What if you could create rich compost inside the house without the wind-rain-sleet-or-snow trek to the backyard pile? You can with vermiculture. Vermiculture aka worm composting is the latest in sustainable gardening practices. In addition it’s a fun project for adults or kids and you can do it conveniently year round.
“It’s great in winter when you don’t want to trudge out to the compost pile,” says master gardener Susan Levi-Goerlich, who writes curriculum for Howard County schools.
Start-up costs are relatively cheap and it costs nothing to keep going, a real bonus in our ‘use it up, make it do’ times, yet its resulting compost and leachate are worth their weight in gold (maybe not at current gold prices, but you get the drift). It doesn’t take much space either, so even those in a small condo or apartment, who want to enrich their potted plants and put their vegetative waste to good use can have one.
Worm composting is cheap because it requires minimal equipment. Of course American enterprise, being the blessing it is, offers a number of different commercial vermiculture kits. But it’s easy to make your own worm bin — just two plastic storage bins, some shredded newspaper and kitchen scraps, and some worms to start. Total outlay: something in the neighborhood of $45. The method most favored by vermicomposters-in-the-know starts with a pair of lidded plastic storage containers. A bin 13X13X17 inches (about 5 gal.) will need 500 worms (about ½ pound) to start up. Larger containers will accommodate 1000 worms. Levi-Goerlich’s worm bins, now 4 ½ years old, consist of two 10-gal. Rubbermaid containers.
To make a bin, drill a series of ¼- ½ inch air holes along the sides of one container — good air circulation is a must –and set that bin inside the un-aerated container to catch the draining leachate. (Some people also drill small drainage holes in the bottom of the aerated container to allow for better drainage.). Fill the aerated bin about 2/3 full with shredded newspaper bedding.
Jon Traunfeld, Regional Specialist, Home and Garden Information Center at University of Maryland Extension Service says to keep the newspaper-and-scraps depth to no more than 15 inches, since the breeds of worms used for vermicomposting generally live within the first 6 inches below the soil. Soak the shredded newspaper before adding it to the bin. The worms need it moist but not drenched.
“I make it as wet as a wrung out sponge,” Levi-Goerlich explains. “Then I bury food scraps and add worms.”
Food scraps are all vegetative — fruit rinds, peelings, coffee grounds, tea bags and leaves, crushed egg shells, bread and cereal — no meat or animal products. Some people add soil to provide grit since worms have gizzards in which they grind up their food, but Levi-Goerlich adds none.
“Since the bin is in the house I prefer not to introduce anything from outside,” she says.
Then, add worms. Yes, you need to buy them — or cadge them from a vermicomposting friend’s surplus. Free-range garden worms are highly unlikely to survive in the confines of a worm bin. Spring for brandling worms (Eisenia foetida) or red worms, aka red wigglers (Lumbricus rubellus) or nightcrawlers, which will help keep your favorite angler in bait. Composting worms cost somewhere between $24 and $30 a pound not including postage. Earthworms4sale.com sells a pound for $29.99 postage included.
There is virtually no smell to the worm bin provided you don’t overwhelm the system with too many kitchen scraps at one time, which can lead to odors.
“Feed your worms 2-3 times each week by burying appropriate food scraps directly under the bedding in different locations,” Traunfeld advises. “The smaller the food scraps, the quicker they will be digested.”
Like all good compost, the resulting vermicompost, a mix of worm casting, decomposed bedding and tiny organisms in the mix will be dark and crumbly and an excellent soil conditioner with a rich mix of plant nutrients. The liquid leachate is a nutrient-rich additive to the water for plants. The bin also yields additional worms, (those little guys also multiply in there while they’re composting away) so you can start a new bin or share with a friend.
“I’ve given friends over 8,000 worms from my bins so far,” Levi-Goerlich says.
Harvest your bin every 3-4 months. There are several ways to harvest. One method is to gently move all the compost and worms over to one side of the bin and add new newspaper and kitchen scraps to the other side. The worms usually migrate from the finished compost to the new stuff. Once you’ve harvested from the finished-compost side, you can make up the volume with a little additional newspaper and scraps. Another option is to build a sifting frame with a 3/16inch mesh bottom, dump the compost on it and gently sift out the worms. Yet another option is to dump it out on a tarp in the sun, and wait for about 15 minutes until the worms, which don’t like sunshine, start to wriggle down toward the bottom of the pile. Gently pull off the top inch or two of compost until you come to worms. Repeat until you end up with a pile of worms and very little compost on the tarp.
Worms can live for about one year in the worm bin. If a worm dies in your bin, you probably will not notice it. Since the worm’s body is about 90% water, it will shrivel up and become part of the compost rather quickly. New worms are born and others die all the time. Like virtually everything else in life these days, you can order worms off the internet.
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