Holiday worms?
This article, from Boulder Organic, mentions giving worms for the holidays:
Downing says ellie’s also carries worm-composting bins that are about 14 inches square and two feet high. They range from $75 to $85.
The worms must be purchased separately, she says, but you can complement the gift with a copy of the book Worms Eat My Garbage by Mary Appelhof for $12.95.
This seems like an alright idea, but for maximum success of a worm bin, I feel it’d be better to wait until spring to give this gift. Then it’s more likely to have a happy place in a ‘in-between space’ like a garage or a basement. Also, one won’t be as tempted to overfeed it, since there’ll be a compost pile for organic waste (or at least, the weather will be better for creating one).
What do you think?
Add comment December 16, 2009
Worm bins for offices
I thought this exchange, on the Fort Collins worm exchange list, was enlightening, so I thought I’d post it here with comments.
Aaron Orechwa asks:
Hi I am in charge of implementing a compost program here at our office in Fort Collins, CO. Our office consists of approximately 35 people, and I thought it may be a good idea to start a composting system to divert daily organic waste into our solid waste stream. Right now I am looking into a green cone system for food waste and a rotating barrel system for yard waste as well.
Given the current climate and weather conditions, is worm composting a good idea? We will have to place the compost outside because of corporate policy difficulty in having an indoor system. Let me know if you can help or suggest any better ideas. Thanks
John Anderson answers:
Corporate policies of externalizing costs have gotten us in this environmental perdicament to start with so that needs to no longer be an acceptable practice. Worm composting can be done outdoors effectively. . What do you suppose they did with out us for 6 hundred million years? Systems can be designed to fit your resource output and our weather extremes with no on going carbon footprint. To size the system you must first need to know volume of the resource by weight on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. Hope that helps.
See me at cowormman.com for further info. The intent of this exchange is for community households with or without composting worms to get connected and exchange their resources. Talk to you soon about possibilities?
John A. www.cowormman. com
I was unable to find sizing information on John’s website, but a bit of googling turned up this:
Making some wild assumptions about Aaron’s situation, lets assume that we can get away with 1/3 sqft/person, because each person only eats lunch at the office (1/3 of their meals), and 1/2 the time folks eat out. Therefore 2sqft/person*1/2*1/3 = 1/3sqft/person. (Of course, the best way to estimate size would be to measure discarded organic waste first.) 35*1/3 equals approximately 12 sqft of worm bin. That’s only 2×6, which is probably a fine configuration.
Other considerations:
- having the worm bin outside: eminently possible here in Colorado. Just make sure the worms can escape into the ground and insulate. You can see pictures of John’s worm windrows here, and they definitely survive the Fort Collins winters.
- overfeeding: as Melanie Nehls Burow warns, “[b]etter to underfeed than to overfeed in general.” It’s easy to get enthusiastic and overfeed your worms, especially if you didn’t put enough in the system to start with.
- underfeeding: especially in winter, how is feeding going to happen? This is obviously a key issue, and should be resolved at the beginning
- what to do with resulting vermicompost: you’ll have a lot from a bin this size. Give it to employees? Give it to the landscaping company? Advertise it on craigslist/freecycle? What you definitely don’t want is to end up throwing it away.
- general maintenance: replacing bedding, removing castings and/or vermicompost, watering bin when dry. These are all tasks that need to be done on a semi regular basis.
I think, in general, worm composting for office situations is better than traditional composting. No work to turn it, capable of processing large amounts of food wastes (which I imagine are the typical wastes from a typical office), and relatively low cost.
Add comment December 15, 2009
Orange peels in worm bins?
I like to put all my organic waste in my worm bin. However, during the winter, I like to load up on citrus, and in particular orange peels. In “Worms Eat My Garbage”, Mary Appelhof says that orange peels can be put in worm bins. I have often put peels in my bin, but a few years ago, I overloaded a bin with too many peels.
So, what to do with orange peels, especially large amounts of them (mmm, clementines!)?
Recently, a discussion thread on this very subject occurred on the_worm_bin. sesealrcd said orange peels “are very anti bacterial”. I looked for any evidence of that, and found some references on alternative medicine websites, but nothing I would consider conclusive. From personal experience, I have seen orange peels take longer to rot than other foods.
Nan just “cut[s] them up fine then just throw[s] them on top and they break down into the soil” near her roses. Connie adds them to some big bins with lots of other food, and doesn’t put them in very often–every 10 days or so. Students in Davis CA also put orange peels in their worm bins. Sherry chops up her rinds in a food processor and adds them as well.
If you don’t want to put peels in your worm bin, Rob suggested killing ants by “soaking pieces of peel in a recycled gallon jug then drench the ant hill.” I found a page referencing an experiment with citrus oils and fire ants, in which “[i]n most trials, the level of activity in mounds receiving citrus oil alternatives was statistically comparable to conventional diazinon formulations”. I also have personally just saved dried orange peels and given them to a friend who used them to make soap and potpourri.
As always, experiment. There are a number of other ways to use peels, and it looks like adding some to your bin, and then monitoring worm health, is a viable option.
Add comment December 4, 2009
Vermicomposting and vermiculture around the world
I get email every time Google finds a post using the words ‘redworms’ or ‘vermiculture’. (You can set up the same thing with Google Alerts.) I have been letting these accumulate in my inbox, but there are a number of interesting articles showing the wide-ranging nature of vermicomposting, so I thought I’d compile and publish them.
Grand Rapids, Michigan sent a beekeeper to Nicaragua; there he learned vermiculture and now has “a compost pile with thousands of red worms.” In Detroit, Justin Pawloske “[collects] food from two area grocery stores that otherwise would have found its way into a landfill, and [composts] it with the use of worms”.
In Wisconsin, Will Allen of Growing Power uses worms in his composting systems on his urban farms because “[t]he worm castings make great fertilizer.”
A number of schools are doing vermicomposting. In Utah, West Point grade school is “using Red Wigglers to compost cafeteria scraps”. In Ontario, Scott Young Public School is also vermicomposting their cafeteria waste. In Kansas, Starside Elementary has set up vermicomposting systems, where “red worms eat food scraps, newspapers, and even junk mail.” In Ithaca, Caroline Elementary school’s fourth grade class is vermicomposting.
In Pennsylvania, the Haverford House, a part of Haverford College, is vermicomposting.
In the developing world, Spier Hotel, in Zambia, has a “waste-plus-worms-equals-compost vermiculture programme” as well as other sustainability initiatives. They are using Biolytix [PDF], an Australian sewage technology.
In India, villages are setting up backyard vermicomposting and selling vermicompost.
In Guatemala, a non profit considered using vermiculture as a profitable rural enterprise.
In South Africa, vermiculture is part of an “agricultural job-creation project.”
In the Philipines, residents who have been resettled near Bayanijuan plan to “start a vermiculture project.” There’s also a facebook page about a vermiculture project in that country.
In Minnesota, Mark Campbell, a resident of Edina, “tosses his kitchen waste in his vermiculture bin in the basement and uses the “tea” and castings to fertilizer his garden.” He also “ripped up most of the grass in his yard because he considers grass a waste of precious resources”. You can view a video of Mark here, though it focuses on fruit trees and apple crisp.
In Massachusetts, residents of cities with ‘pay as you throw’ garbage collection use vermicompost to save money and process their food scraps.
The Wall Street Journal reviews various composting options, including the Worm Factory, a vermicomposting bin.
In Maine, Redworms for a Green Earth exhibited at the Green Home and Living Show. Redworms were also featured at the Christ Episcopal Church’s ‘Blessing of the Animals’ in Ponte Vedra, Florida. In California, a real estate blogger covers why vermicomposting is important for green real estate.
And, because this is a blog about worms in Colorado, here’s another great article about John Anderson and his company Garbage Busters.
I also got a lot of fishing reports–apparently redworms really are popular with fishermen!
2 comments November 25, 2009
Questions: Plant diseases in feedstock and can worm cocoons drown?
Melissa, a reader, asks:
Could you tell me what the likelihood of mature vermicast containing plant diseases originating in leaves used as feedstock? I know that properly produced worm tea suppresses/fights plant diseases when applied to plants. However, I read on line that Australian standards for vermicast require some degree of pasteurization of feedstocks for mature vermicast. I appreciate any help you can give me with this.
Also, can worm coccoons drown in worm tea?
Thanks.
Melissa, thanks for writing in! I am afraid I don’t have any firm answers to either of your questions.
First off, as you know, worm composting does not reach the high temperatures that normal composting does. That heat is what kills plant diseases. While redworms have shown effectiveness in dealign with human pathogens, and vermicompost helped supress several plant diseases [PDF], I was unable to find anything directly attacking the problem you have: feedstock infected with a plant disease. If I were looking to sell the vermicompost, or use it on food plants that would come in contact with it, I would make some first and getit tested for the particular disease that was in the feedstock. Then, depending on that result, you could always start by hot composting the feedstock first. (As an aside, here’s an interesting abstract showing the finished product of worm composting and hot composting end up with dramatically different types of bacteria populations.)
Second, I’m not sure whether or not worm cocoons can drown. I found several references on the web to viable worm cocoons floating, but when I put a worm cocoon in water, it sank. I found other conflicting references. Again, in searching, I found some interesting facts (some worm cocoons can survive -8 degree celsius (-22 F) for 3 months, cocoons dehydrate at lower temperatures) but no authoritative studies on the survival characteristics of redworm cocoons. Here’s a forum post from the author of “Worms Eat My Garbage” which indicates that cocoons are not hurt by water:
The safest course would be to sift cocoons out before you make worm tea, or perhaps skim off the bottom layer periodically, since hatched worms are known to die in 100% water environments.
These are both fascinating questions experiments; please let me know if you end up experiementing around either one.
Add comment November 15, 2009
Vermicomposting workshop in Holyoke
The Phillips County Extension office is offering a workshop on vermiculture. Date is unknown, but if you’re interesting in wormkeeping and you live around Holyoke, CO, give Linda a call.
Three other workshops with topics of aquaponics, micro greens and hoop houses and vermiculture will be offered.
For more information or to register contact Linda Langelo at 854-3616.
Read everything in the announcement, courtesy of the Holyoke Enterprise.
Add comment November 11, 2009
Preparing your worm bin for the winter
Winter is coming, at least in the northern hemisphere, and that means that you need to spend some time thinking about your worm bin. I had a reader (Linda, my future mother in law) as about this.
Now, if your worm bin is inside, the only thing you need to do is make sure it can handle your food waste. If you have been splitting your feeding between an outside and inside worm bin, or an inside bin and a compost pile, then the inside worm bin probably doesn’t have the population to handle all your waste. Up the feeding slowly, and throw some of your food waste away.
If, like me, you have an outside worm bin, then you will want to do a couple of things.
- Clear out some of the vermicompost and castings. This is the perfect time to do so (or, maybe last month was). Your worms have been working hard all summer, and you’ve probably had the chance to give them a lot of food. You might have been so busy enjoying the summer that you let them fill up their bin. I took out about 18 gallons of worm castings and vermicompost (and I’m sure, a few worms and cocoons) from my worm bin, and put it in my garden for next summer. This will open up space for you to feed the worms for the winter.
- Make sure the worms have the ability to ‘go to ground’. If your compost bin is in contact with the ground, the worms can retreat into the ground if the bin starts to get cold. This is good advice for the summer as well. If you have an independent bin, you can bury it in the ground a bit. If you have your worm bins on a balcony, you might want to bring them inside, at least on any nights where it is going to be freezing for a long period of time.
- Make sure you can still feed your worms. Your worms can last for weeks without food, but not months. Also, the composting of the food can provide some warmth to counter balance the cold.
- You can provide them insulation (here’s an example of using straw to insulate against the Canadian winter), but make sure you can get in and feed them at least once every couple of weeks. I insulate them by making sure plenty of leaves are on top of their food. (Fall is also a great time to pick up leaves to provide bedding for your worms all next year.)
That said, I live in Boulder, Colorado, where we have some cold weeks and some warm weeks every winter. (We’re USDA zone 5.) And by warm, I mean ‘above freezing’. If you live in zone 8 or zone 9, you probably don’t have to worry at all. And if you live in zone 1 or 2 and want to keep worms outside, I’d suggest heavy insulation, or moving them to the garage.
1 comment November 5, 2009
I’m now twittering! You can follow me here. For now, it’s just another way to find my blog posts.
Add comment October 31, 2009
Myco-vermicomposting article
The Mad Bioneer, over in Arizona, has a fascinating post on combining vermicomposting with mycoculture, or the raising of mushrooms. I’ve raised mushrooms briefly, but only for food, not for composting purposes. It looks liek worms and mushrooms complement each other, at least when your primary material is wood chips. The mushrooms can break down the wood chips, and the worms can eat what’s broken down, as well as the mycelium (mushroom ‘roots’).
He also shares lessons. He talks about what you can expect in terms of mushroom production:
The worms will reduce the number of mushrooms you get from the wood chips by at least half. I don’t think they can really get into the log to steal from there. They eat the mycelium, weakening the mycelium and reducing its ability to produce mushrooms. So if you are doing it for mushroom production, have more of a two-bin system. Let the mushrooms grow alone on the wood chips first, then let the worms have a crack at it to finish it off. If you try the worms first and then the mycelium, the worms get a lovely snack and you get no mushrooms at all. I tried inoculating a worm bin with some mushroom spawn that I didn’t really have plans for. I came back a few days later to see if it had taken off and it was completely gone. The worms had eaten it.
Watch out for those red wigglers! They eat everything.
And also about what he thinks the soil nutrition content is for the broken down wood chips (not too balanced):
Lately some of my plants in the compost have been kind of pathetic looking. I think it might be due to the nutrient content of the soil. After all, it was made from pure wood chips. I haven’t had a chance to test the soil, but my guess is that it is a little low in nitrogen at least and possibly potassium and phosphorus. I would recommend the addition of a good organic rock-based fertilizer regularly with the various layers of organic matter that you add. The rock-based fertilizer, such as greensand for potassium and rock phosphate for phosphorus, will have more staying power in the soil than the quick-fix type fertilizers. I don’t know of a rock-based source of nitrogen, so I use blood meal. They will also be good for the mushrooms that you get in there, as they are used to breaking down rock for minerals. A little sand or pea gravel in the layers might also be good to help out the soil structure. Of course, ignore this if you are composting in one place and using the compost elsewhere.
This makes sense. The redworms can turn nutrients into different, more accessible forms, but, as I mention in my post about sending my worm castings to a soil lab, the chemical contents of your bin depend on what you put into it. Earthworms aren’t alchemists!
Regardless, this sounds like an adventure in composting. Definitely read the whole article. I also enjoyed one of his other articles about mycorrhizal fungus.
Add comment October 26, 2009
Upcoming composting workshop with John Anderson on Nov 7
From the Broomfield Enterprise:
John “The Worm Man” Anderson, an expert in the art of vermicomposting, will present a workshop on the basics of using worms to compost kitchen and yard waste from 9 to 11 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 7, in the Lakeshore Room of the Broomfield Community Center at 280 Lamar St. Cost: $10. Sponsored by Broomfield master gardeners. Registration required: 720-887-2286.
Here’s all their upcoming events.
Add comment October 19, 2009
