LCC Environment

Quick and Dirty

I haven't tweaked my composting system for more than a decade. I am lazy that way. As long as I get the result I generally want - compost everything and save the land fill of a few kilos of biodegradable waste. Don't know much about saving a land fill but if all household is composting, I guess that would be a great way of taking care of our surroundings.

That said, I came to take notice of the area where I set up my composts. I observed an interesting environment has settled into that little space. Let me put that space into words. I have about ten (10) 3 gallon pails, 3 5 gallon pails and some clay pots. I placed them outside our house but under a shade lined up by twos. I used to rotate the 3 gallon pails for filling up on kitchen wastes. I usually mixed in only 25-35% compost into the pail to start the composting process. It should be more than that but I came to terms with the result for now. Since this will almost always turn into anaerobic state, I have the clay pots do more work on these smelly compost. I transfer the smelly composts into the clay pots topped with good compost to hide the smell. Most of the time the topped compost included small to big worms - now, these worms will do the work here more actively. Clay pots are cooler than plastic pail and worms like cool temperature.

Outside and Inside Environment

• The sunlight - it hits my compost area in the afternoon, I trust it will 'sanitize' the compost somewhat.

• Birds - since I left my compost bins open, I recently notice that birds are one of the frequent visitors. I just assume they do because when I place a fresh pail outside, complete with maggots, these maggots will disappear after a few hours. I wish I had some kind of camera to take this observation. Also, I notice that when it is the hottest time of the days, worms will go up top - so do birds. Free meal!

• Lizards - and of course lizards may be one of the predator of the maggots. There they are. I know this, I see this. Do they eat the worms, too?

• Shrew - looks like my pile of compost attracted an unwanted visitor. This little guy has a habit of showing up just as the sun has set for the night. The little fella is very busy roaming around the compost area. Lately, I saw one pail has extensive diggings. Well, can't say I didn't ask for it as I have an open compost setup.

• Ants - I have mixed feelings about killing or letting the ants stay. But they are there. Big ants, small ants, red ants.

• Centipedes - I can see a healthy amount of centipede living at the bottom of the pails/clay pots and sometime inside the pails. I kill them when I encounter them while working on the compost. Otherwise, I let them be.

• Micro frogs - I keep a handful of plants around the compost area and sometime I can see a very small frog.

• Seedlings - I compost everything, from time to time, there will be seedlings that sprout. Tomato seedling, lemon seedling, avocado, mango, durian, you name it, if its a seed, it will germinate soon or late.

• Mushroom - most of the time, mushrooms suddenly sprout out the composts. Is it good or bad? I don't know.