I was a tomboy growing up . I was always one of those kids that was hypnotised with spiders , fried ants with magnifying glasses , and pick up lizard by their tails only to be left with the tail end , and not the lizard .
So when I find out about the Worm Factory 360 , a insect composting organisation that can be used indoors or out , it seemed right up my critter - screw alley . Nature ’s Footprint sent me one to try , and I ’ve been intrigued with it ever since !
TheWorm Factory 360bin makes vermicomposting a simple , clean , and efficient process of turning your food scrap into fertilizer for your garden . With a traditional compost pile , you hold off for your trash to rot by nature through heat and bacteria . With vermiculture , you let your worms do all the work by digesting the combat and pooping them out — resulting in nutrient - rich dirt ball castings .
Worm cast ( a euphemism for worm poop ) can be propagate directly on your soil , or used to brew compost tea . They are plenteous in natural hummus , nitrogen , potash , phosphoric , and Ca , all of which contribute to hefty plant emergence . Just like the finished compost from your solid food scraps , dried leaves , and creature manure , dirt ball castings are considered “ black gold ” in the gardening populace .
My louse bin arrived in one tidy boxwood with all the components needed to jell up my system : stacking trays , sprinkler tray , worm ladder , base with spigot , shredded paper , pumice stone , coir , rake . Everything except the dirt ball .
This is an expandable system of rules , so you start with one tray and sum more as needed . The initial assembly is a simple process that involve heap up the base , worm ladder , working tray , and lid , in that order .
( Quick peak : The lid is shipped nested inside the base . It say so in the manual of arms , but of course I chose not to learn the manual first , and spent a good 10 minutes look for the “ missing ” element until I finally figured out why the worm ravel was n’t suit over the base correctly . Duh . )
To set up the system , start by layer a few sheets of dry paper in the bottom of your workings tray .
Next you have to make your worm bedding . You ’ll need a cup of active compost from your existing compost mountain in the garden , or a loving cup of decayed leaf litter from beneath the shrubs on your street . This is a quick way to bring microbes into your vermiculture bin and kick - start out the breakdown of your scraps .
douse half the brick of coir in water until the fibers boom and break dance aside .
Strain the coir and squeeze out all the supererogatory piss .
Combine the active compost , coir , sliced newspaper , and a cup of pumice stone . The coir help keep on moisture while the pumice provides aeration in the bedding .
immix it all up to make your worm bedding .
Add your mixed bedding to the worm bin , on top of the ironic paper layers .
add up a couple handfuls of food for thought fleck to a recession of the bin . The little or softer the scraps , the faster they ’ll break down . Mine included crushed eggshells , onion plant neglige , herb flowers , and some odds and end from various vegetable .
Finally , fill the bank identification number with more sliced newsprint . I used my composition shredder to slice up a mess of newsprint , but you could also just displume apart dust ring mail , composition board , catalogue and magazines .
After setting up a nice plate for your worms , you have to happen some to know in it . Luckily , my even compost bin in the yard is just teeming with worm every time I open it up , but you may find red wigglers ( also bed asEisenia fetida ) on Craigslist or atFind Worms . As opposed to other louse , such as nightwalker , red wigglers make effective composting worms because they stay relatively near to the surface and are effective eaters and reproducers .
Your worm bin needs to be populate with around 1,000 worms for upright productivity . That equals roughly a pound of insect , so I enroll my guy wire to help me hand - weft worm out of our compost bin . It was a messy job , but somebody ’s fix ta ( joyously ) do it !
After a half hour of delve through our compost , flinging louse at each other and squealing with entertainment ( or at least , I was squealing ) , we had a bowl full of slide , writhing , cherry wiggler worms .
It kind of looks like spaghetti . Mmmmm .
I moved my bin alfresco and add the dirt ball in one giving pile on top of the shredded newspaper .
Then , I wash a few sheets of newsprint and placed them on top of everything in the tray .
The bin postulate to be identify in a sheltered area outside , away from verbatim sunlight and out of the rain . I put mine right outside my kitchen door , so that kitchen scraps collect in my countertop compost pailful can well be moved to the insect bin every calendar week .
If you do n’t have any outdoor space , you could also place the ABA transit number inside your home , since a respectable vermicomposter wo n’t let loose any odors .
After letting the worms settle into their new surroundings for a couple day , I attract back the sheets of newspaper and found that most of them had burrowed beneath the sliced newspaper publisher layer .
I found the worms actively crawling around the intellectual nourishment scraps , so they were already in use fix to work .
After two weeks , the food was starting to decompose , make it easier for the worms to put up .
Every week I add another handful or two of kitchen chip . They should always be added under the top layer of shredded paper .
Red red worm can eat half their weight in food per day , so a thousand wigglers can eat half a pound of food for thought every day . When the first tray is full with a few inches of food ( unremarkably after a month ) , you’re able to add a second tray on top and your worms will of course migrate upward .
At maximal production , the first tray will take about three months to finish . The worm universe will also double every three month , so subsequent trays will be finished at a faster charge per unit .
It ’s significant to maintain the proper level of wet inside the bin . The top plane of newspaper should be re - wash when dry , and more shredded paper can be total to the bin if it have too soused inside . dirt ball rust the paper along with the food , so you ’ll have to moderate on them periodically to ensure a 50/50 ratio of brown to unripened affair in the bin .
Other than that , the gig pretty much run away itself . I only contain on my wormy friends once or doubly a week when I feed them , and it ’s more for my own fascination than to perform any real care . I ’m about a calendar month or two away from adding my second tray , so I ’ll post another update in the declination on how my little Wormville is doing .
In the interim , if you ’ve ever been queer about vermicomposting and want to examine it yourself , I extremely urge theWorm Factory 360 . It ’s easy , it ’s playfulness ( especially if you ’re infatuated with such creature as I am ) , and it ’s a pliant organisation that works in the smallest of spaces ( like balcony ) to the rarified of gardens . you may even put it in a garage or cellar ( which is recommended in winter if you live in a northerly climate , since worm ca n’t survive freeze environment ) .
Start vermicomposting now , and you ’ll have a full pillar of tray filled with fertiliser for next spring !
