I helped the author of a worm composting article in the Boulder Weekly a week or two ago, and it’s now up on their website. From “Let Worms Eat Your Garbage” by Charmaine Getz:
Moore, a web developer who once spent two weeks in Australia as a volunteer farm worker, raised the lid and introduced me to his red wrigglers. There was a whiff of plant rot.
“I haven’t been here in a couple of months,” Moore apologized, as he hefted a bag of dead leaves into the bin. “It doesn’t smell when you give it regular attention.”
By that he meant renewing with fresh worm food and removing the compost more frequently. Still, the bin smelled less than my weekly wormless kitchen compost.
Moore pulled out a drawer near the bottom of the bin into which worm castings had fallen. The contents looked like the black gold that I buy at the garden center.
The bin yields about 10-20 pounds of compost twice a year that go to the condominium association for its community garden. Moore started another worm bin recently at the home he shares with his fiancée, Pam Sinel.
Read the whole article here.
May 6th, 2010
I wrote a while back about redworms in a Durango middle school. I actually contacted the teacher there (in late March) and was able to ask her some questions about her experiences.
Dan: What piqued your interest in vermiculture?
Sharon: Actually, it was Jennifer Craig (Durango Compost) whom I met at the Farmer’s market in Durango a few years ago, and I was tired of buying expensive worm casting soil for my garden. Now I have tea, and great compost.
D: How many bins do you have running?
S: I have one huge bin… a commercial metal bin that holds about 16 pounds of worms. It has a heater, but it is not adequate for our cold winters (it has to be outside on the dock at school) so I had to use rope lights wound around it with a thermal wrap over that. It worked great; however it is now difficult to regulate the heat factor, so I am wrapping it with reflective material. Unfortunately, there is no other spot.
D: How have the kids reacted?
S: They think it is very cool! Of course, some of them don’t want to touch the worms, but I make them, and then they are ok. Now, since we are turning over soil in the garden, they bring the biggest earthworms they can find and are very proud of themselves. Who can figure?
D: How have the parents reacted?
S: Great! I am holding a workshop in April to show them how to make their own worm bins so I’ll let you know how many are really interested.
D: Is it in the classroom, or in a different space? Is it inside? How do you handle odors/fruit flies (if you have them)?
S: It is on the dock. I had them in an empty room in 5 different bins, but fruit flies were an issue. No one was patient enough to see if the neem oil would work, so we took them to the big bin, where they are not a bother. I will be spraying neem oil soon to that bin. The bin odor is not an issue, as we must be feeding them the right amount because it doesn’t smell bad…just earthy.
D: How much do you feed the worm bins a week? How many worms did you start with? Do you feed them mostly food scraps? What do you use for bedding?
S: Right now we are feeding them about 4 lbs. of food a week, mostly raw food scraps and coffee grounds. Our bedding is shredded paper and newspaper. We started with 5 lbs of worms, but given our data, we think there are about 8 lbs. now.
D: How do you harvest the compost?
S: It is mechanical—a handle rotates and it comes out the bottom. I don’t like it as well as our smaller bins (we had layers of screening with bedding and food, and they worked their way up, and mostly compost was on the bottom.
D: How much time/week do you (or your class) spend maintaining the bins?
S: We take the temperature daily and feed once a week, so no more than 10 minutes a day. Sometimes we do data collecting which will be a class period.
D: What overall lessons are you trying to convey with the worm bins?
S: The worms are just a part of our greenhouse program. I want them to understand that garbage can be of recycled to benefit our garden, and that worms (red wigglers) are the most prolific entity to help us reduce waste in our landfills, and at the same time producing an incredible amount of nourishment for our gardens. If every household had a worm bin, we would have glorious gardens, among other things!
April 30th, 2010
I found an article on this topic via the_worm_bin, and it’s great. It discusses the three things you can do wrong in a worm bin: over feeding, over watering and over stimulating. In particular, the tips to avoid overfeeding are good:
When starting a new bin, start feeding 1/4 of worms weight. Most people suggest feeding their weight. Yes, maybe later but not at the beginning. Let them get used to their new home. So if you have a pound of worms start with 1/4 pound of feed.
This is in line with some of the other feedback I’ve gotten in the past: “[f]eed your worms gently at the beginning”, but is more specific than anything else I’ve seen.
I’ve said before that keeping worms is easy, but, especially if you’re going to keep the worm bin in your house, and not in some in between space, it’s worth reviewing these tips.
April 20th, 2010
Via John Anderson, I found the Supermarket Composting Handbook (2MB pdf), produced by JFConnolly & Associates and WasteCap of Massachusetts. This handbook, while it doesn’t mention worm composting, is a fantastic resource for anyone who is attempting to implement composting at a corporate level. It discusses the economics of composting vs trash hauling, monitoring program success, employee training, has sample contracts and signage for employees and consumers, and in general appears to be a fantastic resource.
Here’s my favorite takeaway from the Handbook:
As waste disposal costs rise and the need to help improve our environment becomes increasingly more important, supermarket operators are looking for alternatives to reduce disposal costs through recycling more of their waste. Seventy five percent (75%) of most supermarket waste, after recycling cardboard, paper and plastics, is comprised of non-recyclable biodegradable materials including discarded food, waxed and wet cardboard, paper, renderings, soil, and plants. Recycling these wastes through composting can be a lower cost alternative to disposal and makes a lot of sense for supermarkets.
Of course, the economics for composting vs recycling vs landfilling are different for every location, but this handbook makes evaluating composting as a solution easy.
April 10th, 2010
The Rocky Mountain Sustainable Living Association is hosting a vermicomposting workship, run by none other than the Colorado Worm Man himself, John Anderson. I found out about this via this tweet from the Front Range Permaculture Institute. From the description:
In this workshop participants will imagine the re-use of materials and the repurposing of items into a functional and efficient organic conversion machine. Really! John will cover super simple on ground designs to elegant flow-thru concepts to keep our worm friends comfortable inside or out. John will show and tell and inspire from fifteen years of designing, constructing and using worm bins. Then we will get to work physically creating worm bins from the items and materials that have been gathered at the ReSource site. Some we will start, some we will be able to finish, and some we will sell to support non-profits.
Sounds like fun to me!
April 8th, 2010
There was an interesting thread on the_worm_bin in March about storing vermicompost. Vermicompost, you may recall, is the intermediate stage between feedstock (food waste, rabbit poop, etc) and castings (worm poop). Bentley has a nice definition:
Vermicompost is really a more accurate term when it comes to the material produced in most worm composting systems. It is basically a mixture of worm castings, partially composted wastes, and any resistant materials that won’t readily break down. Really high quality vermicompost should have a high percentage of worm castings in it, but the chances of having every last bit of material in your system pass through a worm at least once is pretty slim.
I typically only remove vermicompost from my bin once or twice a year, and apply it directly to plants or planting beds, so storage is not really an issue for me. However, I can see this being an issue, especially if you are in one of the following situations
- selling vermicompost
- producing large amounts for other purposes
- have a small bin and want to switch out the vermicompost for more feedstock
So, here are some of the solutions.
Buddy says “I store mine in a loosely covered container in a cool corner of my garage. The cover helps to keep the castings from drying out too much, but allows enough air flow so that they do not turn sour. Stored this way, they should be good for at least a year.”
Liz says “I store mine in 5 gallon buckets with holes drilled in the lids. I moisten them monthly to keep the bin active AND I top feed with a rind of somesort like watermelon and once a month when I water I lift the rind to transfer any worms.”
Allison says “Store it in any ventilated container and water it occasionally so that it doesn’t dry out completely. If it does dry out it is still good compost but not as good as if you keep it alive by keeping it aerated and moist. BTW: When you go to use it you might find some worms have hatched out so you might want to do a final check for them; they don’t tend to like going into garden soil so its better to pick them out.”
So, it sounds like the keys to storing vermicompost are:
- keep it in a cool place
- keep it moist (but not too moist)
- keep it aerated
- remove any worms who have hatched
Anything else to think about when it comes to storing vermicompost? Have you had any bad experiences doing so?
April 2nd, 2010
Via the Durango Herald, I found this article about a greenhouse at Escalante Middle School. From the article:
A photovoltaic system installed at Escalante Middle School will make a campus greenhouse operational and allow students in Sharon Orr’s elective “greenworks” class to do more than grow vegetables.
…
The class of 24 students will be doing a lot more than greenhouse work, Orr said. She plans to introduce vermiculture, composting, pollination, plant identification and food preparation before the year is over. In inclement weather, the students can investigate what’s happening on the Fat Spaniel network.
March 24th, 2010
I received an email from Jim McIntyre at Covered Bridge Organic, in Ohio. He’s another worm bin vendor, but with a slightly different take. His focus is on outside worm bins, as well as hot composting. Currently, he is running trials on keeping worms outside during the Ohio winter, using a two shell composting system, with leaves or other insulation in between. I was able to ask him a few questions about his experiences.
Dan: How long have you been doing composting? How long have you been doing worm composting?
Jim: I’ve been composting, though not continuously, for 20 years. Began with windrow composting of dairy and horse manures used in growing produce as a member of Covered Bridge Organic Farms Coop. The Wishing Well composter I developed is a spin-off from the ag coop. At a recycling trade show nine years ago I bought the working display model from a vermiculture exhibitor and kept it working in the basement, then in the garage when we moved.
We’re an independent distributor of the smaller Soilsaver Classic compost bin along with our larger Wishing Well design. When I needed more room in the garage two years ago, I dumped the worm bin contents into a Soilsaver that was set up outside by the back door. As fall came, the worm bin’s indoor space was gone. I had to figure a way to leave those poor worms out in the cold. I made a blanket of leaves stuffed between the larger Wishing Well bin surrounding the Soilsaver containing the worms. Easy, an off the shelf fix, or so I hoped. After a cold northern Ohio winter, I opened the bottom gate on the Soilsaver to find hundreds of worms in the very first shovel full.
D: Why do you prefer outdoor worm composting to indoor worm composting?
J: Worms belong outside. No flies, odor, chance of spillage while moving, floor space taken up, nor mess on the floor while cleaning.
D: What are possible upsides/downsides of outdoor vermicomposting that people should consider?
J: The two factors to affect outdoor vermicomposting are weather and volume. Temperature extremes need to be avoided: summer’s heat and winter’s cold. The volume of the bin’s contents needs to be of sufficient mass to allow for migration of the worms to a favorable environment.
D: What particular challenges of indoor vermicomposting does outdoor vc overcome?
J: As above–Worms belong outside. No flies, odor, chance of spillage while moving, floor space taken up, nor mess on the floor while cleaning.
D: How do you use your vermicompost/castings?
J: Mid-spring, as weather warms, I remove the Wishing Well enclosure from around the Soilsaver worm bin, open the bottom access doors and begin to shovel out the finished material onto a 2 foot by 3 foot piece of plywood placed over a wheelbarrow. As worms avoid light by migrating into the pile, the top layers are pealed into the wheelbarrow until remaining worm mass is saved. Continue to harvest, then place the worms back into the bin. Wheel barrow contents is then used in spring planting.
D: How is surrounding a soil saver with a wishing well and stuffing leaves between superior to using hay bales or bags of leaves?
J: Makes a more visually attractive outdoor appliance that is easy to assemble. Offers an insulated winter worm composter that can be separated into a spring through fall yard waste composter, the Wishing Well, and a separate worm composter, the Soilsaver, for 9 months of the year. Leaves are free, hay bales can be hard to find and costly in urban areas.
D: Any advice to starting worm composters?
J: Worms are not tender creatures with exotic needs. They can ingest a wide range of organic materials, survive in a temperature range from 30′s up to almost 100F, migrate to find food, avoid light and pH extremes. Composting worms are native to Europe, and have been introduced to every other continent except the Antarctic. They’re hardy creatures which are native all over the world. Keep them outside where they belong.
D: As far as your business goes, have you found people receptive to worm composting? Is outdoor hot composting an alternative or a first step towards worm composting?
J: This is the second year of field trials. Although I’ve found much supportive data on the Net, we’ve not yet developed a product package. Outdoor hot composting during the summer in the Wishing Well could be a preliminary step to worm composting in the Soilsaver during winter.
March 22nd, 2010
Via Bentley at redwormcomposting.com, I discovered vermiponics. Basically, vermiponics is similar to aquaponics, but instead of using fish as the animal portion of that system, you use some kind of composting worm. Here’s an introductory article talking about Bentley’s experiments.
This kind of integrated system fascinates me (which is why I drew up a chicken chart for redworms), so I went looking for other information. Someone has registered vermiponics.com, but there’s not a lot of information on that website. (His thesis, “Ecologically Engineered Primary Production in Central Queensland, Australia – Integrated Fish and Crayfish Culture, Constructed Wetlands, Floral Hydroponics, and Industrial Wastewater”, does look very interesting, as PhD theses go.)
Someone named Phill from Australia has posted some diagrams of vermiponics systems, on his blog and in a powerpoint presentation (starting on page 18). He’s also posted a video about it.
There also appears to be some discussion about vermiponics in at least one of the Aquaponics forums: here’s a thread about redworms for solids removal and a general vermiponics thread.
I haven’t had time or space or weather to experiment with this type of system. Do you have any experience? Success stories or failure stories?
March 12th, 2010
It’s been a while since I checked in on my human hair + paper towels + negligence worm bin. Here’s part 1, part 2 and part 3. To review, I wanted to see if worms could survive and/or thrive on a diet of just human hair (gathered from a barber) and wet paper towels (from an office bathroom), and minimal effort on my part.
About a month after part 2, due to some subtle pressure, I moved the worm bin outside. After that, the only maintenance I did was to move the worm bin from flagstone to a garden bed when the weather got cold (so the worms had the option to find greener pastures, so to speak).
After a year of almost total neglect, the worms weren’t doing so well. I looked through the bin, and only saw a couple of them. I was also moving, so I added the contents of the hair worm bin to my large outside bin:
Human hair added to worm bin
You can see that the hair is partially decomposed, but definitely, 1.5 years after I started the experiment, not totally converted to castings, even though the environment looked pretty worm friendly (not too wet, not too dry, dark).
This leads me to the conclusion that pure human hair is not a good feedstock for worms. I think it clumps up too much, has difficulty absorbing water, and break down quickly (“[m]icroorganisms [need to] soften the food before worms will eat it”). However, I have added hair into my larger worm bin and had it get processed fairly quickly, so I think some hair is fine to add (for example, the hair seems to have disappeared from my outside bin, based on a brief inspection). Just don’t overdo it.
March 2nd, 2010
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