Today, you may find quite a lot of people taking up gardening or starting a vegetable garden. Even if you're not into gardening yet, this may be of interest to you. First, to grow good plants, you need good soil. And to make good soil, compost plays an important role.  Compost balance fertilizer and waterTo grow plants, you will need fertilizers and water, but if you give too much, it might weaken the plants' resistance and make them thin and weak. So it is important to know how much fertilizer and water a plant needs. Using the right amount, you can make plants healthy and resilience to diseases and environmental change. What's more, your vegetables will be tastier. Compost can hold water for a long time and contains nutrients which are slowly released into the soil over a long period of time. It also balances the amount of water in the soil. Further, compost-eating microorganisms help the growth of the roots. There are other various microorganisms which enhance the plants' resistance to diseases. Now, let's have a look at an easy way of making compost in your balcony. Bucket- compost on your balconyGood news to those of you who live in an urban flat with no garden. All you need is a bucket, and you can make several kilograms if compost on your balcony. The amount of compost which you will need for one planter, is about 500 grams. So, if you prepare 10 liters of compost, it will be enough for 3 to 4 planters. It's very easy to find materials to make compost around you such as straw, manure, fallen leaves and so on. But the easiest one is kitchen waste. If you take into account that an average family of 4 throws away about 500 grams of kitchen waste per day, use them to make compost and help prevent global warming. Hints for making good compostThe point to be careful when making compost is how to avoid the odor and water drainage. Did you know that the soil sponge up water and odor and break down the cause of the bad smell? The best and easiest measure is to mix up food waste and soil. The soil will absorb the odor and dirty water. Though the more soil you use, the more effective it will be, it may become too heavy. So the maximum amount is about twice the amount of food waste. Put the compost between layers of soil like making sandwiches. Plastic bags and buckets for handy compostingIf you have your garden, the easiest way to make compost from kitchen wastage would be to use a plastic container with a lid which called a 'composter' or a bottomless bucket and bury the bottom part in the soil. If not, you can use a plastic (polyethylene) bag or a polyethylene bucket instead. Thin polyethylene bagsPolyethylene doesn't rip easily and has the quality of letting in air but not water. It keeps the water condition and exchange of air. However, as it doesn't allow a large amount of air, you might want to use thin bags and not close completely but just fold them. The clear bags you can find around you are normally made of polyethylene. Thin bags less than 0.02mm thick and approximately 30 by 40cm in size are the most appropriate type. Plastic bucket with a lidYou can use it as it is, but if you want to avoid decay caused by water retaining at the bottom, make some holes at the bottom and let water and air exchange. Also, to prevent water leakage, you need to add dry soil at the bottom to absorb the water. Instead of the dry soil, you can also use commercial products such as 'clay ball' or 'pot light' which are available in gardening shops to dry them more efficiently. Remember, don't cover the holes completely, but put chopsticks between them to make room for air. Plastic bucket with fermentation layerIf you bother to take one more step and make a container for a fermentation layer in the bucket, it will make the best condition for garbage compost. The container can be a wire basket or a smaller bucket with drilled holes (smaller than 1cm in diameter). Making this layer prevents the sogginess and helps air circulation. This is how easy and simple it is to make compost on your balcony. Don't you feel like doing it yourself now? From now on, I think I'm going to make my compost at home.I introduced Yoshinaga-cho in Okayama prefecture previously, where you can get the soil full of good microorganisms called Yoshinaga-kin. If you are interested, why not contact them? Let's try and make your own compost out of kitchen waste and grow green vegetable, green onions and herbs in your front garden. Translation: Serina Nishioka (Ecology Symphony Oct 2001)
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