How do I Make Compost and How does it Benefit Soils and my Crops?

Compost is a home-made fertilizer that saves farmers as much as K250,000/lima. If made and applied properly, compost in some cases can nearly double yields.

It is made from decomposed leaves and plant matter, together with manure, soil, and ground up charcoal in a powder form, called biochar. Chicken manure is a good source of manure as is other livestock. Wildlife manure is excellent. Compost making requires decomposition of the organic material, which requires continued watering of the compost material to allow the decomposition to complete its process for best results.

There are two ways to make compost: surface heap or a pit heap. COMACO recommends the heaping technique because it is less labor intensive.

Site for making compost should be under a tree with small depression of 20 cm for laying maize stalks or branches

Materials that are layered and stacked to form a heap, include: dried vegetation (maize stalks, groundnut plant resident) chopped into small fragments, green matter chopped up, manure, and all covered with soil. The heap should be 2m long, 1m high, and 1m wide.

Remember to push a stick into the middle of the head and leave it there. This is used to check the inside temperature by removing the stick and feeling its temperature. If very warm, then composting is proceeding well.

The heap of compost should be watered every 2-4 days, sometime more if very hot, Each watering may require up to 20 litres to maintain moist conditions throughout. Never let the heap dry out. After 10-14 day, turn the heap over, which allows mixing and resume process.

If done properly, composting will take about 8 weeks to complete.

Once ready, pack into 50kg sacks and store in a cool, dry, place until ready for applying

Heaping method

Making compost using the pit-filling technique is more labour intensive but has these advantages:

• Because the compost is buried on all four side, there is less evaporation and hence less effort to water the compost as often as a compost heap

• There is less risk of the compost drying and delaying the composting process

The compost pit should be 1 m deep, 1 m wide and 2 m long. The materials used are the same as for compost heap making. Two pits are required to flip and mix the contents from pne pit to the other

Watering the compost is every 5-6 days and requires about 20 litres of water per watering. Make sure the pit is under the shade of a tree to reduce the rate of evaporation. Covering the pit with grass can help maintain moisture. The compost should be turned every 3 weeks and takes about 8-10 weeks to mature.

As with the compost heap, make sure you keep a stick planted into the middle of the compost for removing to check temperature and progress of decomposition. If not very warm, you may not be adding enough water.

Pit compost making method: Compost application:

1-2 weeks prior to planting, apply compost in basins using two 500 ml containers (maheu or empty coke tins). After applying compost, back-fill with dirt.

COMACO recommends farmers make two heaps or pits of compost so that one heap is used for basal fertilizer and the other is for top dressing

The importance of BIOCHAR and how to use it in composting

An easy way of making biochar is putting your cooking fire out at night with water and gathering the small pieces of charcoal the next morning. Pound these pieces until you’ve made ¾ of a 50 kg bag. This is sufficient for one heap of compost. Once niochar-enrished compost is applied in the basins, there is no need to use biochar for several years in the same basins. Biochar makes soil nutrients more available to plant roots and will boost crop yields.