Composting: Do you do it? If not, why?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by telefunken on January 26, 2009 at 3:51pm

I use worm composting to process all fruit and vegetable waste into worm castings. I then mix the worm castings with potting soil to grow: wheatgrass, sunflower greens, pea greens, and various other micro greens. When the greens are harvested, I dump the spent tray soil back into the worm bin to "close the loop". I also add various rock dust and other amendments to the worm bins to help the worms digestion process (they need grit) and make resulting castings more powerful.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by RubyLaine on January 26, 2009 at 4:53pm

Hey tele, I do worm composting also but find that my scraps get moldy before the worms eat them. Any suggestions. Do I not have enough worms? I also have a compost bin outside that I use daily.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by telefunken on January 26, 2009 at 8:16pm

Here's more detail on how I do it:

* During the weekday, I keep all veg. and fruit scraps in 2 large, plastic containers in the refrigerator (keeps pests away and scraps from premature decay (smell))
* On the weekends, I run the scraps through the VitaMix for very short pulse durations to quickly reduce the bulk and add water too.
* I then add 1/2 a brick of compressed coconut choir as bedding, to the "slurry" of scraps (I love the word slurry!)
* Whole bucket is then added to a 5 level worm bin system I keep in the basement.

My system is working well so far. I think I started it about 4 months ago.

Are you burying your scraps in the bedding? Do you have any idea how many worms are alive in your system? How long since your bin has been cleaned out?

Around here, Lake Placid, NY, all outdoor things turn very solid this time of year! No outside options for us....

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Sweet_low_down on January 26, 2009 at 9:00pm

I have a bin in which I'm going to start vermicomposting...THANK YOU so much for the info on how you do it. My only question is: what is a five level worm bin system? Sounds complicated.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by telefunken on January 27, 2009 at 9:26am

Here's a link to where I got mine: http://www.marketworks.com/StoreFrontProfiles/DeluxeSFItemDetail.as...

I have the 5 tray version in black.

After using stacked plastic 5 gallon buckets for years....I find this to be much more compact and easy to maintain. Feel free to ask detailed questions.....for some reason I'm obsessed with worm composting and I willing talk too much about it whenever the opportunity presents itself.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by my name is you on January 26, 2009 at 4:16pm

I always put the pulp from my juicing out in the garden; I will make more of an effort to put all other food waste out there as well.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by John on January 26, 2009 at 4:22pm

When I first started composting here, the soil was hard and I saw no worms. Over time, as I kept adding kitchen scraps to the soil every week, more and more worms started showing up, and soil is now soft and easy to dig into. Big change. And the birds seem to like too... they eat the worms! Random things sprout from the compost pits I've formed. Usually something from the seeds in the kitchen scraps. And that results in more food. Of course, the overly curious neighbor, who we call "Mrs. Kravitz" keeps a watchful eye out as she seems to think I am up to criminal behaviour and I'm burrying secret mysterious things that will one day result in a massive police raid and scandalous news headlines.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by John on January 26, 2009 at 5:29pm

Oh, also... Digging the compost pits, just about 1.5 feet deep, and tossing the weekly kitchen scraps in there and burrying them also seems to have helped the fruit trees. They started producing more fruit. The soil is more moist, which likely helps all of the soil around where the compost has been added to become more rich, spurring the growth of helpful bacteria and fungi in the surrounding soil, and that helps the roots bring in more nutrients. I already had an understanding of the importance of fungi in garden soil. But I didn't understand what was happenign with my fruit trees until I read about what Paul Stamets had to say about composting....

According to Paul, the guy who knows a lot about the fungus among us (check him out on YouTube), "Fungi are the mycomagicians of nature, in that they create soil. And so engaging these fungi - if everyone individually began to compost, began to grow their own food, began to localize their use of resources and reinvest literally in their backyards as standard practice throughout the world, then I think that would create a big difference. People may not realize we are more closely related to fungi than we are to any other kingdom. We separated from fungi about 650 million years ago. We exhale carbon dioxide; so do fungi. We inhale oxygen, so do fungi."

With that in mind, and knowing that plants absorb carbon dioxide that we exhale, it only seems reasonable to assume that the carbon dioxide that the fungi in the soil exhales is helping to feed the roots of the plants. So... adding the nutrient-rich kitchen scraps to our garden soil will help spur the growth of fungi, which, as Stamets points out, "digest nutrients through fine, weblike cells called mycelium."

Also, it is known that fungi help to decontaminate soil. So, nurturing the soil with kitchen scaps improves the fungi growth, which benefits your soil in a variety of ways.

According to Stamets, fungi can help detoxify soil that has been treated with farming chemicals: "We can use these fungi for breaking down hydrocarbon-based contaminates like oil, which most pesticides are based upon. We can break down PCBs, PCPs, dioxin, and lots of other recalcitrant toxins that kill life. These fungi can not only neurtralize them, but also make them into fertilizer that breeds life. Fungi are the gateway species that leads to ecosystems re-flourishing."

http://sunfoodtraveler.com/gardening-and-farming.html

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by CanarsieBK on January 26, 2009 at 8:03pm

i put my food scraps in a separate container and bring it to a local garden that accepts neighborhood compostables.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Sarah on January 26, 2009 at 8:09pm

Yep! That's exactly what we do, or just throw it into the garden!

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by John on January 26, 2009 at 8:39pm

Wow Telefunken! That's some compost program you run. Interesting.

Where I am, the ground doesn't freeze, but I've lived in places where it did.

In one of them freezing places, I would put the compostable stuff in a pile outside covered with a tarp held down by rocks. Sometimes it would get warm under there even when it was cold outside. A combination of Sun heating up the tarp (solar energy!) and the gasses coming out of the composting heap. By spring time the worms would already be busy beneath the tarp turning them kitchen scraps into rich soil. Moving aside the most recent kitchen scraps would expose new soil.

All I do here is dig a hole and toss in the stuff, then cover it with the soil. Covering it with soil helps keep winged bugs away... and other creatures that want to eat: raccoons, possums, etc.

A hint for those who pot plants, take a handfull of soil from the ground and put it in the pot with the other soil. That way you will increase the fungi presense in the potted plant, and your plant will grow a little better. That's a good thing to do every once in a while with potted plants: add some soil from the ground. Especially rich, moist soil.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by John on January 26, 2009 at 9:23pm

Google: "compost bins"
Or "Five-level compost bin"
Lots of sites show up. Including one that sells worms for $49!
I got my worms for free… they just simply showed up in my compost pits. I didn’t have to send out invites to the party or anything.

http://www.appropedia.org/Compost_bin_manufacture_(Practical_Action_Technical_Brief)

http://www.edf.org/article.cfm?ContentID=2030

http://www.cleanairgardening.com/wormcomposting.html

▶ Reply to This

• First
• Previous
• Next
• Last