Worm food

Last Christmas I received the lovely gift of a food composter fueled by the hungry bellies of 100s of worms. Why would you want that? That sounds gross! Doesn't that smell? are all the usual responses I got from friends and family at the time. But I stand to make some facts out of these claims..

Tremors II 1996, Universal Studios @ badmovies.org

I really fell for the idea of composting after moving into the city and seeing all of the local neighborhood gardens. I wanted a garden of my own, grown right, and grown with the produce I like. I also came to realized that a lot of the meals I like to prepare at home produces scraps such as stems, husks, crusts, etc. I felt pretty wasteful throwing these things out. Looking for alternatives, I came across last December's issue of grid magazine, "a free, monthly print publication focused on sustainability issues and initiatives in the Greater Philadelphia area", featured D.I.Y. composting. In that was an article focusing on  on vermicomposting, or composting with the help of worms to break down organic matter into soil friendly nutrients that can be added to your garden later on.

After doing some research, and some positive feedback from friends at work, I was looking forward to get a system of my own started to help me get a good kick off to this coming Spring urban garden experimentation. 

The setup I got from nature's footprint is pretty simple. It comes with most of the things you need to get started except for the worms and food waste. Basically you assemble your system and as you gather food waste or paper you can add it to the composter and the worms will get to eating. They can eat half of their body weight per day, so over-feeding is not too much of a concern to me. Also composting your garbage is very helpful in reducing what ends up in the landfill, imagine all the trash you throw out that is food waste.

hands-on action

So far I think that answers the Why would you want to do that?, the other important question to answer is about the smell. The answer revolves around the diet of the worms. If you keep the contents of their diet strictly vegan (no meat or dairy) then you won't notice an odor. I know many people who keep their systems in their kitchen; mine is currently in our basement for lack of space reasons, but hope to move it outside when the lows get above freezing.

For more worm fun check out Super Mega Worm for the iPhone:



Anyway, if anyone has any questions about the composter, process, or anything related feel free to let me know.