Friday, April 3, 2009

Vermicompost

We've got worms! To make compost that is. In our basement even. I split an order with a group of women and ended up with 500 redworms. They are small and wiggly and kind of gross but their 'castings' make for great compost and it's a fun project for the kids....well Jasper really, I think Sylvia could care less!
Taking care of worms is harder than you might think. They need a dark moist environment with organic material to eat and gritty material to help them digest.
We have ours in a see through bin which is cool when you want to gawk at them, but isn't a very dark. To fix this I've put a tarp around the bin to make them feel at home. I put newspapers, some cardboard, coffee grounds, a glass of water, and kitchen veggie/fruit scraps in with the worms. It's pretty stinky when you remove the lid, especially with the large amount of garlic.
I'm thinking I need a big compost outside too because we go through a lot of kitchen scraps. I hate throwing any of them away, but I don't think I should give them all to the worms.
I guess that will be another project!

1 comment:

  1. Eewww worm castings! Gross. I clean bug castings/frass off some of our past-infested Alaska native artifacts that have animal material (ie. caribou, seal, beaver, etc...) on them. It always grosses me out so much! yuck yuck yuck. But I bet Jasper thinks it is fun.

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