Vermicomposting in the cold-climate apartment - By-products

Output

Last weekend I made a bucket-sieve out of 1/4-inch mesh. It was molded around the base of a smaller tub, and it fits snugly inside a larger tub from which I have shed the base. I sieved all my four tubs from my experiment of a few weeks back. The bones no longer smell, and I think the worms are having a feast.

I've collected three 15-litre ice-cream tubs of sieved compost soil for use during the winter, and have re-stocked the big tubs with crumpled paper and soil and put them back in the laundry closet. I think it is going to work very well.

Pasteurizing soil

We pasteurize the soil to kill of bugs and seeds. Baking is the preferred method, although boiling water will do the trick. Naturally we aim to remove as many mature worms as possible prior to baking.

I spread the soil onto a sheet of paper or plastic, and heap the soil to a cone. After ten minutes, I scrape away the perimeter of the cone, and load it into a baking tray. Worms escape the light and retreat towards the centre of the cone. repeating the process leaves me with a cone of worm-laden material, which I return to the composter.

We cannot avoid killing worms by baking - no matter how many visible red-wrigglers you remove, there are hundreds of tiny white baby worms.

I use a two-inch deep aluminium foil tray - used to cook shepherd's pie in it until it sprung a small leak. The tray is twelve-by-nine inches.

I trowel composted soil into the tray and bake at 180°F for thirty minutes. No hotter or you'll get ash. No longer or you'll bake the humus right out of there. We want to kill off the molds, nematodes, fungi, soil insects and most weed seeds.

That makes about enough soil for one six-inch pot. Let the soil cool well before putting it to use.

I have an old vegetable bin, made of plastic, and I drop the sterilized soil in there ready for use.

(Later) I have found worms in my potted plants. This leads me to believe that 180 degrees for thirty minutes is not enough. I have embarked on a program of baking two litres of soil at 225F for thirty minutes, and leaving it to use the cooling heat of the oven. I will drain some water through the cooled soil, to simulate watering, and leave it for a month. At the end of a month I will slowly flood the container and see if any matured worms rise to the surface.

Containers

Milk comes in one-litre clear plastic bags. I have snipped one corner to pour. When the bag is empty I slit across the top, rinse well, and fill with potting soil. Twist-tie the top and punch slits in the bag for striking cuttings or for cultivating struck cuttings. A handy way to transport plants. Hang them, chain-like, from the side of a bookshelf. I use a leather-punch, smallest hole size, to pepper the bags with aeration holes. Water gets dripped in to the top.

Filler

I have found that the polystyrene foam trays that bring me meat from the supermarkets can be rinsed and then popped into the blender at low speed. use two trays, broken into 2 cm chunks, with the blender half-full of cold water and run at a low speed. Drain the particles through a sieve and add to the potting mix. Maintain separate tubs of white, green and pink particles for a pleasing effect.

Eggs

Red Wriggler worm eggs are lemon-shaped, yellow to reddish-brown, and about 3 millimeters long.

I am not adept at spotting them (yet) and suspect that harvesting of eggs might best be achieved by flotation – passing soil that is cleared of worms through a tub of water and skimming floating eggs from the top. I haven’t tried it yet.

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