Jul
29
I live in a small city, large fenced lot. I have a covered compost bin in the back yard and a husband who is deathly afraid of smells, unsightly mess, attracting rodents or other creatures, and offending the neighbors.
Tell me about worm bins, or point me to a site for research. I’m planning to convert from container to raised bed gardening for next year and will need LOTS of compost.
13 Comments
We have a worm bin in our UU church! It’s not smelly if you set it up right and maintain it. Here’s a link to a pretty good explanation: http://earth911.org/blog/2007/.....ith-worms/.
Remember, NO MEAT OR DAIRY PRODUCTS! That is the killer in a compost pile. But grass clippings and falling leaves are great. I had three pecan trees and put their fall leaves in every year and my compost was great! Although, I have added crushed rinsed eggshells. Plants love lime and calcium. I take my organic eggshells, freeze them, crush them and put in about a gallon of water. Left it for a week and strained and poured over the tomato plants. Saved the crushed shells and after a few weeks, sprinkled the fine shell dust over the soil under the plants, so when I water they get a little of the eggshell residue.
Raised bed gardening seems to be a great way to garden without the backbreaking soil prep. See Mel Bartholowmew’s Square Foot Gardening. I currently can only do container gardening, but in Austin I had raised beds that I could sit on the edge and reach across to tend the plants. Had my beans on the back fence so I could work both sides. I like Mel’s idea of a structure bolted to the raised bed so you can train beans or tomatoes or squash or eggplant or zucchini vertically rather than horizontally.
If your husband has an ick-fetish, worm bins may not be for you all – the contents have to be emptied and sifted – with the worms put back into the bin – if you want to recycle your worms, and unless you buy the three story jobs: http://www.gardeners.com/Worm Chalet/Composting_WormBins,35-977,default,cp.html
If you use the plain old one-story boxes, periodically you must empty out the bin, sift out the worm castings from the worms, and put the worms back in the bins. Some folks like to do this, some folks just use the entire contents of the bin and get a new crop of wigglers…
The advantage of the multistory set-ups is that they are easier to use, but it still takes quite awhile to get enough worm castings to use. You also must protect the worms from extremes of temperature.
They like just about anything that once grew in the earth – even shredded paper!
But worm castings, as nutritious as they are, to not build soil like compost does – nor do they add “tilth” or help with moisture retention like compost.
My compost bins – all four of ‘em – do not smell like anything but earth. I love compost, obviously, and I find it hard to comprehend why anyone would find the compost heap smelly, icky, or undesirable!
There is a compost monster under my house that devours compost and since Dallas dirt is basically all clay, adding compost regularly is imperative!
You want I should …”persuade” your husband?
Toggenburgs (or bergs). TOGGS!
gad, can you tell I just got home from work?
arrgh! comment put in wrong place!!!
Want me to move them?
No, it’s alright. I’ll just live with further evidence of how boggled my brains are when I get off work.
Hmmm… perhaps you are right and worm bins are not called for.
Compost bin: When I had lots of oak leaves all was well. I would add food scraps (never meat or dairy) and cover them with the leaves, which kept the top surface un-icky. Once I had left the top of the bin open and forgotten to put leaves on it. There were spiders building webs in the corners and flies buzzing around the compost (wilted lettuce, as I recall). He went completely ballistic. Broke the hinges of the lid trying to slam it down. HE SPRAYED MY COMPOST WITH RAID!
!!!!!!
He’s a little OCD about icky things. Can you tell?
Several years ago, I had a lengthy lesson froma worm farmer in … Alabama of all places. He explained to me step by step how to do it. It’s very easy actually.
I’ll see if I can unearth the conversation …. it’s from 2002 or 2003, so maybe not – but maybe! brb …
Oh, and check Turtle Rock Farm. I know they were talking about composting this week, but I seem to recall worm bins over there too …
I mean, not to hog the comments list, but yes, Turtle Rock Farm is talking about worm farming … now!
And I know where you can buy your worms in Alabama. He’s a horrid racist and really totally undesirable, but he knows his worms!
Okay, I can’t find the lessons the racist — and actually really quite creepy — worm farmer gave me – I think they’re on my old computer which crashed in 2004 – or 05 – or – oh never mind!
But I did discover he’s started his own worm forum.
But I refuse to send him excess traffic because he may be a heck of a worm farmer, but he’s just creepy as all get out and downright racist.
So anyone who wants the link to the worm forum, say so here and I’ll email it to you. After So You Think You Can Dance? And a little mowing.
We just planted mint in a pot for the small back space we have outside our door. About an hour later the mint pot was gently rocking. MOLES tunneling to see what’s up with that new pot-ICK! We have moles here, another reason to do container or square foot gardening!
The only thing that I know about raising worms is secondhandend, and I offer it to you without any personal experience, but my friend is pretty hip in these sorts of areas.
Wayne says that, if there is any way to get out, including crawling out the top or any crevice, they will leave to find true earth if it thunders, and it shakes them. I can not vouch for the veracity of this, but Wayne is generally pretty good in these areas. Warmest regards, Doc.
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