Our Vermiculture!

[Spanishearl]

So, having seen the video that Patti did for indoor composting, I had to do it myself as well. It's really too cold to go out to the little black compost bin and dump compostable material onto the froxzen stuff in it, and I don't want to stop composting!

I also looked at this as a way to teach my son about gardening as well. I am a Cub Leader, and he wants to earn badges. Well, Gardening is a badge that he can easily earn at home!

I bought the Red Wigglers at the local Canadian Tire in their sporting goods section, and a little 13 litre blue bin.

I drilled the holes, cut the cardboard, and then waited till my son got home from school.

Once he was home, I went over everything with him, what it was we were doing, and what the materials were for. He is only 9, and found the worms the best part!

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e350/Spanishearl/Gardening/Vermiculture/IMG_6347.jpg

I used shredded paper from old bills, and the like, the cuts are finer, and more fluff to it. Also, for the ultra paranoid, the worms are not going to piece together your shredded bills and steal your identity...


We watered the paper a bit to moisten it, and then added the worms, and right after, added the existing compost material from my "Kitchen Scraps" bucket which I have been using forever to hold stuff for the compost bin.

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e350/Spanishearl/Gardening/Vermiculture/IMG_6348.jpg

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e350/Spanishearl/Gardening/Vermiculture/IMG_6349.jpg

We smoothed it out, and then I explained and quizzed him on what can and cannot go into the bin. To illustrate, we took some cuttings from a couple of my plants, and chopped them up into the bin.

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e350/Spanishearl/Gardening/Vermiculture/IMG_6353.jpg

We shall see how it goes!

[Seasons Eatings]

It looks great! How are they doing?

I had to move my bin out of the kitchen. It's cool there most of the day and the floor is always cold. They got too cold and crowded to the center. They've warmed up over night and are feeding at the top again.

[gardengirl72]

Thanks for sharing. Worms are more active at night so they may be in the middle during the day, but they venture out at night. If you see worm castings on the top and no worms it means they are accessing the veggie matter when they want.

[Karen]

Patti, I saw your videos first on making your bin and then harvesting it later. I also have seen in your video about composting leaves that you don't put any kitchen garbage in your leaf bins. I have a couple questions -

1. Do you find that leaves alone, or with grass clippings, will really compost into finished material over the winter?

2. How much kitchen waste do you put in with your worms and how often, without overloading them?

I have had a worm bin approx the same size as yours for a few years. The first time I bought worms for it, they ended up dying of the heat (we lived in Ga then and it was summer; they were out in my garage, out of sun, but still just too hot for them I guess). I tried again after we moved to Md, much more temperate and they were on my screened porch. I kept finding them out of the bin, where they'd crawled up the sides and out - searching for moisture maybe? not sure but I think I'd let it get too dry then watered it but too late.

anyway, even at its best I could only put a few items in about once or twice a week; otherwise it got too full of scraps. This was with 500 worms (red wigglers). At the moment I have not invested the $$ to have another 500 sent so have just thrown in a couple of containers of leftover fishing bait worms (also red wigglers, just very small quantities) I'd estimate there are only about 40 worms now and will buy more but am trying to gauge whether it's really worth it.

I normally fill up a 2.5 gallon bucket of scraps in 7-10 days, and take most of it out to my big compost piles which have leaves, etc in them. I try to have one pile I'm actively adding to and let the other one just "cook" until finished. Even with turning (maybe every 2 weeks in summer, much less in winter) it takes about a year to get finished compost with leaves, grass and food scraps. I have no access to animal manure at the moment but sometimes add organic compost bioactivator.

Karen T