For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Bentley (“the Compost Guy”) Christie and I’ve been a crazed worm composting fanatic (or “vermiholic” if you prefer) for just over a decade now. I created this website several years ago with the simple intention of sharing my passion with the world. So far so good! Things have certainly progressed since then, and the website has provided me with an amazing opportunity to get to know a LOT of other “worm heads” from across North America and around the world!
One such person, who is now a member of the RWC team, is none other than “Mark from Kansas”. Back in the fall (2009), I convinced Mark to become a contributor here, and he has become quite well known (and appreciated) for his ongoing OSCR worm bin series. You can learn more about Mark >>HERE<<.
If you are brand new to vermicomposting, I recommend that you start on my “Getting Started” page where you will be introduced the “fundamentals” of worm composting, and shown how to create & set-up your own worm composting system. If you would like to browse some of the more popular topics discussed on the blog, I highly recommend you check out the “Hot Topics” page. Speaking of the blog, if you would like to browse the latest blog posts, simply scroll down from this msg (assuming you are on the home page, that is).
Last, but certainly not least – if you would like to stay in touch with us and generally learn more about worm composting, please sign up for our email newsletter!
Of course, you can also feel free to drop us a line anytime!
Back at the end of January, I started up my “collembolacomposting” experiment – with the aim of determining whether or not springtails can do much in the way of “composting” on their own.
Judging by the ecosystem that seems to be dominating the habitat in the bin these days, I think “acarinacomposting” might have been somewhat more appropriate! The springtail population hasn’t even really taken off for some reason, yet there is an incredible population of mites.
In thinking about all of this some more, and witnessing how little in the way of processing seems to be occurring in the bin, I’ve concluded that, apart from the microbes, the worm DO indeed deserve the lion’s share of the glory when it comes to vermicomposting (somehow I doubt that will surprise too many people – haha). Just the physical activity and fragmentation of waste materials alone likely plays a very significant role in speeding up the composting process.
I think it’s only natural that the next step should be to set up a comparison experiment. Worms vs no worms, so we can see for sure just how much of a difference there is. This may help to demonstrate the value of adding composting worms to a “regular” backyard composter as well!
Anyway – I will let everyone know once I’ve set up the experiment!
I decided to record a video featuring my vermiponics system today. For those of you who have been following along from the beginning (when I first started writing about the topic of vermiponics, and the set up of this system), a lot of this won’t be new information. You may still find it interesting though since you will see the system up close and personal (not just via photos) and actually get to listen to my (awe-inspiring – HaHa) commentary as well.
I should mention that while my lettuce doesn’t look as good as it would in an outdoor system (or at least a system with better lighting), I can assure you that it doesn’t actually look as bad as it does in the video. As always, I am using my trusty point-and-shoot digital camera here, so the video quality isn’t exactly top notch. Those poor lettuce plants looked downright yellow, when in actuality they are a lot greener.
As you will see, I made an interesting discovery when I opened up the feeding tube and looked inside the burlap bag!
I gave my Worm Inn a bit of a break over the last 12 days or so. I was pretty busy with other things and just wanted to let the system mellow out for a bit. I did add water fairly regularly, and just generally kept my eye on things to make sure everything went smoothly.
Worms (and other critters) have continued to perform incredibly well, and today I decided to start feeding the system somewhat more…uhhh…effectively.
Notice, I didn’t say I’d be feeding it less? As you’ll see, I actually added 19.65 lb of waste (the most I’ve added at once) today.
What I’ve decided to start doing however, is freezing (in my deep freezer) and/or chopping up the material really well before adding it, rather than simply dumping it in as-is. As I mention in the video, the material is quite similar to the stuff I’ve referred to as “homemade manure” since there is a lot of bedding material mixed in nicely with the pulverized food waste. I think the worms are going to LOVE it!
Now, I should mention that I will once again be leaving the system alone for the better part of two weeks, since I’ll be going on a trip at the end of the week. I’m not too worried about the worms starving while I’m gone though!
Anyway, I will certainly provide another update once I am back!
Stay tuned!
Garbage can full of old lettuce – the worms should enjoy this!
On Friday, my worms got a nice treat in the form of 60-70 lb of old lettuce (just a guesstimate) that my dad picked up for me at the local food bank.
I haven’t been feeding these worms as often as I had hoped (a lot of my own food waste is being diverted into other systems, such as the Worm Inn), so I was quite pleased to receive an email from my contact at the food bank last week. They don’t end up with all that much in the way of perishable worm-friendly food materials, but I’ve been more than happy to take it off their hands whenever they do!
I was originally planning to chop the lettuce up quite a bit before adding it to the bed (to help speed up the decomposition process), but didn’t end up having enough time to do so. No biggie though – I’m sure it won’t take long for the material to produce a nice microbial buffet for the worms to munch on!
Adding the lettuce to the bed simply involved pulling away a bunch of straw/hay from the top, dumping it in, then covering it up.
We’ve had many sunny (and rather mild) days as of late so I think my only concern at this point is that I might end up overheating the system. Unfortunately, my indoor temperature monitor doesn’t seem to be receiving accurate readings from the probe buried in the bed, so I will definitely need to do some manual readings this week (not a big deal, since I want to check on things anyway).
I’m sure some of you must be wondering how my vermiponics system is coming along these days. I haven’t written an update since Feb 19. Well, after what seemed to be a very smooth start, things kinda went downhill rather quickly. The water in the reservoir became ‘muddy’ looking and started to really stink!
This is what the water was starting to look like prior to me making some changes to the system
It was pretty obvious that the biological oxygen demand (BOD) was far beyond what the trickling water (and air stone) could provide. The radishes started looking really sickly as well – almost certainly due to the fact that grow bed was receiving reservoir water in the zone where they were growing.
Rather than throw in the towel, or wait around to see if the plants would start filtering the water a bit better, I decided to change things up a bit. I removed the water tube altogether and cranked up the output (it is adjustable) of the pump, basically creating a aeration fountain right in the reservoir. I also did some partial water changes, and ended up raising the level of water in the reservoir so as to make contact with the bottom of the grow bed.
Things have certainly improved a great deal since then. The water no longer stinks, and it also just looks a lot cleaner in general. The radishes made a nice comeback, and the lettuce has continued to grow as well (although, as mentioned, I think it would help to have a more powerful lighting system), so they are probably doing a better job of cleansing the water. Apart from relying on the wicking of water up from the bottom, I have also been manually pouring reservoir water into the grow bed from time to time as well.
I’m not 100% sure how the worm population is doing, but it should be interesting to find out once I decide to dismantle the system.
I am definitely looking forward to trying this on a larger scale outside on my deck this year once the weather is warm enough!
I’ve been doing some research lately. In this video I test if I can harvest hatched worms out of the finished vermicompost. The second project is taking those babies and starting THREE new plastic bins. I want to start a 4th but, haven’t decided yet. I am running out of room and don’t want to overdo it too much. In two of the bins which are in the house, one has more greens than browns and the other has more browns than greens.
The one with more browns seems to stay moist longer. I have been also using a secret food amendment.
I’ll let you know about that later, I haven’t decided if I like it or not.
Send those comments or questions!
Mark
‘Mark from Kansas’ is an avid vermicomposter from…well…Kansas, and contributing author here at Red Worm Composting. When he is not tending to his OSCR worm bin, Mark also enjoys spending time with his wife Letty (who also doubles as his trusty vermicomposting assistant) and picking petunias (ok, Bentley just made that last bit up).
My latest batch of “homemade manure” – yummy, yummy (for worms)!
It’s been quite some time since I’ve made any mention of my “homemade manure” concept (for those of you unfamiliar with the term, be sure to check out these blog posts: “Homemade Manure” & “Homemade Manure Mania“).
Just as a review, the basic idea here is that I am attempting to create a nutritious “homemade” material that provides all (or at least most) of the great benefits offered by some (aged) livestock manure (of course, not all manures are created equal). In my mind, an ideal worm food provides a well-balanced nutritional profile (thus encouraging the development of a diverse microbial population), while also providing some “structure” and the oxygen-availability that goes along with it (i.e. we don’t want a big, gooey, anaerobic mess).
The first time around, I was using a LOT of food waste – material I spent many hours blending up, I might add! While it was certainly fantastic stuff, my time is definitely a lot more valuable than that (spending a morning producing a tub of worm food just doesn’t cut it). As such, this time I decided to use poultry feed as the primary “food” component. For the “structure”, water-retention, and C:N balance, I used multiple types of “bedding”: shredded cardboard (and brown paper), fall leaves, and coco coir. To kickstart the microbial community, I mixed in some molasses and also added a scoopful of compost ecosystem material at the end.
Here are the photos to basically show the process of creating my latest batch of homemade manure:
I filled the tub about half full with shredded cardboard then added lots of water (all said and done, it was probably around 2 or 3 gallons
After mixing/soaking cardboard & paper, I added some molasses
Next, some fall leaves I had on-hand
A few scoops of poultry feed
Some coconut coir to soak up liquid pooling in bottom
Scoopful of “compost ecosystem”
Homemade manure, all ready for chow time!
Adding homemade manure to winter worm windrow
As you can see, I decided to use the material right away in my big outdoor bed. I will likely make a few more batches of the stuff to REALLY help kick that system into overdrive in time for spring!
I am happy to report that making this time of homemade manure took far less time (would have been even faster if I had had the shredded cardboard all ready to go) since it was just a matter of mixing everything up.
I am very interested to see how the worms respond! I’ll certainly provide a follow-up at some point.
Ok, so here we are six days after I added 15 lb of bulky food waste to my experimental Worm Inn, and the level had gone down enough to warrant adding even more! So, I did just that – this time it was only 10 lb (haha). As you will see in the video, it almost didn’t even fit – but my trusty hand rake came to the rescue.
I have little doubt that I am NOT going to be able to simply continue processing wastes at this rate – there are a lot of resistant materials going in there, and I really haven’t done enough with them to ensure that they’ll end up broken down any time soon.
What I would like to start doing at some point is really focus on making the materials a lot more worm-friendly before adding them. I’m not sure I’ll go so far as to blend them all, but I will likely try to macerate them by hand as much as possible (after putting them in my deep freezer for a few days and letting them thaw out).
Anyway, this has been a lot of fun so far. Needless to say, I am blown away by the fact that the system has handled so much waste being added to it (without creating a horrible stench, killing off my worms etc etc).
Recorded a new video today, after noticing that the level in the system has dropped significantly.
A couple of important take away msgs:
1) I am NOT suggesting that anyone should attempt to overfeed a worm composting system like this – ESPECIALLY not if you are using an enclosed “Rubbermaid” type of system. This is just me having fun with one of my systems – keep in mind that I have a decade of worm composting experience and that this is one of my major passions in life – the last thing I would want to do is lead a vermicomposting newbie astray! Be sure to check out my “Getting Started” page if you are fairly new to the hobby.
2) I am NOT suggesting that plastic worm bins are “bad” – not by a long shot! They are great systems, especially when you are just starting out. They are very easy to set up and don’t cost much money. With proper aeration (be sure to check out my “Mini” Bin to see how this can be improved) and/or drainage you can probably process a fair amount of wastes in a medium to large bin system. I still use enclosed bins myself (mainly for experiments though), but have switched over to using a lot of open system (even a simple plastic tub without a lid works well).
Just a very quick post to point you in the direction of what looks to be a cool resource. Credit for the find goes to ‘Mark from Kansas’. He is in “research mode” at the moment (in case you are wondering why he has been so quite as of late), and came across a really interesting section all about Soil Biology on the USDA website: Soil Biology.
Some of you might wonder what “soil biology” has to do with worm composting (after all, we’re not using soil, right?) – well, there are certainly a lot of parallels, and a solid understanding of soil biology can indeed help a great deal when it comes to understanding the inner workings of your composting systems.
Anyway – just wanted to provide that link for those who might be interested. Thanks again to Mark for tracking it down.
I know these winter worm composting updates must be getting pretty boring, given how well the system has been doing, but alas, I still don’t have any major disasters to report on. Things have continued chugging along beautifully in the bed, even without much in the way of “food” being added.
As you can see, temperatures in the heart of the system are between 25 and 30 C (77 to 86 F), although the readings are a little lower on the remote temperature monitor I have sitting inside the house. I decided to unplug the string of rope lights a little while ago, and there seemed to be a minor dip in temperature, but nothing overly significant.
With the system doing so well, the REAL question of course, is how well the worm population is doing. I decided to finally do some serious digging around a few days ago to see for myself.
I quickly noticed that the springtail population seems to be doing just fine! Below you can see masses of them covering some green tomatoes that were once in my basement freezer (I didn’t do a great job with my food freezing last fall, and have decided to feed my worms with it instead).
I was happy to see that the Red Worms also seem to be doing well – definitely comparable (if not better) than in my big straw bale bed last winter!
Normally, even when you keep the system fairly warm, you just don’t end up seeing the same densities and size that you would during warmer weather. In the case of this system, I will likely be harvesting worms for customers fairly soon.
Since the bed volume seemed to have gone down a fair amount by the end of last week, I decided to add a bale of alfalfa hay over top. I am really interested to see how the worms react to this once it starts to break down!
To help things along a little, yesterday I buried some shredded cardboard then poured a watering can full of molasses-water over the central zone. Hopefully the cardboard will help to hold a bit more moisture up near the top (where the alfalfa is) making this zone a bit more inviting for microbes and worms alike!
Has Bentley lost his mind!?! ~15 lb of food waste added at once!
I decided to really go off the deep end with my Worm Inn on Friday! I had a three bags of food scraps sitting out on my deck and I figured I might as well see if I could fit them in the system.
I even made a short video about it! As you’ll see, I decided it was also time to start harvesting some material from the bottom.
Before adding all this waste (14.87 lb to be exact) I did some digging around and was REALLY impressed with the incredible abundance of worms in the system. It’s amazing how a population of Red Worms will rise to the occasion when there is a serious quantity of food available. I’m certainly not suggesting that everyone should go out and totally over feed their bins though! I would NEVER do this with any sort of enclosed plastic tub system (unless it was huge, with plenty of air flow), and it may come back to bite me even with this system! We shall see.
As you can see in the image below, I added some peat most and a fair amount of mature compost material over top of all the waste – just to help suppress any odor that might develop while the worms are working on all this material.
So far so good – but we’ll see how things look a little later in the week!
As you can see, the plants have continued to grow in the vermiponics system. One correction to mention right off the bat though – in my last post I mentioned spinach seedlings coming up. As it turns out, those were actually more lettuce seedlings. The spinach has in fact been very slow to emerge, with only a few seedlings visible at this time.
I get the feeling my lighting set up isn’t powerful enough since the plants are looking a wee bit spindly. I AM using fluorescent “grow bulbs” but they are also very old, so maybe it would help to replace them. I should obviously start thinning the plants out as well since the overcrowding certainly isn’t helping the situation!
I’ve been digging around in the bed a little bit just to see if I could locate some worms. While I haven’t had much luck in that department, I did notice that there are a LOT of White Worms (aka “Pot Worms”), and the springtails seems to be doing very well also. I am pretty sure the worms are doing just fine – but I’ll have to wait for a while before I can do a real assessment.
Hi Everyone,
On a whim, I created a new video this afternoon. As the title implies, the aim is to provide an overview of the fundamentals of worm composting. It all started with me playing around with my favorite mindmapping software (Freemind). I love using this software since it’s a great way to get ideas out of your head and organized in a “big picture” manner.
This will probably seem like a bit of a dry offering in comparison to some of my other (more visually-appealing) videos, but hopefully it will serve as a good lesson for those just getting started, or thinking about getting started. In fact, I plan to add it to the “Getting Started” page for that exact reason.
Keep in mind that this was created for a YouTube audience – hence my mention of the Red Worm Composting website (obviously everyone watching the video here will be more than familiar with the site – haha).
983 lb of Food Waste, and Counting!