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Here's presenting you the story of Shanti R

I have a small terrace garden, where I grow few vegetables in organic way. It is really challenging as I need the soil to be nutritious. I have few trees in my compound that shed a lot of leaves. These leaves are a great source of carbon and other nutrients. You can see people burning the leaves and twigs in the name of cleaning. If you burn one 1kg of leaves, maybe 50gm ash is the residue, or the matter that does not get oxidized. Some even claim the ash can be used in farms as manure and in pest control. But in fact, these carbon which gets oxidized due to burning cause severe air pollution. I use these leaves and garden waste as manure. As my garden is in the terrace, I use these dried leaves right from filling my grow bags as it reduces the uses of soil and in turn reduces the weight the terrace holds. I also cover my plant at the top of the growbag, with these dried leaves so that the root of the plant is not exposed to sun and protects the plant from excess heat. This gives wonderful result especially in a place like Chennai. These leaves also help to keep the soil airy and increases micro bacterial action, which in turn reduces the requirements for watering the plant and also holds the manure from being washed off. I get better yield by using these. So instead of burning the leaves they can be converted into humus just following a simple method. Collect the dried leaves in a sack. Add 50gm jaggery and the starch [remain after draining the cooked rice] cooled. Pour it in to the sack of dried leaves and leave it idle. After 21days, you get beautiful manure for your garden. This is what I do to keep the environment clean and healthy, conserving it naturally.

Story posted on 16 July 2020