We were saddened by the death of our first worm bin because of some imbalance of moisture, acidity or bad paper products. We’re super determined to continue the worm composting process with a homemade bin. We took the tray from our old bin (a big kitty litter pan) and gathered some scrap wood from our communal backyard at the San Mateo Eco-Village and got the process going again. The basic set up for a healthy, homemade bin is plenty of ventilation, damp paper bedding, food scraps, green plant stuffs, red wiggler worms and some shredded dry paper topping. We’ll keep monitoring our bin to see how it’s going and hopefully, cross your fingers, our worms survive and make us rich worm castings for our plants. If you make your own bin, let us know how it’s going and what your secrets are!
Music: Santigo (Stuttering Breaks Mix) by DJ Rkod
Runtime- 3:08
[tags]vermicompost, apartment compost, worm bin, compost, worm castings, green, ryanishungry[/tags]
I guess, it is the hazardous ink of the newspaper, that kills the worms.
In germany, we use much recycled paper as toilet paper. Since I’am studying water economy and soil management, I know that this harms the biological part of sewege treatment plants.
The ink is not made to be recycled. It’s a creadle to grave product with a second downcycled lifetime.
Especialy yellow ink is hazardous.
What I wanna say, is that our recycling is not good. Its just making a bad system more efficient. And people think, they are good to the environmen, when they recycle. Thats called “percepion management”, and helps to keep the eyes off the real things.
What we need is big steps. Maybe one environmental magazine could get an ink producer to produce “environmental ink”.
But that is big buissiness, and it’s not easy to make them do expensive and uneconomical things just for the environment.
If they would be under pressure by environmentalists, it would be economical for them, because they could print “we are doing something for the environment” on their flag.
This is what Braungart and McDonough do, for example with Ford.
Why don’t you just use a normal compost?
Your Blog is great!
xxx
My secret: the worms stay where they belong, out in the garden.
How it works:
I sneak out there late in the evening and bury my banana peel with a 3″ inch gardener’s trowel.
Advantages:
–> saves on worm funeral service expenses (in the wild worms bury their own, or do they eat them? (I don’t want to know.))
–> no petrochemical plastic bins (with high carbon footprint, footprints in garden soil OK)
–> no initial purchase (they were already there, or they arrived by spontaneous generation, they can tell me which, they say their ventral nerve cord does not allow for philosophical thought, only locomotion & digestion)
–> no vermicular husbandry required (the wiggly critters simply take care of themselves)
–> gets me out and about (don’t want to get stuck indoors, and I suspect worms don’t either)
–> feces automatically feed the the peas (saves dramatically on manure spreading equipment)
–> no escapee worms in the kitchen (I hate when get out via those vent holes and wander about aimlessly along the edge of the kitchen floor until dessicated, then get mix up with the Chow Mein Noodles.)
Disadvantages:
–> wear and tear on my LLBean moccasins (the left one already has a hole in the sole)
–> requires brace & bit when ground is frozen (after all, we live in Maine)
–> can’t tell if they are keeping busy under there doing their composting duties (or if they are just goofing around)
Bottom line:
food waste + worms = peas (for disputable proof see the video here:
http://www.historichomeworks.com/hhw/frontporch/front.htm#Peas)
agreed. it’s best to compost outside IF you have an outside. When we first started our worm bin, we lived in an apartment surrounded by concrete. Now that we have a yard, we still have a worm bin to make sure we can pull it off.
Oh, yeah, pet worms–cool. Our vet says she doesn’t work on worms. Just as well, the vet bills would probably throw the economics of vermiculture way out of whack.
John
Yea! new worms! go composting
Nice tip re: blending outgoing food waste
Yay for you. I love worms. We had to give our worms to a friend, because we have just moved to a very remote block of land to start a farm from nothing
We are nearly ready to start a new worm farm.
A few tip that might help your worms stay healthy;
make sure you don’t feed them too much, wait until they have eaten EVERYTHING before you feed them again
don’t feed them anything acidic or very spicy
make sure you wet all the newspaper before you put it in, otherwise the worms can get stuck to it
I have never found any problems with giving my worms newspaper. I try and avoid paper with coloured inks, but I find they do best if i give them lots of newspaper to eat.
Make sure that tray is watertight, otherwise you will have a big mess in a few days.
Keep up the great posts
My worms passed away this summer too.
It was a combination of crazy, fluctuating moisture levels (the heat waves we had made it hard to maintain humidty) and an ant attack. Most depressing.
Good luck with the new bin. It looks like a good size to me!
thanks for everyone’s advice and stories! our worms are doing surprisingly well in the new bin. i think the secret has been to feed them only once a week and blend the food in the blender, it makes it easier for them to eat right away. video update soon!
Yeah, we learned to not overfeed the worms and not putting in too much liquid. You have to work your way to having enough worms to handle all your daily food waste.
i watched this with my 4-yr old daughter, and we are so excited! we have read lots and lots, but seeing others’ worms has been too helpful! thanks!
Hey sarah…that’s awesome. I think little kids would love to see worms eat their scraps. We have a vermicomposting mailing list if you want to join the community: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vermicomposting
I want to vermicompost. Do you think it’s too crazy to try to do this with toddler and one on the way though? My husband will probably shoot the idea down. I’m sure my one year old would have a great time though. He’ll catch the escape wigglers for sure.
It’s not crazy to compost with your family.
Seems like it’d even be a good way to teach kids how things work.
you can start with a small compost bin just to see how it works.
Thanks for the information on your blog about vermiculture. I’m writing an article on crop wiki about vermiculture. If you have some information to contribute, please add it here.
Thanks, and keep up the good work.
My back yard compost bin was invaded by earthworms last year! They survived the winter, ate down the compost to about half full, and have continued to keep everything Grandma and I throw in it reduced to a mass of worms and castings near the bottom. I hope to remove the castings in the spring to add to my small veggie garden. I did so last year and had a bumper crop of tomatoes! Love the stuff!
We’ve been doing it for years and usually it just takes some practice to get the moisture levels right. Hopefully, you’re still going at it.
I’ve written up everything I’ve learned here…
http://wisdomofthemoon.blogspot.com/search/label/Worm%20Composting
Hey there. Love the simple ideas, keep them coming. I started a worm farm a few weeks ago, and all is going well. Perhaps if you soaked the newspaper overnight, then ring it out in the morning (that’s what I do) then the ink won’t be as potent and will stay mostly in the water, or at least it will be spread throughout the paper rather than having concentrations in 1 area.
Just an idea.
My bin hasn’t died as yet. However, I am living in ideal conditions for growing compost worms. Got some stuff on my blog and a lot more to come. I’m planning on starting a comparison of no worm vs worm plants this week.
I just moved to an apartment and you gave me lots of food for thought. I once heard of a couple who had their coffee table in the living room a living worm bin, with a glass top. I don’t know how feasible that is.
THANKS
Cory