Containers of worms from the Silver Lake flow-through bed

This morning when I looked out the back window I was puzzled by the sight of multiple buckets of soil-like material sitting in my driveway. My brain hadn’t quite woken up by this point so it ended up being an interesting couple of minutes as I slowly mulled over the possibilities. Was this some sort of strange gift from a neighbor? Did my dad bring me some manure (from his friend’s horse stable)? Did I move bins out on to my driveway then suffer some sort of amnesia-inducing trauma? Was I being rewarded by the “Worm Fairy”?
Finally it hit me!

Leannne…Silver Lake…yeah, that’s it!
🙂

I know some of you have been wondering what happened with the Silver Lake Camp vermicomposting project – more than likely due to the fact that I haven’t provided an update since the beginning of July. Sorry about that!
Unfortunately, I just didn’t have time to make another trip up to the camp (4 hour round trip driving), and Leanne was incredibly busy with running the camp once the kids arrived, so we didn’t end up touching base as often as I initially thought we might.

I did receive an email from Leanne early on reporting a pretty serious set-back. Not too long after I went for my visit, the floor of the bed collapsed! It sounded like quite the ordeal to move all the material/worms, build a new (reinforced) floor, then put everything back in the bin again! I was really impressed with the fact that they didn’t let this challenge sideline them completely.

In her last e-mail, Leanne estimated that they ended up vermicomposting about 200 lb of food waste by the time the last group of kids were on their way home. They managed to harvest and use about 20 lb of vermicompost as well.
Not too shabby at all (especially with all things considered). Diverting 200 lb of compostable food waste from the landfill is very commendable indeed!

I am hopeful that Leanne and David will be interested in setting up the project again next year! I’ll certainly be interested in once again lending a hand (and hopefully will even be able to get a bit more involved).

Previous Silver Lake Posts
Summer Camp Vermicomposting
Silver Lake Vermicomposting-06-11-10
Silver Lake Vermicomposting-07-01-10