The Diender cooperative can use the compost to help their garden continue to thrive!
In the community of Diender, the cooperative garden is producing hundreds of pounds of tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers. Now, CREATE! field technicians are teaching cooperative members to recycle the waste from their garden harvest using composting.
Diender cooperative members are using an old water basin for their compost pit. Women are composting food scraps from their kitchens and garden waste, such as stalks and rotten vegetables, from the cooperative garden site. In addition, CREATE! staff added straw and dead branches to the compost pit. To expedite the process of compost degradation, cooperative members added wood ash to the compost and covered the basin with plastic. The women will stir the compost monthly and after four months, the compost will be ready to use as fertilizer in their cooperative garden. This free and organic fertilizer will improve the soil for next season’s harvest!
Diender cooperative members are carefully tending their compost to ensure that they will have rich, organic fertilizer for next season’s crops.