placed our rotating drums and compost bins next to the vegetable patch so the compost tea fed the vegetables. As proof of this I have beautiful grass all around my compost and yet I never paid for turf, It just grew naturally from the compost nutrients.  At the back and one side of my compost are hedges and they will not stop growing from all the nutrients from the compost.

  Dismantling 6 years hard work, and no I am not taking my compost to Palawan!

 So it has been an interesting period of learning and perfecting the art of composting ready for my new life in the Philippines! However just as we had to adjust from the UK climate ( wet and cold) to the Bahrain Climate ( hot and dry) so we will have to adjust again to composting in Palawan ( warm , humid and wet) . 

Keep reading our blogs and Vlogs to see how we get on 

Ingat Palagi

 Mahal Kita

  Kita Kits