Our worm friends have been busy over the last several weeks. I have put in at least 20 lbs of combined paper and food waste within the last 3 weeks. The worms have clearly devoured much of the food. The lower layers of the compost bin has now been transformed into dark, rich compost. This biological process of converting garbage into soil is staggeringly efficient compared to the conventional method. The garbage goes through the "guts" of a series of organisms. The worms eats the waste, the waste of the worms is then eaten by tiny microscopic mites. The mites' waste is then consumed by eukaryote soil micro-organisms. It's waste is then consumed by even simpler bacterial lifeforms. The final "waste" product is the rich compost that serves as food for my herb plants.
I am now getting ready to harvest the bulk of the compost. It involves not feeding the worms for two weeks straight, and then separating the single compost pile into 2 piles(compost and remaining paper). If all goes well, about 5 lbs of rich compost could be expected.
1 comment:
I was just researching vermiculture, but I stumbled on this site quite by accident, so it's just a coincidence that I have something to contribute here.
I highly recommend that you look into "vertical bin" worm composting, it's much less stressful for the worms and much easier to harvest the compost.
The basic idea is that the bedding and food are placed in stackable perforated trays inside the bin. Start with one tray, when the worms are finished with it then add another tray of fresh bedding and food on top of the first tray. The worms natuarally migrate up into the new tray and after a week or two the first tray, now worm-free, can be removed and the compost harvested with very little stress, for either the worms or yourself!
You can by commercial vertical worm bins, typically three tray systems, but I'm working on a design that could easily be built with a 5-gallon bucket and some wire mesh, which would be about $10 in materials bought new, or an afternoon of scavenging.
Cheers,
Jerry
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