We have had a vermicompost for about 3 years. As we have no yard, a normal compost is not possible. The worms live at the bottom of the stairs. 😉 It has helped us to reduce our waste and the castings are gold for our indoor and outdoor plants.
We bought our worms from these guys: http://www.wormsatwork.com/ They are super helpful and I would recommend contacting them for worms. (The website has lots of information about how the vermicomposts work).
Worms, however, are not for the faint of heart. We love our little “pets” but they are a bit of work.
Notes:
- the worms are vegans+: no meat, oils, dairy, cooked food, heavy spices, onions or citrus (bananas can be added but only in smaller quantities as they mould)
- we freeze all food bits in the freezer first. We just keep some heavy bags around and fill them up after we prepare meals
- then, we thaw everything and trow it in the food processor (this does require a heavy duty food processor!)
- then, it is drained a bit and put into tupperware containers that make “single serving” worm food
- containers are all put back into the freezer
- we feed our worms about once a week (thaw contents of container before feeding to the worms)
- we need to keep the worms “watered” at least twice a week. It is vey dry here and their paper dries out very fast
- seperating the worms from the castings does take time… but, we only do this about twice a year. We get two 5 gallon pails of castings from our bin each year.
Some amazing benefits:
- we can grow avocado trees! Just throw in the avacado seed into the worm bin, check a few weeks later and you’ll have a sprounting tree you can grow
- all of our house plants love worm castings. Sometimes the plants start to look a little sad. I add about a tablespoon of castings to the top of the soil and voila! Magic
- most of our worm castings go into our community garden plot and get mixed with the soil in our pots on the patio