Vermicomposting with Worms
Vermicomposting – Letting The Worms Do The Work
Worm compost is a great composting option for those who live in apartments, flats or homes with little or no yard space. Vermicomposting with worms using bins or buckets is a self contained unit that lets the worms do the work safe inside eating their way through your household food scraps.
Today, as much as 30% of all the household waste and rubbish generated by the home consists of garden, yard and kitchen wastes. This wastes contains thousands of tons of leaves, grass clippings, food scraps and other such organic materials. Other such biodegradable, compostable materials such as scrap paper and cardboard are sent to local authority landfills and incinerators each year.
The problem with the systematic burial of waste in landfills is that they contribute to methane gas emissions released into the atmosphere due to the decomposing process. While modern landfills are completely sealed to reduce the risk of contaminating the local environment and groundwater from leachate (contaminated liquid), leaks do happen which can pollute the air and local water supplies.
Yet half of all the household waste that is incinerated or ends up in landfill could be composted or even turned into a usable Biomass material. Every year gardeners around the world buy millions of tons of growing media, soil conditioners, and mulching materials, much of it based on peat. A high proportion of this could be replaced, free of charge.
If households and gardeners started recycling what they now simply throw away, the impact on the environment in reduced landfills, pollution and the need to destroy natural habitats by excavating peat, would be enormous. The benefits of composting are enormous, and with the help of our little friends underground, the vermicomposting of waste materials into usable compost is easily achievable. As composting is recycling naturally providing us with an alternative energy source.
What is the Point of Vermicompost
There are plenty of very good reasons for gardeners to make compost, but the biggest incentive of all is that it saves you money. Composting is a natural process that’s easy to implement and is considered sustainable. It’s an eco-friendly method of composting organic waste using earthworms to break down materials into nutrient-rich compost. These first class team of helpers will do almost all the hard work for you.
Naturally occurring micro-organisms (mainly bacteria and fungi) do the hard part of breaking down organic materials into compost. All you have to do to keep your little decomposers working hard 24-7, is provide them what they need: The right kinds of food, and the right amount of air, water, and warmth. Then just sit back and let the worms do the work!.
Garden soil is not an inert or dead material. Living within it is an almost unbelievably diverse, living community of micro-organisms, worms and bugs. Unlike garden plants and shrubs, these micro-organisms and bugs which live and breed in the soil cannot make their own food so depend on organic rich matter from our world above. So the more organic matter you put onto the compost heap the more microbes and worms there are.
A compost heap used for aerobic composting is a complete ecosystem on its own, a sort of world in miniature. Worms eat the decaying vegetation and excrete organic compounds that help enrich the mixture, while their never-ending burrowing creates tunnels and passageways which helps to aerate the compost. Millipedes, slugs, snails, and woodlice all help to shred the plant materials, creating more surface area for bacteria and fungi to grow. It’s a never ending circle.
All these micro-organisms and bugs that turn your rotting plant material into good quality compost for the garden, eat the same sort of things that we do. They microbes need energy, conveniently supplied by carbon rich carbohydrates in plant cellulose. They need nitrogen and phosphorus, to make proteins and other vital molecules as well as just enough water to stop the compost heap from drying out.
Worms love wet moist compost so require a compost with a high moisture content. With the exception of extreme heat or cold, nothing will kill worms faster than a lack of adequate moisture. But not too moist, as too much water conflicts with the need for air to help aerate the compost. Too wet and you end up with a smelly, waterlogged anaerobic compost pile that will take years to decompose.
Worm compost, also called vermicompost, vermicast, worm castings or worm manure, is the composting material produced by the breakdown of natural material by earthworms. Vermicompost is a nutrient-rich, organic fertilizer, and soil conditioner. The process of letting the worms do the work is called vermicomposting and the resulting rich medium they produce is called vermicompost.
Vermicomposting with Worms
We have discussed here that vermicomposting reduces the amount of waste sent to landfills, mitigating methane emissions and decreasing environmental pollution. It also produces high-quality compost that improves soil fertility and structure, promoting plant growth without relying on synthetic fertilisers. Additionally, vermicomposting requires minimal energy and water inputs compared to traditional composting methods, making it a sustainable option for managing organic waste and supporting healthy ecosystems.
Vermicomposting contains not only worm castings, but also bedding materials and other organic wastes at a mixture of stages of decomposition. The vermicompost also contains worms at different stages of growth and other micro-organisms associated with the process. It has been said that earthworm treated compost can contain 5 to 10 times more additional nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium than an untreated soil.
Compost worms are big eaters and can quickly eat their weight in food in just one day. Composting worms will eat almost everything organic, but they definitely prefer some foods to others such as vegetable scraps, leaves, and grasses, fruit scraps and peels, mouldy bread and grains, moist papers and manures, etc. The bedding in a vermicomposting bin retains moisture, reduces odours, and serves as food for the worms.
Vermicomposting bins or wormeries are used to house your worms and compost. Containing both the worms and compost in a bin helps to keep things neater. They can be home made from simple wood boxes with lids or purchased through mail order gardening supply catalogues. Below are some examples of manufactured bins that can be purchased.
More often than not, the companies that supply wormeries will also supply the worms as a complete starters kit. As the worms eat their way through the materials in your vermicomposting bin, the soil like contents of the bin darken and begin to smell moist and earthy. This is your finished vermicompost (worm compost) and the whole concept behind vermicomposting is to let the worms do the work.
Vermicomposting with worms cannot be considered a fertilizer but it does reduce the need for pesticides and synthetic fertilizers. It contains important plant nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus which are full of nutrients necessary to promote strong, healthy plant growth as well as giving you some of the richest potting soil around.
Worm compost-rich soil tends to be more resilient to diseases, pests, and fungi since it contains many of the nutrients needed to grow strong, healthy plants both in your house and in your garden.
Vermicomposting and vermicompost is an excellent soil amendment and provides many benefits to the soil. It improves the permeability of compacted clay soil and the water retention ability of sandy soil. It is a great alternative to expensive petroleum-based fertilizers and will increase the organic matter content of the soil. Over the summer months, energy rich nutrients required by the garden plants are slowly released as soil organisms continue working on the compost.
To learn more about how “Vermicomposting” works, to obtain more information about the various worms available for vermicomposting or to explore the advantages and disadvantages of composting with worms, then Click Here today to get your copy from Amazon of one of the top “Worm Farming and Vermicomposting Guides” and learn more about the different ways to produce good quality compost in your garden just by letting the worms do the work.
Earth worms are not only the most recognizable of all the animals in the soil food web, but also one of the most important to gardening and farming. Among other benefits, earthworms aerate the soil; there is absolutely no need to till with a healthy population of worms. I’ve read a few books about worms and many other very interesting facts…
Spent a really satisfying morning emptying my two compost bins. 🙂 Spread the compost around the beds and was pleased about how many worms there were (though not sure that they will survive the badgers’ foraging tonight). It always amazes me how such sweet-smelling and friable compost can be produced from kitchen scraps, weeds, grass cuttings, shreddings etc.
One question: am I right not to put orange and lemons into the compost bin and, if so, then why not? 🙁
Thanks
Polly