Today we joined by Bentley Christie of the website redwormcomposting.com. Bentley is a red worm composting hobbyist who has experimented with various different worm bins and configurations for red worm composting. The site redwormcomposting.com is designed to share information and experiences about red worm composting with others, and has a very active user community.
In this interview Bentley and I discuss the life cycle, morphology, and biological origins of the red worm. We then go on to talk about developing a simple red worm composting system, and touch upon some of the requirements of red worms. Part I of II.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
2 responses to “Episode #84: Red Worm Composting (Part I)”
Nice podscast. This practice was taken over by pseudo scientists for a while, but many real researchers studied it as well.
An Ontario Government Facsheet on vermicasting summarizes the published science of vermicasting (vermicomposting): http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/engineer/facts/10-009.htm
Freeware (free excel applications) at http://www.urbanfarmsorganic.com/applications.html
will help you automatically optimize your vermicasting bin.
some notes on the podcast. Nice practical information! Earthworms require both oxygen and water, which they absorb through their skin. The published optimal moisture level in earthworm medium is 75%.
To make sure the required oxygen can diffuse throughout the medium, earthworms and their medium need to be placed in something that looks like a thick porous cartridge, think milk crates! The porous walls of a milk crate (lined with a 4 mm screen) allow the needed air in. The material needs to be regularly watered since all this air diffusion will dry it. This is achieved through drip irrigation. The porous milk crate would drain any excess water. The paper medium mentioned here is a good balance if you’re adding high nitrogen (food waste), because earthworms have an ideal C:N ratio of 25 in their feed. Research has shown however that pre-composting for 2 weeks then vermicasting achieves the highest mineralization and fast turn over rate.
I have achieved a turn over rate of 3 days per milk crate content in 2 weeks old compost (unfinished compost) by using this system. More importantly it can be build by retrofitting cheap milk crates. I”m fine-tuning the retrofit kit after which I’ll be happy to share it.