One of our friends here in the Shenandoah Valley recently linked to this great site Vermicomposters.com, where lovers of worm composting can connect, trade secrets and show off their bins. We love the google map they have on the front page where you can find your local vermicomposting neighbors. We even found some of our friends in far off locations. It really illustrates how popular worm composting is becoming, as there are about 600 people listed on the map. Check out their Ning Social Network and add yourself to the map!

Cathleen recently joined the Vermicomposting e-mail list, a place for folks to swap knowledge about worm composting indoors and out. She sent a link to her blog, North Carolina Family Living, where she’s documenting in text and video clips how their doing things in their backyard garden. The videoblog geek in me loves that she’s throwing clips up on her blogger blog using their new ‘upload video’ feature. It couldn’t get much easier than that. I love to see gardners blogging!

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Fellow videoblogger, Beth Tilston lives in an apartment in Brighton, England and she totally vermicomposts! She sent us this video recently asking if we thought it was ok because it was a little sludgy. If the worms are alive and thriving, then it’s good! Inspired by this conversation, she started a Vermicomposting E-mail list for fellow apartment composters to trade advice and success stories. So join up and let’s share our worm secrets! Side Note- we just recently got to hang out with Beth in Brighton during our Europe trip, check out the video on RyanEdit. Cheers!

[tags]compost, apartment compost, vermicompost, gardening[/tags]

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As you might remember, we made a new worm bin after our original bin failed. This new one is doing great! The drainage holes in the bottom have helped keep it moist but not too wet, the shallow shape allows the worms to get to everything faster and the blending of food scraps allows the worms to eat right away. Today we harvest all the rich vermicompost (soil) and sprinkle it into one of our garden beds. Potted plants also LOVE this stuff. I’ve brought back to life more than one of our failing ferns with a scoop of nutrient rich vermicompost. Why buy chemically fertilizer when you can use worm poop?

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[tags]vermicompost, worm compost, worm bin, apartment composting, compost, garden, ryanishungry[/tags]

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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

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[tags]vermicompost, apartment compost, worm bin, compost, worm castings, green, ryanishungry[/tags]

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We’ve been composting in our homemade worm bin for 5 months now. Through trials and tribulations, we’ve learned a lot about the right environment for worms! In fact we experimented so much, that we managed to decimate our entire worm population. *Sigh*. Master composter and Freshtopia diva, Barb Finnin, came by to see how our worm bin was doing after all this time. Thank goodness she was so encouraging! She helped us haul our semi-composted compost (and dead worm population) to our new backyard composting bins where it can still be useful. We also get a look at a Wriggly Wranch-a multi-layered worm bin that our neighbors purchased at a discount from our county waste management. Seems that if you can get the discount, the layered method is the way to go. We will try again using homemade methods, but this time we’ll have a little bit more knowledge to keep our worms alive. Thanks Barb!

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[tags]compost, composting, Vermicomposting, worm bin, worms, dirt, barbfinnin, freshtopia, wriggly wranch, ryanishungry, sanfrancisco[/tags]

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Can you tell that we’re into our worm bin? As you saw in our last worm bin update, our bin had been getting a little sludgy and unproductive. Jay went online and found a source to buy red wigglers for cheap so we could bump up the composting production of our bin. Keeping an eye (and nose) on your bin will help you get a feel for how things are going in your worms’ world.

Since our first vermicompost video with Barb Finnin, we’ve been getting lots of feedback from old friends and new about how they’re making their bins happen! Like Rachel from Chicago, who sent us this picture of her new bin. Thanks Rachel! Keep up the composting!

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[tags]compost, composting, Vermicomposting, worm bin, worms, dirt, ryanishungry, sanfrancisco[/tags]

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We’ve been Vermicomposting for almost 4 months now and it’s been quite a learning experience! We recently moved to a place where we could place our bin outside, so we got a little lazy about smell. Pretty soon, the smell was really bad! Too much liquid, not enough drainage and air was causing anaerobic (sans oxygen) bacteria to grow which causes that rotting smell. Jay has been patient enough to help the bin drain by rotating in paper, dirt and sawdust. Drilling several dozen extra drain holes helped a bunch too! We’ve also been checking out the book Worms Eat My Garbage for more Vermicomposting tips!

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[tags]compost, composting, Vermicomposting, worm bin, worms, dirt, ryanishungry, sanfrancisco[/tags]

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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]