Tuesday, June 23

V is for Vermicompost!

Today at work I went to the EcoTeam meeting over lunch to hear about vermicomposting. I think I might actually give this a try. The presenter, Eric Williams of thegreenworm.org, was very knowledgeable and interesting, and he made composting with worms sound foolproof.

PROS:

  • indoors
  • confined to a bin (with a lid!)
  • odorless
  • no confusing brown/green ratios to worry about
  • fast

CONS:
  • involves, you know, WORMS (red wigglers, to be exact)
  • not suitable for yard waste composting
  • worms will double in number in a relatively short amount of time and then you have the problem of what to do with all the extra worms (they can’t survive outdoors as they aren’t native to the area)

Does anyone have any experience with this? My outdoor compost bin has turned out to be sort of a mess. I can’t get the green/brown ratio right, so it stinks. It has also become a breeding ground for roly polies, fruit flies, and ants. I do like that in the outdoor bin I can compost the yard waste . . . but will it work okay without any of the paper or food waste (which would go into the worm bin)? Help!

3 comments:

Molly said...

I don't think you will have too many worms. When you want to use the compost, you will just dump the worms outside with the dirt and it appears that they will die. I think you should do it just for the fun blog posts.

Emoly said...

We always had only yard waste in our outdoor compost. Worked fine.

Stephanie said...

Eww. I can't believe you want to try it with the worms... they double in number? I'd rather deal with the fruit flies! Funny, my compost post is scheduled for tomorrow!