Large worm bins are resilient
I'm ashamed to say that we
haven't done very well with our worms in the
past. Part of the problem is that we had very little waste to
give
them since nearly all of our food scraps go to the chickens, and
another part of the problem is that I didn't use optimal bedding.
From
reading Binet Payne's Worm Cafe, though, I'm also starting
to realize
that small-scale worm bins are inherently finicky, a problem that is
overcome by expanding the worm bin to compost more waste.
Binet Payne notes that
her 32 cubic foot worm bins are very forgiving
of environmental conditions. She places them in the shade, but
otherwise doesn't worry too much about the weather even though the bins
are located outside. When the top layer of vermicompost freezes
in the
winter, the worms just move a bit deeper into the part of the bin where
microbial decomposition warms the bedding. During the summer when
school is out, the worms do
fine coasting along on just a couple of
feedings. Not only do mid-scale worm bins provide enough castings
to actually make a dent in a homestead's needs, they are also easier to
handle.
But where do you get ten
to twenty-five pounds of food waste per day? After failing at our
attempt to beg food waste from the local grocery store, I've got my eye
on the school down the road. I'm on the fence about whether to
try to find funding so that I could help them implement Binet Payne's
entire program (estimated cost $1,000 to $3,000), or whether I just
want to come up with air-tight containers that we could pick up on our
bi-weekly trips to town and then compost the food waste on our own
farm. I'll probably present both ideas to their principal and see
which one seems most exciting to her.
| This post is part of our Worm Cafe lunchtime series.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Where do you think we live?
Since we go into Dungannon twice a week and only into the "big city" where there are restaurants sporadically, we're really hoping to hit up the school. I suspect the sticking point for many places will be how often we're willing to pick up the scraps --- they probably won't be keen on waiting around for a week or two until my library books are due. But if we can't get the school to come around, we'll definitely try the restaurants next.