Khushi's 4-H Project

TREASURING THE TRASH 

Trying to treasure the trash sounds like a complicated job, but it isn't as hard as it seems. You can treasure many of the things you throw away daily and use them as everyday materials. Ever wonder  what to do with your old shirts besides donating them? Have you ever needed some reusable bags that you can use for grocery shopping or storage keeping? And don't want to pay five dollars or maybe even ten dollars buying them at a super market? Don't worry because I have the perfect idea for you. Make shirt bags!! It's that easy. No mess, no waste. And you won't even need to buy any supplies for this activity. All you will need is your old shirts, scissors, a needle and thread or tape, and any other decorating supplies you need to add your personal touch to the bag.

-Khushi  Nigam

Unqiue Ways of Composting!

For my 4-H presentation, I did some research and experiments on the unique ways of composting.

One of my topics was lemon in compost. I learned that lemon can be added to the compost and this helps the compost in that it manages the pH in the compost, gets ride of the color, and increases the speed of the composting. However, there has to be limited amount of lemon in the compost. There shouldn't be more than one lemon skin in one layer of compost (a layer is a proportion of food waste and yard waste from one week's collection).

Next, I researched the different things that can be added to the compost bin. I was surprised to learn that you can add unique things like almost all farm animals' manure, soy milk, and even urine. This was very intriguing and I hope in my compost I can start to add some more unique wastes!

My next topic was the comparison of plants with compost and plants without compost. I sowed marigold seeds in three different types of soils: regular, organic, and compost.
My observations:

• regular soil- very slow growth
• organic soil- all seeds did not germinate; growth was relatively faster than regular soil.
• compost - all seeds germinated as fast as organic soil, and the plant was healthier and taller.