I finally found the happy medium for my worm compost with just a few minor adjustments:
Juice. I put the container on a slope, which was easily achieved with some concrete bricks that were around the house. Now the slope is directing all of the valuable worm juice right into the bowl. I can easily add this juice to the watering can, and give my veggies an extra boost of nutrients.
Shade. Next, I covered the box in order to water the compost less frequently. Also, I put some leaves on top of the compost to help maintain humidity, just like in nature.
Flies. In order to keep away the flies, I add a bit of soil on top of recently added food scraps.
the twigster,
Josephine
PS: Check out the failures of worm compost that brought me here: Worm Compost: Part I, Part II, Part III.
PS: The second photo is from a Rancho Acuario. The new home of Benny, the kitty, and also a home to many great eco-technologies and organic veggies.
The idea is to add food in sections so the worms follow the food through the maze. Once they make it to the end, you have your rich humus.
Hello thank you for the great article! I really like your maze worm farm :-)!
I would like to share some of my experiences with worm farming and explain the difference between worm compost and worm castings which might be beneficial for your readers!
Worm compost is by many people wrongly referred to as worm castings.
Although both products are similar and have lots of benefits for garden soil and plants, they are not exactly the same.
Worm castings are pure worm poop, while worm compost or vermicompost is worm poop mixed with decomposing organic material.
Both products form an integral part of fertile soil.
Without them the rejuvenation of garden and farm soil would be greatly hampered.
Earthworms like Lumbricus terrestris as well as the domesticated red wigglers (Eisenia Fetida / Eisenina Foetida, Eisenia Andrei and the European night crawler (Eisenia Hortensis) are some of the best known earthworm species worldwide.
All of the above mentioned are omnivorous and able to convert large amounts of decomposing organic materials into nutrient rich worm castings.
They will eat anything that has ever been alive and is now dead. The worms are not interested in fresh organic materials but rather those that have already started to decompose.
As the worms move through the soil their mouth works like a vacuum cleaner.
They don’t have teeth and virtually suck their way through their environment.
While doing so they don’t differentiate between soil particles with or without nutritious value.
They swallow it all, digging their way forward through the upper layers of their living space.
The food moves down to the gizzard, a special kind of stomach that grinds down the food particles before they move further down the digestive tract of the earthworms.
During the digestion process the soil and nutritious parts of the food mix will get combined into a sticky moist solution.
The earthworms absorb the nutrient content of this mix and deposit the remaining soil particles as worm castings on the soil surface.
Many gardeners have seen the small dark hills of worm castings on their lawn.
These small hills might look initially disturbing to the eye of the avid gardener but they help to ensure a continuously healthy lush green lawn.
Worm castings are a slow release organic fertilizer that contain all the nutrients and trace elements that plants need.
It will only release its nutrients when the plants need them.
Worm castings are infinitely richer in nutrients and trace elements than any regular top soil.
Many worm farmers who want to harvest their worm bin don’t want to wait for the worms to finish of all the worm food completely.
They make use of all the produced worm castings as well as the remaining decomposing organic material and add them to their garden soil.
This mix of worm castings and unfinished worm food is the actual worm compost.
Like worm castings vermicompost has the ability to hold large amounts of moisture for the benefit of the surrounding plants.
In my own earthworm intensive gardening experiments I experienced a single tomato plant that bore more than 500 tomatoes in a period of 3 month and Swiss chard plants that grew tasty green leaves up to half a meter / 20 inches in size.
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Vermicompost is as well very useful when you want to transplant your small seedlings. Visit my friend Juanita’s page “Vegetable Gardening Made Easier” where she will tell you all you need to know to successfully transplanting your flowers, trees and vegetable plants.
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Worm compost is a fantastic soil conditioner that is available free
of charge for those who are involved in worm composting.
One of the advantages of adding vermicompost to the soil is that it offers plenty of food for the earthworms living in the soil.
And over a period of time they will convert the worm compost into worm castings.
Kind regards and happy worming
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[…] Worm compost is also great to have on the rooftop or urban garden. Those worms work hard turning your kitchen […]
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