All YouTube channels show a common feature. While presenting the matter, unless the anchor requests the viewers to share the video, subscribe to it, and see it in full, the channel will not function successfully. Unfortunately, I don’t do it. Generally, people are very knowledgeable, and I don’t wish to cause them any discomfort with such requests. However, when I share my views about a few very important topics, my attempts fail miserably.
Two weeks back, I published a video about climate change. It is a subject that everyone in Kerala should know about because the phenomenon is impacting the whole world, it is likely to worsen further, and affect Kerala too in a big way. The uncontrolled damage we inflict on our landscape and on the earth is already beginning to affect us negatively. If we are not careful, it will bring further disasters. Everyone of us can do something or the other to reverse the trend. That was why I made that video. But it was viewed by barely 2,000 individuals. Therefore, if you have not seen it yet, please do it now. I also request that you share it with the people who must really learn from it. By that, I mean small children, our future generation.
Today I’m going to speak about mulching. Usually we do not get much material for mulching. We can use coir ropes, coir pith, dry leaves and the trunk of banana plants after they have been broken into small bits – in other words, anything that is biodegradable. Until those materials disintegrate and become soil, they will work as a cover, and permit the growth of micro-organisms. As we water our plants, the water seeps in. But sunlight will not penetrate the layer of mulch. The result is that the water will not evaporate quickly.
If we do mulching, we won’t have to water our plants daily. Once a week will be enough. This will decrease our workload. Yet we don’t do it. There are a couple of reasons for it. We fear that we have to spend additionally to procure materials used for mulching. My experience is that we can use even newspaper for the purpose. Or, tear old clothes into small bits and spread them on the ground. They will take some time to decompose. Or, you can even think of jute bags.
The other day, we discovered another solution. Tender coconut husks discarded on roadsides can form excellent mulching material. However, there were a couple of problems too. One, people who eat tender coconut usually toss the husks away thoughtlessly. The coconut, split into halves, will take a long time to disintegrate and become part of the soil. Two, the sellers cut each tender coconut into halves so that the kernel can be scooped out easily. But when the husks are thrown to the ground, they invariably fall with the empty shells facing upwards. This causes water to collect in them, and mosquitoes to breed. As a remedy, I bought a machine to break the husk into small pieces but the whole process is labour-intensive. It takes nearly a week to break up a truck load of tender coconut husks.
But Russell, who works here, came up with a solution. He began to place them at the base of the plants and trees, with the concave side touching the ground. The other problem was with the straws that came with the husks. All that have to be removed and sent to the corporation or municipality for plastic waste disposal. As for the countless pieces of the husk, sliced off by the sellers, they can be inserted as fillers below the cup-like husks. Adopting this method will help eliminate the possibility of mosquitoes laying eggs because mosquitoes will not creep into crevices. They seek out open bodies of water.
So we experimented with mulching using pieces of tender coconut husk, and this brought about a perceptible change in the nature of the soil. I don’t know whether dry, mature husk can be put to the same use. My belief is that it can’t. But I’m not sure about it. I’ve heard that it contains certain pigments that are not good for the soil or the saplings. But tender coconut husks do not have that problem. Besides, they are relatively more easily biodegradable. But dry husk is the product of certain processes. Coir pith is extracted after the coconut husk is kept immersed in water but that is not a very practicable solution for us.
Using tender coc0nut husk as mulch is easy to implement. Please try it out. You will see wonderful changes in your plot. The organic richness of the soil will improve. Besides, it will help eliminate these husk piles from our roadsides. That will be a great relief to our municipality as well. So this is a good idea, and must be adopted by the maximum number of people. It will be useful for you too.