Boulder Vermicomposting

Interview: Redworms are like bees and advice for aspiring worm keepers.

Here’s part three of my interview with Michael, a worm keeper.  See part one, where he discusses how he ignored his worms for 3 weeks post purchase, how he uses his worm bin currently, including what types of scraps, and how he built his worm bin and part two, where he talks about earthworm orgies, the five gallon bucket of worms he started with, and ignoring your worms.  Below he talks about worm trenches, how worms are like bees, whether he’d keep worms in his kitchen, and how worms fit into the permaculture way of having systems you can ignore that will do work for you (do you sense a theme?).

The money quote, for me, is

I feel like it’s been a success for me because I haven’t put a lot of effort into it.  And I’ve been able to kind of ignore it. And I like having systems around my house, my property that will take care of themselves and are self-sufficient. So, with as little effort as you can put into it, I say it go for it. Because you can’t make them do anything.  They have to do it themselves.

Dan: Huh.  I don’t remember [John] saying [that worms were in short supply, see previous post] but along that vein, you said you might want to sell worms or give worms away, do you have friends that have asked you for them or asked you about them?

M: No, but I also haven’t offered them to anybody…

D: Somebody else I interviewed, Linda, actually said that she was talking about her worms and had a bunch of people interested and then when she actually had them to give, they were not interested anymore but I don’t know what the deal is with that.

M: I don’t know myself either.

D: Yeah.

M: So like I said, maybe starting a 2nd worm bin because we have such a high production of organic waste here; we could easily support 3 more of those.

D: Well, you guys have enough land here that you could definitely do like a worm trench, you know like 20 feet long and just…

M: Carpets or something like that?

D: Yeah carpets…

M: So it’d be a windrow, is that?

D: Yeah exactly.  Well I mean a windrow, to me, is much bigger, but you know, I mean, you could definitely…

M: I was thinking just a pile on the line.

D: Yeah, yeah exactly a pile on the line, but Forest  actually was telling me about piles, I mean he in Hawaii he had one that was 20′ long and they just…

M: And 5 feet wide or something?

D: No I think it was less wide than that, I think maybe1 or 2 feet wide [note, according to the interview with Forest, it was 4 or 5 feet wide].

M: You need to keep it covered though.   Is that the idea right?

D: Yeah basically they had a hoop over it and rocks on both sides and it was actually in a chicken house so that the foxes and whatnot couldn’t get into it and then they had a really big shade cloth over the hoops and I think they had some misters too. But you can move a lot of organic matter through the worms.  Although maybe just a couple of worm boxes would be easier to maintain. I don’t know.

M: I’m new to it, I’m a total amateur.

D: Really?  Did you read anything or did it sounds like you have done some looking around just kinda see what you can expect or…

M: A couple Google searches and then the class we had on it was pretty much the extent of my worm knowledge really.

D: And then you just kind of just jumped into it because you felt like it was a really good counterpart [to other things you were doing on the land]?

M: Yeah, it just seemed to make sense and I thought…  It was more just wanting to try, see what would work.  You know I’m happy with it and I’ll keep doing it.

D: Sure.

M: It’s easy, it’s extremely easy.  I mean building the box took a little bit of effort but not much and you don’t do much.  I mean I really like the permaculture idea of having the different um components of your system doing all the work for you.  I’m a pretty lazy person by nature.

And I really resonate with the idea of, you know I love having the bees out there, we keep a beehive. So I really like the fact that bees are also very, very easy to keep.  Very, very low labor, you know.  We probably visit the bees once every 6 weeks or something, you know, just check in with them every 2 months maybe.

D: It’s been a while since you checked out the bees, hasn’t it?

M: Yeah, certain times of year you do certain things but that’s about it.  But, then the bees just sort of do their thing and what they do is they increase pollination, which is probably their primary asset, then they produce excess honey, surplus honey.  This is the first year we had a hive and it produced 70+ lbs of honey which you know we can sell for $5/lb or whatever.

D: Sure.

M: It works out really well, it’s great gifts, Christmas gifts this year will be honey.  Anyway, It’s the same thing with worms, you give them the right conditions and they do all the work, it’s really nice compost.

D: Obviously you’re not gonna get enough worm compost to spread across your huge garden out there, are you planning to [make] compost tea, are you going to focus on certain plants or have you given any thought to that?

M: Again I’m just been more concerned with building up the population in it, as far as getting anything out of it this year.  I don’t know, I’m kind of thinking about it more now that you mentioned that they don’t like to be in their own waste as much.  I’m actually not totally sure about how to harvest it.  How to get it out of there now at this point because it’s sort of mixed in with rotten food.

D: Sure.

M: And how do you do that?

D: I mean I can tell you the couple ways I’ve done it.  One way is you can just take out stuff. You can take out about half of your worm bin if you wanted to and put it places and of course you’re losing all the worms that were in there but the other half will come right back eventually, right?  That’s definitely the lowest effort way.

You can also kind of push everything, all your bedding and your vermicompost to one side and just move it to the other side, slowly, and after, I’ve seen everything from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, the worms will migrate to where the food is and of course, the half where that was old, you will be able to take all that out. There will be cocoons and whatnot in there.  But you’ll definitely [retain] more live worms than you would if you did the first method.

And the last one is you can pull all the compost out and pick through it, which doesn’t really go with along with your idea of not much effort, but does make sure that you get almost every worm that you can catch. And it can be fun; I did that, once. I mean for a pile of worms half the size of my fist, maybe a little bit smaller, took me about 45 minutes.  And it was a pile about 2 feet wide of vermicompost that I went through. So it sounds to me like the second method is probably most in keeping with your ideals.

M: I don’t really know what to do now that its getting cold, sort of entering winter here [it was October].

D: Yeah I’ve definitely had worms freeze and die in the winter.  Although your box is pretty big.

M: It’ll be ok, I just have a feeling it’ll be ok out there.  But we’ll see. I might throw some straw bales around it just in case.

D: Yeah.

M: It’s insulated.

D: Yeah, that sounds pretty good. Any thoughts about keeping them actually in [the house], inside because that’s kinda the attraction of worm bins is that you can conceivably have them inside.

M: No.

D: No?  That’s fine.

M: We don’t really have room for them in here.

D: That’s fair enough.

M: It’s pretty packed at this point.

D: So other than the compost pile is there any other place you want to put them in? I guess that’s pretty much the natural place for them.

M: Yeah.  I mean I would be interested in experimenting more with maybe laying down worms, plus raw compost and then heavy mulching around plants so that they’re [in the ground].  I’ve heard of techniques like that before.

D: Just to increase plant productivity?

M: Yeah just to increase vermicompost right at the base of the plant. [Beneficial chemicals and nutrients] are right there, readily absorbable by the plant.

D: I saw a cool video…Youtube’s great… where you can get a 3 or 4 inch diameter PVC pipe and drill a bunch of holes in the bottom and then dig it like a third of the way in and then you put worms in there and then you put food in there and then you cover it with like some kind of cloth to keep flies from getting in there and then you cover it with something to keep the sun out and then you can feed the worms in the tube and then they’ll go in and out of the holes and you can have those stationed around your garden, same kind of thing, but it’s ongoing.  [Apparently, I speak in run on sentences!]

M: Yeah I see what you mean, that’s interesting.  Little…

D: Stations. Almost like feeding stations.  Yeah.

M: Do you think worms like weeds and things like that?  We have to weed a lot.

D: Sure.

M: So like, grass or pigweed or mallow, things like that, vineweed, stuff that it’s dead, you pulled it out of the ground, can worms eat that?

D: Is it dead?

M: No it’s green.

D: It’s green? But does it have seeds and whatnot?

M: Maybe?

D: Cause I mean I think that if it didn’t have seeds, the worms would be fine…that’s just like lettuce leaves, right? I mean worms would be happy with that. I don’t think [vermicomposting] gets hot enough to kill seeds, so that’d be my worry.  If you were gonna put the vermicompost under the cardboard, like if you were sheet mulching something, I would say no problem.  But if you’re gonna have to put in house plants, well then…  Definitely some of the vermicompost I’ve used around plants sprouts stuff periodically because it just doesn’t get hot enough for composting. [Vermicomposting does have some kind of effect on pathogens, though.] I think they [the worms] like any kind of green matter they can get.

M: I think that would be good for that windrow method.

D: That’s the thing that worries me about worms in general.  It’s got to be consistent input.  I guess you could put a huge chunk of matter in and just let them go to town but for maximum throughput I think you want to give them consistent amounts over time.

M: Yeah.  Maybe next year that’s what we’ll do with our excess worms, start a worm trench.

D: It’d be interesting, I read an interesting book called “How to raise worms for fun and profit”, printed in the 60′s and reprinted in the 80′s.  They talk about industrial production of worms, about windrows with concrete inside which the worms go.  I guess if you’re raising worms for profit…

M: Like in peoples’ houses or something like that?

D: No inside, like garages.

M: Like a warehouse or whatever?

D: Yeah.  I mean, if you’re selling [worms] for $25/lb, that’s back in the industrial system I guess.  Anyway do you have any advice for somebody whose interested in keeping worms for the first time?

M: Just go for it.  You know, play around and experiment.

D: Any do’s or don’ts?  Do leave them alone for the 3 weeks when you first get them? Don’t ignore them for long periods of time?

M: I feel like it’s been a success for me because I haven’t put a lot of effort into it.  And I’ve been able to kind of ignore it. And I like having systems around my house, my property that will take care of themselves and are self-sufficient. So, with as little effort as you can put into it, I say it go for it. Because you can’t make them do anything.  They have to do it themselves.

D: Sure, ok.  Well thank you very much for your time, Michael.

M: Absolutely.

Add comment April 6th, 2009

Interview: Vermicomposting Dog and Cat Waste

I recently interviewed Tracy, a classmate of mine.  She’s kept worms for a number of years, but the most interesting thing she has done, from my perspective, is vermicomposted dog and cat waste, both hair and fecal matter.

However, she has much to say about all things vermi, from selling worms to making worm bins.  Currently, she’s getting back into wormkeeping, and her next venture is “to compost dog waste at the dog ranch” at which she currently works.  (Only small edits for obvious typos were made.)

Dan: You used worms to vermicompost dog and cat hair.  Anything else (dog feces, etc)?

Tracy: I did vermicompost dog feces, at the time I had a 180 lb Rottweiler and a 80 lb Pittbull living at the house. (Large waste producing doggies!) I had a separate container (made of pallets about 4ft by 4ft),  I combined this with old soil and yard debris, it took quite a while for this to break down and I really only spread it around the grasses or large non food trees.

Dan: How long did you do this for?

Tracy: 3 years total at this location.

Dan: What safety measures did you take, if any?

Tracy: It is important to maintain an optimum temperature–especially if you are dealing with feces. The ideal temperature for composting with dog waste is about 145F, this will kill off any pathogens that may cause adverse bacteria.  The sun hit this containment a little more, and the manure itself heats up really rapidly. I stirred this when the temperature rose, about once a week or two. I kept this one bin away from the household bin. The household bin was usually kept at 60F to 80F degrees. Of course in the colder months–which was mild in Oregon–the worms will slow down.

Dan: How did you hot compost and vermicompost feces at the same time?  I thought hot temps killed worms.

Tracy: I think what I did was let the sawdust and dog feces get a head start in one bin, let it heat up, and then move it on down the bin row. I was using a thermometer just sticking it the middle. Again I was just starting and using trial and error.  When I started combining the worms, it would have been after I combined the partially broken down feces with yard debris and soil. The worms don’t tolerate excessive high temperatures, but it really only gets that hot in the very center, and that was initially when you start with a lot. They did have enough room to move away from the hottest spot. Some people have had their piles catch fire due to the heat, I never experienced that.

(I just want to mention that people have had very mixed reviews with the dog feces compost and it is important to note temperatures. The household worm bin is a fantastic idea. But I would not want to give the incorrect information when dealing with possible spread of bacteria when dealing with animal waste. So this is what worked for me to rid myself of dog waste and avoid putting this into a landfill. It is important to be careful and keep it away from food growing sources.)

Dan: What did you do with the worm castings?

Tracy: I harvested worm castings about every 2-3 months. I did make tea out of the casting, just by adding water, letting sit and pouring over my gardens. At this time I did not filter or use aeration to make my tea.  To harvest, I would pile up my compost in pyramid shaped piles on a work bench, let them sit for a few hours and then all the worms would travel to the base of the pile and I would scrape off the top, I believe there are more efficient ways to harvest. In my fresh garden beds I would apply this directly. I also would transfer this compost to a large bin that had soil in it. I would continue to mix this and use it for potting and had a ready made blend for new gardens.

Dan: In making the tea, what was the ratio of water to vermicompost–any references or did you just wing it?

Tracy: I was definitely winging it. I used 5 gallon buckets, put about 1/4 of compost and filled with water. Sometimes I would dilute it further. Now there are better references online for an accurate formula.

Dan: What kind of worms did you use? (Eisenia foetida?)

Tracy: Yes I used the good old red worm wigglers

Dan: What volumes were you dealing with?

Tracy: I started out with 1000 red worms, I had the main bin that was about 4ft and 4ft and at the time I was living in a household of four. We were vegetarian and had a lot of veggie and fruit scraps. The worms can eat about their own weight in food a day, I probably was feeding them 2lbs a day, more at times. Of course the worms quickly multiplied so I was removing some and expanding bin by bin to avoid over population. Moving them to the bins that held yard debris, the dog waste, the ready made soil; other spaces where for example a bunch of blackberry bushes had been cut back and piled.  I even sold a few to fisherman, sorry worms! At the time more people were interested in purchasing the tea from the farmers market and gardening store more than they wanted to have their own worm bin and do the work–which it really is no work at all! Now when I think of it I should have been selling the tea instead of the worms!

Dan: How did you find the fishermen to sell the worms to?

Tracy: Neighborhood, coffee shop and bar conversations! I am not sure what kind of fish and if they were catching any fish at all!

Dan: How long did the materials take to break down?

Tracy: Like I stated previously I think I was harvesting the castings about every 2 months during the warmer months. Some things were really quick to break down–a few weeks for green scraps or peelings. Some things took longer–a whole corn cob, citrus peels. I did it more often on a smaller scale, but if I wanted to get a lot of compost I would wait a little longer.

Dan: What did you use for bedding?

Tracy: I used A LOT of shredded newspaper, leaves, eggshells, coffee grounds, shredded cardboard, sweepings from the kitchen floor–pet hair, junk mail. Nothing with a lot of dyes like the glossy adds from the paper.

Dan: With the junk mail, what happened to the plastic envelope windows?  Did you end up fishing those out of the bins?

Tracy: I would always tear those out. I made sure to always shred any paper product going into the bin. Nothing went in as a whole envelope or a whole newspaper.

Dan: Any tips for someone who wants to do this themselves?

Tracy: The biggest thing is the moisture content. The bedding should feel like a wrung out sponge. They do need moisture but there should not be standing liquid in the bed. This will eliminate any smell coming out of it–you should be able to keep a small unit in your home with no odor. This will also keep out flies, etc. Having a good balance of coffee grounds and egg shells will balance the ph of the compost. Don’t over do the citrus, it is not their favorite food. Don’t use meatscraps or dairy.  Don’t use new materials to build a bin, you can use so many things you already have. I am about to change an old bathtub into a new bin!

Dan: What did you build the boxes out of?

Tracy: The boxes were made of pallets that I had. I just screwed them together with a drill. The main worm bin was made of a rubbermaid container with holes drilled all the way around it for oxygen to circulate. This was inside the pallet frame with four straw bales lined around the bin, to ensure warmth for the wormies. The worm bin had a lid on it and then the pallet closed around the straw bales to keep out animals. Four other pallet bins were lined up next to this along my fence for expansion.

Tracy: The bins were outside. I did have a mini bin–a five gallon bucket with a handful of worms I kept in my back room during the really rainy and cold months. I would just transfer that to the main bin on a nice day.

My gardens in Oregon were the best they have ever been in my life, using all those worm castings. Also the recycling program was really great in Oregon, so every week for a household of 4-5, two dogs, and a cat, I only had a small plastic grocery bag of garbage every week. Things are a little more challenging here at 9200ft, having to deal with colder weather and taking in all of my own garbage and recycling is one more step, but I am striving to again have zero to little waste.

Just talking about this makes me really excited to continue my vermicompost. I have been living in a tent or small cabin the years before I moved to Colorado, so it has been a few years. I guess I should have experimented with campicomposting!

2 comments September 25th, 2008