Boulder Vermicomposting

Interview: Tips from an indoor vermicomposter and master composter

August 7th, 2009

I had the good fortune to interview Melanie Nehls Burow recently.  She has been teaching the Basics of Backyard Composting and Worm Composting in Boulder County for 9 years through the County’s Master Composter classes and other compost workshops.  For an updated schedule on where and when she is teaching next, or composting questions, contact her at andrewmel at yahoo dot com.  She has been worm composting for 7 years.  Melanie recently dealt with a setback (more on that below) but is headed back to worm composting full bore.

I like that she shares a couple of tips for dealing with fruit flies, talks about how to deal with John Anderson’s worm buckets (after she raves about the quality of his worms) and keeps her worms in her dining room!

Dan: When did you start worm farming?

Melanie: I started worm composting (I like that term instead of farming, I compost with my worms and do not grow them to sell, etc) with an indoor bin about 7 years ago.  We have always lived in an apartment or condo, so it works well for us.

D: How many people does your worm bin support?  What percentage of your food waste would you say goes in there?

M: Our worm bin just supports 2 adults, can’t do much more than that.  I’d estimate that at least 50% of our food waste goes in there (except for the last few months…see below), but that is a rough estimate.

D: Any factors to worry about in Colorado?

M: Not if you are doing it indoors.  I do a bin inside my house and it works great year round.  The biggest worry I would say is to get worms grown in Colorado and not mail-ordered from California…I find the Colorado worms do better overall.

D: Where did you get your worms from?

M: John Anderson, the “worm man” in the Fort Collins area.  I only buy my worms from him because they are hardy (they live outside year round) and they are used to Colorado and all that means in terms of soil, weather, etc.  And he, or a friend, often come to the Boulder area so its easy to hook with him and get them without having to drive up and get them.

D: Cool.  I visited his worm farm in April and it is quite a place.  Did you buy the 5 gallon bucket?  If so, did you separate out the worms from the vermicompost they were in (I realize this was 7 years ago, so no worries if you don’t remember it)?

M: This weekend [this was a few weeks ago], I will be separating the worms out, yes, as I get mine going again (Have them in my bucket from him, ready to go!).  I like to spread the contents of the bucket out on a tarp, and do a mix of hand sorting them out and tossing them into the new bin (on top of the newspaper bedding I already put in there).  Then, besides the worms, I add back to my bin about 2 inches or so what they were living in, the castings, (to get all the babies, etc, too)  The rest of the castings left in the bucket from John is just fabulous worm castings that I will use to make compost tea and use selectively in my garden (again, because its valuable precious stuff).

D: What do you do with your worms/castings/vermicompost?

M: I have used the castings mostly on my garden plot.  They are a precious commodity, since not a lot is produced and I have a large garden.  I have also used mine to make a compost tea.  The worms I have used to start a second bin at work.

D: Have you done any experiments on how worm castings help your garden?  Have you noticed how it helps the plants?  How much do you put on plants, and how often?

M: I have not done any experiments with this.  However, I find that worm castings is the best stuff for plants, better than even regular backyard compost.  Since worm bins don’t produce a lot of worm castings, I use mine mostly in the spring and mix it into the soil before I plant.  If I get some out when its not that time, I save it for the spring when I’m adding compost to my garden soil or use it to make a compost tea (great to apply anytime to plants!)

D: Any particular challenges to keeping worms?

M: I think the biggest challenges are overfeeding, and this leads to the second challenge, fruitflies.  I think because its so easy to toss things in (our’s at home is located about 10 feet from where we are chopping veggies, etc) that there is a tendency to overfeed the worms, plus you start to see food scraps as something valuable that you don’t want to throw away, even if the worms already have enough food.  This extra means fresh food is left sitting on top of the pile in the worm bin for a while and so this attracts fruitflies.  Easy enough to deal with, but still annoying to have them buzz out at you when you open the lid.

D: so, if you try to avoid over feeding, what do you do with the extra scraps you can’t feed the worms?  How much does a week’s worth of scraps weigh?  How do you deal with fruitflies?

M: The extra scraps we have put into a ziploc bag (gallon size) in the freezer to add to the compost collection at our garden plot ([at the] community gardens).  Also, sometimes, they do just go into the trash (I know, bad!).  A week’s scraps are about 4 pounds or so, I’d guess.  As for getting rid of fruitflies, we typically just take the bin outside, and open the lid and let most fly out and away.  Let the bin sit out, lid off for 10 minutes or so, and that gets rid of most of them.  To help avoid the fruitflies, we often nuke in the microwave whatever we are putting in (banana peels, veggie trimmings, whatever) for 1 minutes.  That brings it past the fresh point enough that the fruit flies aren’t interested.  It just really works.

D: Where is your worm box?

M: In our dining room, on hardwood floor, underneath our antique hutch and just about 2 feet away from our table.  It is fun to scare our guests and say “Did you know we have worms in the house?” and point to the box.  They often think the worms are going to jump out of there or something at them.  Makes for a good opener on educating that they can do worm composting, too.

D: Any pictures of it?  What does it look like?  Where did you buy it?  How big is it?

M: No pictures of it, as I am just getting it going again.  My husband kind of went overboard adding things to it and it became too wet and fruitfly-ey even for us. That was several months ago and we are just now getting it going again (I know, bad me!).  However, what we are using is a 10 gallon roughneck Rubbermaid tote, bought at McGuckins for $12 or something.  It is about 8″ H x 30″ wide x 12″ deep.  Has a tight fitting lid.  I have drilled the holes in the lid and upper part of side. Wouldn’t buy [a commercial system] as they are expensive (like $100+) and in my experience, these homemade ones just work much better.

D: What do you feed your worms?

M: Mostly fruit & veggie scraps, egg shells.  We have found that they don’t like herb trimmings.  One time while making pesto, I tried to put the herb stems in the worm bin and by 2 days later, all the worms were on the ceiling of my worm bin (to get away from the herbs).  Once I took the herb stems out, they were fine.  That is something I love about worms, they will tell you if they don’t like something (by crawling away from it).

D: Raw eggshells, or just egg shells from cooked eggs?

M: I would feed them both kinds, doesn’t matter!

D: Any advice for new worm farmers?

M: Feed your worms gently at the beginning…we are usually enthusiastic to start and we tend to overfeed them right away, which leads to fruitflies, which leads to frustration on your part.  Better to underfeed than to overfeed in general.

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