UPDATE:
We have modified this original design to a shallower, more airy worm bin. Check out our new design here, Born Again Worm Bin and its progress here Vermicompost: Our Worm Bin Rocks!. Cheers! Good Luck!
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Barb Finnin is part of the amazing Freshtopia team. She’s a certified master composter- her specialty is Vermicomposting with worms. We were super excited to learn that we could compost in our city apartment with a homemade worm bin even though we don’t have a yard. Throwing food scraps away in the garbage is not something either of us enjoys, so having a green alternative has been more than satisfying for our sustainability goals. After 4 weeks, our worms are happy and thriving.
Find out more about Vermicomposting and other forms of composting on Wikipedia. Visit Barb at Freshtopia.net.
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[tags]vermicomposting, vermiculture, worm compost, compost, apartment composting, indoor composting, diy, barb finnin, freshtopia, sanfrancisco, ryanishungry[/tags]
i love long video
this could have been 45 more minutes
as long as i’m inspired and learning
there’s no rush.
i live on an acre of land so
all my scraps go to the yard
i’ve even begun to piss and poo
outside
can i type “poo” here?
feel free to delete comment
anyways
great work!
if i still lived in new york city
i would have implemented these techniques.
I have grown my own rolly polly colony
with green tea leaves, coffee grounds &
egg shells.
The blujays and red robins eat left over
dry dog food that gets soggy from the mist, i set it by rain water bowls.
They are pregnant here in spring and ready to birth.
Best Regards
woke up last week, one morning, and found myself in philadelphia. turned on this particular vlog entry and as everyone in the apartment woke up.. they sat next to me and watched the composting!
this is possibly my favorite long video ever. i couldnt stop watching. i read a book about composting last year but have a hard enough time getting my roommates to recycle, so i just think about it a lot. this is so helpful and important and now i wanna come over and meet your worms!
I cannot wait to do this. Seriously. I’m all over it. I want worms!
i need to film(video) vermicompost production. compost tea film
thank you
What about bugs?
We sometimes get cases of tiny flies, but they usually go away after a couple days. The key is not overfeeding the worms so there is rotting food, and keeping plenty of newspaper fluffed up inside the box so the flies can;t get inside and lay eggs.
Honestly, as long as there is air circulating in your worm bin, food decomposes cleanly.
do you think it would be a good idea to design a product to facilitate indoor composting. perhaps using an alternative to worms and ensuring it is a clean, odourless, and easy process. i am currently involved in a college industrial design project to design such a product.
Hey Luke…I think indoor composting is extremely important. Urban folks shouldn’t feel helpless in being smart about their waste. How would you do indoor composting without worms. Also, no chemicals.
my roommate and i had our apt. compost for about a month and it didn’t smell or anything bad.. it seemed to be working really well actually, but we noticed we had ton of fruit flies in our house and they were nesting in it so we had to throw it away..
is there any way to avoid this problem?? we really want to try again..
thank you!
misty
If you put wadded paper in the top of the bin, then flies don’t have room to fly in and lay eggs.
My bin is wonderful! I’m just wondering what all the tiny red bugs that are crawling around are. i’ve heard that these bins turn into little symbiotic, micro-biotic worlds and am hoping the millions of little red guys are a good thing. Also, how do you know when to make a new bin with some worms from the original. i have lots of friends interested.
I was interested in the apartment composting. I want to start one.
You were very helpfull…
Please…
I had a question? what can we put in a compost other then veg. and fruit, I did not know about bread and coffee grinds, some thing new I learned on the vidio thanks.
Is left ofer meats or potato ok or not ok?
And were can I get worms for the compost, and what kind.
Thank you so much,
Eva
Potatoes and vegetables are all great for the worm compost.
It is suggested to avoid adding meat, cheese, and oils to your bin because it decomposes in a smelly way. They also attract tings like maggots. Might not make a good scenario if the bin is inside.
If you have an outside worm bin, you can add any food to it.
But you again may want to avoid meats because it could attract animals.
Hey! I have watched all your vermicomposting videos and they have been super helpful. After visiting Growing Power in Milwaukee (if you haven’t heard of it, you should definitely check it out, it’s an urban farm that’s doing incredible things: growingpower.org) last February I have been thinking about starting my own compost. I was in the dorms last year so I couldn’t, but I did a compost at home this summer and it turned out quite smelly because I was uninformed and kept it completely airtight! :-O Now, with much more education (and a course project to create!) I have created my own worm bin in my first apartment according to the instruction in your videos and others. My worms have been in there eating for a few days now, and I just checked them and realized a lot of the food is all white and moldy. I know it is supposed to decompose, but it looked weird to me so I wanted to know if this is normal. Also, all of the top newspaper got wet and soggy quite quickly, and I wanted to know how often you add more newspaper to the top. Thanks for the inspiration/help-I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it!
Julia
If the worms cant keep up with the food you place in the bin, it’ll start to decompose (mold, etc). It’s normal but don’t overfeed the worms though. The food won’t smell as long as their is air. Meat is the only food that actually putrifies in that smelly way.
As far as newspaper goes, as long as your bin is not “swampy” then it’s good that its moist. We add newspaper on top when it gets too low. The newspaper stops flies from being able to fly around inside and lay eggs.
You should join our email list on vermicomposting: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vermicomposting
Good group.
Hey Ryan! Its Tanya- Luke Langton’s girlfriend. I was just looking for info on apartment composting online and lo-and-behold– here I find you and this awesome video!!
Since we’ve moved to an apartment, I haven’t been able to keep up my composting and my raised beds at the Langtons as easily. But here at the apartment we eat probably 95% organic and 80% vegan, so I have all these gorgeous organic kitchen scraps all the time and it was killing me to put them in the garbage! Finally I started saving them in plastic containers in the freezer to drop them off at the Langton’s when we can but they fill up quickly. So then I posted in craigslist and freecycle if anybody wanted them and a few people responded who unfortunately live too far from me but still sent me notes of solidarity. Finally I thought, maybe we can just do “the worm thing” and I started looking it up.
Thus, I found this little video and it was YOU! So anyhow, thanks for this FANTASTIC vid and I’m already brainstorming a coffee table/vermicompost bin! Barb is awesome! Now that I’ve found “you” online, I’ll look forward to checking out more of your work here. I took a moment to watch “Documenting Dissent” on your work in China. Good work, thank you, and congratulations!
Best.
P.S. I have reservations about the coffee table with bins inside because the table would get direct sun exposeure for a period of time during the day– especially in the summer. I know the worms prefer 60-80 deg. which is the range of our apartment year-round but I’m speculating how hot it might get in plastic bins within a dark hardwood storage coffee table. I imagine the organic matter would stay relatively cool but the air could get quite warm, I think… any thoughts?
I love the idea of apartment composting. I went out and bought the worms and started to compost right away. The problem is that our worms are getting out. It started out with one or two a week and recently it has been about 5-7 a day. I don’t think the holes are too big. I was wondering if they are looking for something because there it something wrong with the bin. I noticed white little bugs in the bin. What are they and are they bad? Could they cause the worms to want to escape. They aren’t getting through the holes but the top where the bins lid is. Ideas? Thoughts? Thanks! Still love the idea, just want to keep my worms.
The little white bugs are probably normal. Just another little creature that comes with composting. Harmless.
I’ve seen worms escape if their nest is too wet. Make sure it’s just damp, but not mucky like a swamp. Just add newspaper if it needs to be drier.
I am interested in apt. composting without worms. Can anyone help me? Thanks Luz