Is anyone combining Window Farming with a worm compost bin?
10:41 am in Nutrients by Katrien Ghesquiere
Because this seems to be a perfect combination: worm composting is an ideal solution for composting organic material like plant material in an apartment situation and it allows you to harvest a liquid percolate, containing soluble nutrients suitable for hydroculture. All you need is 3 buckets, a drill and compost worms.
It allows you to close the circle entirely: you can use the plant rests of your window garden as a fertilizer so you don’t need to put organic waste in the bin and you don’t need to buy liquid fertilizer.
Keep in mind that you have to dilute the percolate before adding it to any plants.
The compost can be used for indoor plants you’re growing in a classical soil situation.
More information on http://www.wormsasbl.org/index.php?tar=compostez&id=33&sel=4&ssel=1&art=3
Katrien
I just set up a vermicomposter with red wrigglers and plan on using the juices on mine.
I’ll be making a thread and sharing info as It progresses.
Can you explain the 3 bucket system you are suggesting?
i believe what is needed is a country by country resource for finding the verimiculture starter kit ( so to speak). where can we find the worms. perhaps a city by city resource. would be helpful.
to get the ball rolling ( or the worm wriggling, so to speak) here are my (local) growers.
Dirt Willy Ecology & Bait Farm Ltd
53116 Range Road 210
Ardrossan AB T8G 2E4
Phone: 780-922-6080
Earth’s General Store
9605 – 82nd Avenue
Edmonton, AB T6C 0Z9
Phone: 780-439-8725
Red Wigglers Edmonton
Red.Wigglers.Edmonton@gmail.com
Edmonton AB
Phone: 780-668-6581
Vermiculture Canada
Site 8 Box 23 RR 2
Tofield AB T0B 4J0
Phone: 780-662-3309
Toll free 1-866-225-5036
I Picked up Red Wrigglers at Pistils Nursery in Portland, Oregon.
Wow ! Great idea and you’re right, it loans itself perfectly to this relationship.
Some Information and resources for worm related items:
Earthworms Buyer’s Guide: A Directory of Earthworm Hatcheries in the USA and Canada, bublished biannually, Shields Publications, P.O.Box 669, Eagle River, WI 54521
Mail Order Catalogs:
Smith and Hawkins: worm supplies, information, books, worms, 1-800-776-3336
Park Seed: worm related supplies and worms. 800-845-3369
Worm’s Way: worm supplies and worms 800-274-9676
Gardeners Supply Co.: worms & peat free blocks 800-955-3370
Book: Recycle with Earthworms: The Red Wiggler Connection ISBN-13:978-0-914116-32-5
Shelley C Grossman & Toby Weitzel
This is a tiny book that covers all the basics including nutrients delivered and a sincere look at composting as a way of life. My friend has her farm in her kitchen, chops up the veggie waste and feeds the kids, no mess, no smell, no prob. (Vol. of food waste per wk = size of worm bins.) (Thanx Katrien!)
Thank you all too for all the reading suggestions.
So in short, the vermicomopost system as explained in French on the above mentioned website:
(http://www.wormsasbl.org/index.php?tar=compostez&id=33&sel=4&ssel=1&art=3)
-drill holes every 4 cm in the bottom of two of the three buckets
- the third bucket should not be perforated
-put the two first bucket in the third one.
-put your starter worms together with some organic material in the second bin. Regularly add organic material. As soon as you second bucket is full, you can go on with the top bucket so that your worms can migrate to the top.
-after +- 1 month you can regularly harvest percolate in the bottom bin.
-after 3 to 6 months you can harvest the compost in the second bin.
All credits to worms asbl. They are situated in Brussels, ther goal is to spread knowledge about composting.
Good to know: you can use the same worms from compost heaps. THe vermicompost is a little more sensitive to temperature changes than a compost heap so needs regular attention.
Happy composting. Please let me know how the combination with window gardening works.
found an awesome resource here – apparently someone has already thought about this on a world wide source resource for worm suppliers. Google it, it is probably out there.
. . .
http://www.cityfarmer.org/wormsupl79.html#wormsupplies
There’s a group for this. Joining it and using the forum there would be the best way to move this forward and to have everyone start collaborating.
http://our.windowfarms.org/groups/homemade-nutrients/
Its interesting that so many people were excited about this post but did not find the group. Should I rename the groups so that it is easy for everyone to find each other. Any for names suggestions?
Please encourage other people who have expressed interest to join the group, so we can get some good work going on this! Here are some related posts:
http://our.windowfarms.org/2012/01/25/completed-worm-farm/ (Build your own!!)
http://our.windowfarms.org/tag/compost/ (Trygve has been around for a long time and is a great wf’er!)
I’m sure there are a lot more. This was just a quick search.
-Britta
PS- Totally love the icompost avatar picture!!
There are also bins designed specifically for composting with red wrigglers, they are easy to manage and harvest water and castings from.
I got one of these:
http://www.wholesalefishingworms.com/shop/worm-factory-360/
Hi all. I’ve just completed the first column of a window farm with my high school students here in Shanghai. We are building V3 and it seems to be working well so far. We are hoping to use the “worm tea” from our compost bin to make our nutrients mix but have no idea about concentrations. Any advice?
Thanks