worm composting

tim & i have been thinking of starting worm composting for a while now, especially because we are vegetarians and the majority of our waste products include leftover fruit & vegetable peels, ends, and parts. when we started recycling out of our apartment(s), we truly cut down our landfill waste by probably close to 75%. all of the plastic, tin, metal, and glass containers that our food products came in were being thrown out instead of recycled. now that we have been transporting our own recyclable materials to the nearest recycle center, we feel like we can further reduce our waste byproducts, and so we have finally decided to start a compost bin! yay! we got it all set up last night, and are now awaiting the arrival of our slimy wriggly guests.

here are a few q&a that i had, and you might too!

q. is it smelly?

a. no, and it won't be as long as we don't over feed our worms.

q. is it expensive?

a. not at all - we are getting this whole thing going for under $50.

q. where do you get worms?

a. not in the valley - most must be ordered online and shipped to you.

q. how many worms will you have?

a. about 900-1000 red wigglers = 1 pound of worms.

q. how do you set up a worm compost?

a. i searched google & youtube, and got a lot of great info and best practices.

here were our supplies:

then you drill holes in the lid and around the bin to ventilate it and encourage air flow.

about 10-20 in the lid, 10-20 around the top, and 5-15 in the bottom for drainage. this lets the 'worm tea' drip out.

use up-cycled materials to stack the two bins together (we used gallon jugs cut in half).

add a layer of bedding (paper & cardboard pieces) and food/garden waste. we had some food scraps and some cut flowers that were wilting to layer on the shred bedding.

add some garden soil... we may have added a bit too much, but the worms will work through it as they create the vermicompost. also add a bit of water to dampen the food and bedding - not dripping, just moist.

add another layer of bedding on top - this prevents fruit flies/bugs, and helps keep the environment damp.

and voila! we have our bin ready to go and keeping it out of direct sun, in our kitchen! of course we will move the bin when we use the oven to keep from roasting the wormies :)

and so now we are letting the environment marinate (aka - rot) for a week or so until we receive our worms by mail! we will post pics when the wigglers arrive, and throughout our journey which will hopefully yield some serious worm castings!