Vermicomposting at home- Getting Started
Composting v/s Vermicomposting:
For over 7 years I have been composting all my wet kitchen waste. Like many other composting enthusiasts, I started with conventional compositing with some of the bins available in the market. Well intentioned, however most of these conventional composting kitchen bins are either too effort intensive or at worst suffer from over-rotting stink, fruit flies or maggots.
Doing this for around 2 years, I always thought there has to be a better and less messy way to compost kitchen waste. Upon my research I came across various resources that talked about Vericomposting (using earthworms to compost), but most of these were at industrial scale.
I collated a lot of such information and based on my learnings, mistakes and experience of exclusively vermi-composting for past 5 years in my balcony.
I wanted to share the best practice step by step process for anyone who wants to either start vericomposting or wants to shift from conventional composting to vermi-composting.
Stage 1: Preparing the first bin for earthworms
This is the most crucial & time intensive task. But since it’s a one time job, it would be worth it. The earthworms are very resilient creatures but most of the things go wrong with the worms during the first stage of introduction.
Most common rookie mistake is skipping this step and adding worms directly into a brand new bin & adding food waste directly, which leads to not giving worms right environment to adjust & they usually don’t survive.
Items needed:
- A medium/large size earthen- clay pot or rectangular plant bin. (Try to re-cycle an old one if possible)[Box Size: 24inch length X 16inch wide X 12 inch deep]
- Discarded cardboard brown boxes (enough to fill 1/3 of the pot)
- Dried garden Leaves (enough to fill 1/3 of the pot)
- Fresh Cow-dung or Cow-dung cake (5–6 small size cow-dung cakes)
- 1 tbsp Jaggery
- Handful of Garden soil
- Composting Earthworms (Red-Wrigglers) [Minimum 50–100]
Step 1: The Cardboard
Start with the brown package boxes, be mindful not to use the boxes that have lot of print or ink on them. Take enough boxes so as to fill around 1/3 of the pot by volume. The earthworms love these brown cardboards and lay eggs in them.
We need to wet these cardboards first. For that rip them a little, not too small for now. Refer the image below.
Next take a small bucket and fill it half with water & soak these cardboard pieces for max 1 min & take out immediately.
Now since they are softer now, tear and rip them into smaller pieces. Now the cardboard is ready and will serve as 1st bedding layer for the pot.
Take the clay/earthen pot and place the wet shredded cardboard pieces into it.
Step 2: The Leaves
Get almost same volume of dried garden leaves as the cardboard & crush them into smaller pieces.
Next soak them in water for 2min max just like we did with the cardboard.
And then layer them in the pot over the cardboard layer. The leaves become the Layer#2 of the bedding.
Step 3: The Cow-dung
We need to use cured(without bugs& insects) Cow dung. It should be either fresh if you can source it, else get 5–6 cow dung cakes.
Soak them in water for 5min, and powder them in the texture below.
Next add a spoon full of jaggery to it along with some garden soil and mix them well. This mixture is ready to be the top layer of the bin.
Now cover the pot with any lid and leave it to rest for at least 5–7 days.
A few points to remember
- The pot must be kept in a cool and shaded place.
- Ensure that the pot contents are kept moist not wet.
- Check on it daily & sprinkler very little water if only needed.
Step 4: The Earthworms:
After the pot has been kept for 5–7 days, there should have been plenty of microbial activity started in it. It would be now ready to receive the live earthworms.
https://youtube.com/shorts/2CVmyU13_LI?feature=share
Gently add the worms on the top of the pot and add a layer of wet dried leaves on top for shade.
Make sure to keep the pot in a cool and shaded place. Cover the top of the pot with a moist cloth.
Remember, earthworms hate light & heat. and love damp, cool & darkness.
If the weather is too hot cover the pot with wet jute gunny bag.
So when do I start feeding the worms?
The pot has enough food(cow dung, leaves, cardboard) for the worms to feed for around 15–20 days at-least.
Do not start adding kitchen waste yet. The key is to start feeding slowly.
After adding the worms, after around 5 days add a small piece of water melon peel/ papaya pulp/ old banana etc.
Dig a small hole at center, drop it and cover it up. Much like a dog hiding a bone in the ground.
Check in how many days that food is been consumed. Ideally it would take 2 days for worms to completely finish off a small banana.
Regular Feeding Cycles
Gradually increase the amount of wet kitchen waste to the bin. Remember initially giving less food is always better than more .
Once the worms are comfortable finishing the small amount of food waste, the regular cycle should be to add the wet waste every 3–4 days.
How to add food waste
Dig a small hole on any one side of the pot and drop the food inside it.
The next time you feed, make the hole adjacent to the previous spot and keep moving around the circumference.
Stage 2:
After this bin thrives well for a month or so. it would be a good idea to move composting to a bigger bin. I usually prefer a rectangular bin. More on that in a separate blog soon.
Refer the below link on What and What not to feed the worms:
https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/composting/vermicomposting/care-and-feeding-of-worms.htm