Holding onto your garbage can improve your garden and assist in decreasing landfill waste. Your left over kitchen scraps and used coffee filters can offer nutrition to your new carrots and other garden plants. When vegetable and other organic scraps are eaten and digested by composting worms it becomes an excellent soil additive, also known as worm castings. A worm compost bin can get you well on your way to an economical and abundant supply of plant fertilizer.
The Bin – Step one is the actual bin. There are a variety of bins available to buy or for the DIY people building a compost bin can be fairly easy. The most common DIY bin is to use a storage bin. A 12-gallon bin would be a good start and than just add more compost bins as needed to expand production.
Place a row of 1/4-inch holes about 3-4 inches apart down each side. If flies start visiting your worms place some mesh over the holes.
Want Some Worm Tea (optional) – Worm tea is like juice for you garden. To create an easy version of compost tea, just add a faucet or hole and plug at the bottom of the worm compost bin. Add a small amount of water each day, don’t drown your worms, and allow liquid to drip into a bucket. When you get about a cup or two add it to a gallon of water and water as usual.
Worm Bedding – Worm bedding is a large part of your worm composting environment. Worm bedding gives your worms a place to work, is used to maintain moisture levels, and provides a place to bury your scraps. Strips of newspaper, wood chips, partially decomposed leaves, and/or coconut fibers can all be used as worm bedding. My preference is mixture and I prefer not to recommend peat moss as there is controversy over how renewable it is and natural peat moss is becoming limited.
You will also need to mix in some dirt with the bedding. Since worms do not have any teeth they need some type of grit in their digestive track to grind the vegetable scraps up.
You Need Red Wigglers – Not any worm will work and although systems can be created for regular earthworms the worm compost bin described above will require red wigglers. These worms stay at the top where you will be placing your scraps. They will thrive in this environment.
How Many Red Wigglers – The general rule for most worm compost bins is to use a ratio of 2:1. This ratio is a ratio between the weight of the compost worms compared to the weight of scraps you will have each day. For example if you add 1lb of kitchen scraps each day than you should have roughly 2lbs of worms inside your bin.
Worm Bin Care – You should check you worm bin daily until you get a good feel for it. Keep the bedding moist, a spray bottle works well and try to keep the bin between 60 and 70 degrees F. Light is meaningless to them so some basements work well. If you notice an unpleasant smell from the bin, try adding more worm bedding.
Making a worm bin can be a fun and educational project. It is a good way to explain the process to children and the worms can sometimes feel like pets.
Richard Allen composts to create fertilizer for his organic garden and to help the environment. To get more information on composting and making tea from compost, please visit Discover Composting.com.
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DigInfo – http://movie.diginfo.tv lastics are commonly made from fossil fuels, a usually irreversible process, but the Blest Company have a developed a machine which recycles plastic waste back into oil. The Blester is a batch type oil machine which can recycle polypropylene (PP), polyethylene (PE) and polystyrene (PS).
A social sculpture about the production, use, and distribution of resources. By David and Adam Ebbinghouse. Dedicated to Joseph Beuys and Allan Kaprow. part 5 of 5.
Help reduce waste and keep our environment clean by making an effort to reduce, reuse, and recycle plastic grocery bags, keeping them out of the landfills.
More of my sculptures and some of my new framed art pieces. Everything I create is made from recycled plastic jugs, bottles and caps. I don’t use any paint and I don’t use a brush. The color comes from the bottle caps and my soldering iron is my brush. Music is Kenny G, Summer Song.
Reduce, reuse, recycle.
For more Stories, Food News, and Cooking Fresh videos, visit: http://cookingupastory.com
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Park School Kindergarten teacher Kat Callard teaches her class and some fourth graders how to compost! See the great lesson and learn how to compost yourself!
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