The idyllic small town

Growing up in a sleepy, small town in Assam, with working parents, most of my waking hours was spent at my grandparents’. The idyllic small town home, it was replete with fruit trees, kitchen garden, farm animals, squirrels, butterflies, what have you! My grandpa, always busy in the garden or tending to the cow, had his ardent follower trailing after him..and like a spongepad absorbing everything to process bit by bit in the years to follow… About 25 years later, when I wanted to make my own manure for the apartment kitchen garden, I remembered grandpa dig these small pits to put kitchen waste and use that fertile soil later. Pre Google times and yet to unlock the world of “composting”, I took a small bucket, filled another with soil and got started replicating pit composting in my apartment balcony in Hyderabad and watched my small edible kitchen garden flourish. Nostalgia and urban gardening highs, rolled into one!” – Nidarshana, @the_sustainable_indian

So, that’s Pit Composting. Simply digging a pit or a trench in the soil, adding kitchen or garden waste, covering with soil till it’s full. The soil microbial army, along with earthworms, together do their magic and within months super fertile soil is ready!

For events with access to such land, this has become our go to method after trying the first at Sahithi’s wedding.

Turn the biodegradable waste from your celebrations into a resource, give back to Mother Earth or leave it as a big pile at the landfills releasing greenhouse gases — you choose!