Restocking The Balcony Vermicomposter

Today I am priming the new composter (see " Rebuilding The Balcony Vermicomposter ")

I have a large rectangular bin. OK. It's a laundry-tub that got tossed out during renovations. ( A Second Use For Everything ). The tub is full of sieved material from the large Balcony Vermicomposter together with some left-over peat moss, and the soil from a few dead houseplants.

First off, during the week I've added a garbage bag of shredded paper to the new bin, tossed in a scoop of compost material, and added a cup of water each day until I see fluid seeping from the bottom. That's enough water for now.

I have created a bed of shredded paper. It is moist (well, down-right wet at the bottom!), and is seeded with bacteria from a worm bin. Remember, worms eat bacteria, not garbage, so we need a healthy community of bacteria for our worms before we introduce the worms to the bin.

Here is my laundry tub. I scoop two dollops of material into the metal basket inside a pail, then sieve the material into the pail. Fine compost and soil drops through with worms. The basket retains a few scraps of undigested paper or cardboard, a few worms, and some 1-centimetre pellets of clay or soil. That little bit of detritus goes into the new composter, so already I'm adding worms, bacteria, soil and bedding. It's a start!

The pail of sieved material is emptied onto a plastic sheet, in this case a garbage bag in reasonably good condition. I make a flattened cone and leave it sit for five minutes. The worms shun the bright light and retreat to the lower layer.

Here is a close-up of the heap. You can see some worms that were in the base of the pail, and are now on the top of the heap. They will soon burrow down into the lower levels of the heap.

An even better close-up. Cute little critters, aren’t they!

Having poured myself a fresh coffee, I began removing material away from the heap. I use a plastic spoon to drag away a few spoonfuls at a time. It is easy to spot the worms that are exposed from the side and edges of the heap. Most of them have retreated to the deep interior, but there are always stragglers.

Here is a straggler, posing for a photo alongside the Sundae teaspoon.

I scoop him up in the plastic teaspoon.

Why a plastic teaspoon? Not for my sake – I'm too big and robust to be harmed by the worm. It's for the worm's sake. I want to minimize their contact with whatever might be on my skin (harmful bacteria - harmful to the worm, soap, coffee, cat hair etc.)

The worm joins a few of his friends in a margarine tub. With every worm that gets scooped comes a small amount of compost. This little bit of soil accumulates quickly to provide a haven for these worms-in- transit.

I'm nearly done with the heap. The heap has been spread to the outside edges of the plastic sheet.

The margarine tub is almost full of worms and material.

Here are seven worm eggs. Think "Shape of a lemon; Size of a grape pip".

I used to separate eggs too, but now I realize that the worm eggs are pretty good at looking after themselves. Read on, dear reader, read on.

Here is another view of the exhausted heap. Yes, that's restful sitar music playing on the speakers.

Harvesting worms provides me with a relaxing hour or so on the weekend.

I pick up one edge of the sheet and gently nudge the edges of the distributed heap to the other edge of the sheet. In doing this, I uncover a couple of worms I've missed.

Here are two more stragglers. I'll teaspoon them into the margarine tub with their buddies.

Here are two more stragglers. I'll teaspoon them into the margarine tub with their buddies.

Here are two more stragglers. I'll teaspoon them into the margarine tub with their buddies.

Here are two more stragglers. I'll teaspoon them into the margarine tub with their buddies.

By the time I'd finished I had five shopping bags with material.

Each bag contains about 50% worm castings and 50% soil and peat moss. It is still too rich for most houseplants.

As well it contains some baby worms (too small and easily missed) and a host of eggs.

I'll store the bags in the broom closet next to the Broom Closet Vermicomposter , where it is dark, warm and reasonably moist. After all, if the worm colony is thriving in the broom closet, the climate must be suitable for a nursery of five bags.

In six week's time I'll take out the bags and quickly extract any worms.

If you've been tracking the date/time stamps in the photographs, you'll see that the whole project took me under two hours.

The new Balcony Vermicomposter has bedding, is moist, has a colony of bacteria and a small colony of worms added today.

My plan is to use this vermicomposter exclusively for shredded paper, so excepting for the material primed today, only paper and nitrogen-rich sources such as coffee-grounds will enter it.

I plan on putting no kitchen waste in there, so that as best as I can I'm simulating an office environment.

Let's see if the worms can survive in, and digest all of, the shredded paper I produce in my home office.

Search