I like my worm farms! I live in an apartment and can't compost outside. But during covid lockdown, I decided to start indoor composting. My worms eat all the kitchen scraps and require almost no care. I have two bins on the balcony and bring them inside if it gets too hot or too cold. They are quiet. They don't smell. There's no bugs. And here's the best part. When they reproduce to double, I take half of them with the soil to a friend. SPECIAL DELIVERY! So fun.
Thanks for your wonderful comment, Margaret. I too have done indoor vermicompost when outside space was not available. I use a big plastic bin with screened-over "windows." What's your setup?
Don’t forget the worm juice! Also an important product from the worms. Our setup is a big tub just beside the backyard door and I only add banana skins and coffee grounds (plus the water from washing down the coffee press). I also save some coffee grounds for adding to my oyster mushroom growing substrate. All our other food scraps go to the chickens. But anyway, a small hole in the lower edge of the worm bin drips into a tin can and I use this juice on potted plants (I think you’re actually meant to dilute it) and also I inoculate our coconut charcoal with it to amend our poor tropical soils.
Hey Leon, I used to collect and use "worm juice" also. My current understanding is that enclosed bins that produce worm juice are too wet. I now use worm juice as a signal to add more dry carbon-heavy materials (for indoor bins I use shredded paper). The juice is generally full of anaerobic bacteria not well suited to soil so it's not a great inoculant though it is certainly full of nutrients! And, I think it's fine to use any excess liquid on potted plants. I now use aerobic worm tea to inoculate soils. Do you use your chicken bedding as mulch?
I’ll send you 2 pics of text that a friend who did the Elaine Ingham soil course said to me (look out for it in your FB messenger). I’m certainly no expert on what to use it for 😁
We do deep mulching for veggie beds, plus double dug, and love it, but no longer do it for the chickens. Keeping the chickens in one yard here in the tropics attracted the pythons and mites etc. Now we rotate them around the property (we have the space) and I scythe most of the grass first (but leave some areas where they might find some insect protein) and then they spend the next ten days or so scratching through it
I like my worm farms! I live in an apartment and can't compost outside. But during covid lockdown, I decided to start indoor composting. My worms eat all the kitchen scraps and require almost no care. I have two bins on the balcony and bring them inside if it gets too hot or too cold. They are quiet. They don't smell. There's no bugs. And here's the best part. When they reproduce to double, I take half of them with the soil to a friend. SPECIAL DELIVERY! So fun.
Thanks for your wonderful comment, Margaret. I too have done indoor vermicompost when outside space was not available. I use a big plastic bin with screened-over "windows." What's your setup?
Don’t forget the worm juice! Also an important product from the worms. Our setup is a big tub just beside the backyard door and I only add banana skins and coffee grounds (plus the water from washing down the coffee press). I also save some coffee grounds for adding to my oyster mushroom growing substrate. All our other food scraps go to the chickens. But anyway, a small hole in the lower edge of the worm bin drips into a tin can and I use this juice on potted plants (I think you’re actually meant to dilute it) and also I inoculate our coconut charcoal with it to amend our poor tropical soils.
Hey Leon, I used to collect and use "worm juice" also. My current understanding is that enclosed bins that produce worm juice are too wet. I now use worm juice as a signal to add more dry carbon-heavy materials (for indoor bins I use shredded paper). The juice is generally full of anaerobic bacteria not well suited to soil so it's not a great inoculant though it is certainly full of nutrients! And, I think it's fine to use any excess liquid on potted plants. I now use aerobic worm tea to inoculate soils. Do you use your chicken bedding as mulch?
I’ll send you 2 pics of text that a friend who did the Elaine Ingham soil course said to me (look out for it in your FB messenger). I’m certainly no expert on what to use it for 😁
We do deep mulching for veggie beds, plus double dug, and love it, but no longer do it for the chickens. Keeping the chickens in one yard here in the tropics attracted the pythons and mites etc. Now we rotate them around the property (we have the space) and I scythe most of the grass first (but leave some areas where they might find some insect protein) and then they spend the next ten days or so scratching through it