Thursday, July 19, 2012

Hungry Bin Update

 The new Omlet home food waste compost wormery has been in use for a few weeks now.I have been checking the top of the composter every few days.The worms have become benign garden spirits, as I think what will the worms eat today and are they still healthy?
 A potato sack covers the vegetable peelings and kitchen waste.The only things they do not eat is onions,chilli's,meat,oil,pasta, and dairy products.The tiger worms naturally live on the forest floor in the leaf mould layer of the ground.
 We use a lot of vegetables,potatoes, and Cat eats lots of fruit.The skins and generated kitchen waste is added to the top of the compost bin.It cannot be more than an inch a day,and needs mixing with shredded paper,dry grass clippings,or sawdust to balance the decomposition.Apparently too much acidity will kill the worms,and if it is too rotten it also kills them by starving them off oxygen.Its like real life wriggling Tamogatchis!
 They dislike the light so as soon as you open the bin to look they burrow downwards into the soil.They are making worm casts and these will move down to the bottom of the inverted pyramid shaped compost bin,which eventually will feed the plants in the garden.
This rogue worm was under the potato sacking.You can see the stripes along its body.The booklet said it would be about six months before I can harvest fresh quality soil from the bottom of the compost bin.It is also supposed to make plant fertiliser but as yet no liquid has dripped from the bottom of the bin.
 I will mark the progress of the Tiger worms here.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I was contemplating a wormery but it sounds very complicated _ we had one before but it was just an old metal dustbin with holes knocked in it, started by a few spade fulls of manure, alive with worms, from the yard next door. I didn't ever add fruit to it but all he potato peel, cauliflower leaves etc when in - it made great compost!