Composting and Vegetable Planting on the 18th of April

It was, for all intents and purposes, a beautiful day graced by the presence of the ever-lovely sun, which had been absent for quite some time due to the storm clouds adorning our grey skies which have sadly, become part and parcel of life in our humid, tropical, piece of heaven. Though it was a Monday, a day so terrible in that it brings an end to our brief reprieve from the rigmarole of our weekday routines, that fact was overshadowed (out shined, rather, since we're talking about the sun) by the simple fact that there was no torrential downpour, no sudden thunderstorms, stopping us from achieving the motto of our day- to finish making a three-feet tall batch of compost, as well as clear all the grass from the area where we have decided to establish our vegetable garden.

Miss Tan arrived at our school bearing sacks containing materials such as wheat bran, on top of dried chicken and goat manure, which are some of the materials we would utilise in making our compost. Miss Tan has kindly sourced these materials which are more difficult to attain for us, while we worked hard at collecting all the materials we can. She also brought her trusty parang along, on top of two pitch forks, which we would require later on to mix the compost.

Our members were already hard at work by the time she arrived. Under the blazing hot afternoon sun, our members hoed at the ground, trying their very best to get rid of the grass growing on the surface of the plot of land we intended to use as our vegetable garden without removing too much of the soil, though the soil was clinging desperately onto the roots of the grass. As more of an onlooker than anything else, due to my clumsiness in performing this delicate task, I have to admit that they did a brilliant job.

Those incapable of performing the patience-stretching task of removing every inch of grass from a plot of land (such as myself), were assigned a chore that required less patience-composting. This composting session completely warped my perception towards composting, a task I previously associated with normal, clean things, such as fresh kitchen waste, soil, and maybe an adorable earthworm or two. I would never have associated composting with dried leaves, fresh grass (from the group of patient people hoeing away at the ground), rotten tofu, animal innards, manure, rice bran (the kind that's used to feed animals, not the expensive, beautifully packaged ones you see in the store), sugarcane residue, and practically everything that decomposes easily.

We had previously created a square frame for our compost, which measured around one and a half feet on each side. Using the frame a guide, we began inserting what would become the first few layers of our compost into the frame. Under the precise, detailed instructions of Miss Tan, we applied the layers in a specific order, so as to maximise the fermentation and mixing of every layer. The rough idea was that every wet layer of organic waste must be sandwiched in between a layer or two of dry layers, before yet another wet layer is applied. This is so that as the compost undergoes fermentation, the layers would naturally mix themselves up. As different types of organic waste contain different types of functions and nutrients, this would create a batch of compost that's rich is all sorts of nutrients.

In the meantime, the group of members who were assigned the task of removing all the grass from our future vegetable garden put up stakes around the plot of land, and joined every stake with long pieces of rafia strings, creating a barrier of sorts to prevent people from inadvertently stepping on our overturned soil, or newly-planted seeds, rendering all our hard labour fruitless. As for the composting group, we concluded our composting session after sandwiching the final layer of wet organic waste between dry layers. A canvas sheet was used to cover our compost and protect it from the rain. The meeting was dismissed after we cleaned our surroundings up and washed all the tools we used. After three hours of hard labour, our vision for the vegetable garden had finally begun to take shape.

It was a productive day, indeed.

The composting frame, surrounded by bags of waste :)