Zune-Harra

Shauna and I had the opportunity to spend a month this summer in Zune-Harra (ZH). We worked with a JCS project doing agriculture and animals. Shauna was able to teach some English to a few High School girls and some World Vision staff. ZH has some of the best soil Mongolia has to offer and almost everyone has a garden inside their fenced in yards. Jeff was able to play with compost, sit in on 2 training sessions and ask lots of questions about the project. Midnight was also able to come with us and enjoyed being able to run free without her leash. We did not get a lot of language practice done but that was mainly because of the national holiday that was going on. It was good to get out of the capital and see plenty of green.

Compost

This summer during our time in Zune-Harra (ZH) I was able to see how well and fast compost can work in the Mongolian climate. I used one quarter green weeds and three quarter sawdust. I chopped up the weeds until they were about 2 inches long and layered everything together.
I turned the pile every three days or so, kept it covered, and watered the pile every time I turned it. After about a week most of the weeds were gone so I started adding extra garden waste. I did this about 3 times. At the end of week 3 I stopped adding material. After week 4 the pile was mostly broken down, but still keeping it's heat. There was still sawdust that needed breaking down and the weeds were molding nicely. Then of course we had to return to Ulaanbaatar. If I would do it again I would use one quarter sawdust and three quarter fresh weeds.