Vermicomposting - Composting With Red Worms
Are you an organic gardener? Do you make compost for your garden every year. You may have heard of composting and compost tumblers, but have you heard of vermicomposting?
Vermicomposting is a way that you can make some of the best fertilizer in the world by utilizing one of nature's most elusive creatures commonly called the red wiggler earth worm, or the Eisenia foetida. This little worm will process your organic waste and make it into composting that you can use for your garden on a regular daily basis. Here are a few tips you can use when creating vermicompost.
The first thing you need to do is locate an empty bin that you are not using. Ideally, you want to have a plastic bin that is not made of cheap material that you can drill holes into. The holes will be used to irrigate the water that will come down to the bottom of the bin. They will also serve as aeration for the soil and the worms you will have living there.
You should also consider getting rich soil for your composting bin. You should have ordered several hundred or thousand vermicomposting worms. Depending upon the size of your bin and how much compost you want, you can decide how many to order. The next thing you need to do is place the worms into the soil. You need to cover the soil with a layer of newspaper. The newspaper needs to be shredded into small digestible chunks. On top of the newspaper you should place coffee grounds and your organic waste that you want the worms to digest during the vermicomposting process. Worms do not like light. Therefore, if the food is sitting completely on top of the soil, they may not find it or get to it. It is therefore devise will to place some of the food beneath the soil about 1/4 inch so that they can get started on the digesting process. Each variety of red worm creates what are called worm castings. Many people will take a simple screen and sift through the soil and the castings separating them into plastic bags. They also create a liquid called worm tea. This is a very useful product that can be sprayed directly onto the leaves of the plants you are growing and you will see exponential growth because of the nutrients contained in this solution. Always remember to aerate your worms by turning the soil every few days. If you do not, you may have areas where there is no oxygen and areas that have too much water which can begin to rot the food in the bin. If you smell anything offensive coming from your worm bin, odds are you have not done the proper turning of your soil or you have been adding too much food that they are unable to digest. The last thing you need to do is get on a regular schedule. By adding dinner scraps that are organic such as fruit rind and other natural products such as coffee grounds, you will be able to generate several pounds of fertilizer from your worms every couple months. If you need more than that, simply expand the number of bins that you have an add more worms. It is that simple. Vermicomposting is a fun way to create compost without a compost tumbler for your garden. All you have to do is follow the simple steps that have been presented and you'll be on your way toward a larger and healthier garden this year.
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