Converting Organic Waste into Compost With Worms

Welcome!

I learned about vermiculture backwards. I visited a coffee processing plant in Palmichal, near Tabarcia, in Costa Rica, and witnessed a large industrial vermiculture operation. They were composting their waste coffee hulls with more redworms than I even imagined could exist. They were using a windrowing system that is now the standard of the industry. They had learned most of what they were doing from a scientist from Pinar del Rio, in Cuba. I hope you have time to watch the slide show. My aroused curiousity started a search that seemed to always end up at very large or very small systems. There seems to be a need for a medium-sized system. You can't go wrong by reading the book "Worms Eat My Garbage", by the late Mary Appelhof, if you want a small system. I bought my first pound of Eisenia fetida from her.

A VermiChester system is a simple arrangement of stackable bakery trays on a raised base. The trays are completely filled with composting worms and screened composted organic waste.

Water is added until the system drips dissolved worm castings into a pail. The drippings are siphoned to remove large sediment, bottled and labeled VermiJuice for sale at Farmer's Markets, etc. Scroll down for a post about "Compost Tea" The liquid can be diluted as much as 8 times for plant feeding and irrigation. Some users have seen a reduction in plant pests as well as increased growth of healthy plants.

Rotation of the trays allows the bottom tray to be removed for harvesting, and stirring of the contents during the rotation loosens the contents to ensure full trays and more even access by the worms. The percolation of the castings exposes the slower decomposing materials to a longer period of digestion. In time, the contents become VermiCompost which is harvested and placed in plastic trash bags inside of double-thick paper bags of about 10 pounds each for garden and greenhouse purposes.

While it would appear that the purpose is to restore humus to depleted soils, the big picture involves eliminating organic waste from landfills, etc. The really big picture has to do with processing the spent effluent from methane generation, but that is another story.

In Costa Rica, small farmers with 6, or more, pigs, collect the manure in a modified septic tank with a plastic "bladder" cover. The manure produces methane which is piped into the kitchen for cooking. The digester drains out of the bottom. Vermicomposting the spent effluent would increase the value at least 8 times. The potential application for CAFOs in the USA should be obvious. That would require a much larger system.

Why compost organic waste first?

In a small worm bin you can add your household waste directly to the worm bin, but in a mid-scale system I have found it to be advantageous to combine the materials in compost bins first. My compost goes anaerobic immediately and I encourage it by keeping it damp. My leaves, grass clippings, and household wastes tend to begin as layers, sandwiched between the coffee grounds and filters from the local coffee shop. When I use my pitchfork to toss the contents of one bin into another the materials get mixed better.



After it has been tossed once and has heated again, I screen the worm food through a 1/2" screen. This gives me a uniform texture. The people down at the coffee shop tend to throw bottle caps, etc. into my pails, so the screening also gives me a chance to remove the inorganic waste. Sticks, stalks, and big lumps go back through the compost bins for another cycle.

Worm Farming

Since composting worms live in the top 6"-8" of forest litter, each tray represents about 3 square feet of forest. By stacking them up and keeping them full, the worms can travel in every direction just as in nature. One full stack of seven would be like 21 square feet of forest space. I thought that the vermiculture manager at La Palmichal told me that he doesn't allow their litter to get deeper than 20" deep, but in retrospect he must have said 20cm. He wouldn't normally use inches.That would be about 10", which is why I prefer the shallow bread trays.



I designed the system with the cloud forest rainfall in mind. Even a steady rainy season won't harm the system. It merely washes out "VermiJuice" and leaves worms and undigested organic waste behind. During the dry season, or indoors, the system should constantly drip into a bucket. When it stops dripping, your moisture content has reduced to under 50% which is too dry.

harvesting

First, I rotate the trays in the system, setting aside the bottom "drawer". I sprinkle water on the restacked system until it drips. Then I set the drawer from the bottom up on top of the system. This drawer is still dry.

You probably know how to use bright lighting to inspire your worms to burrow down into the deeper compost. If your system is inside, this will speed them along. Outside the sun will work for you. Fluffing up the material in the top tray annoys the worms a bit and inspires them to burrow down quicker. I come back the next day, or longer, when the top tray is drier. By then, many of the worms will have left the dry top tray for a wetter and darker neighborhood.

When the worms have completed their work, it is your turn. To preserve your herd and remove a nice uniform vermicompost from the system you need to harvest your product. This can be a tedious and boring task.
Build an inexpensive VermiHarvester.
Click on the tab above for details.

Build a base - A "Beyond Compost" update

If you bought the book, there is an Appendix that describes building a VermiChester base unit in great detail, but sometimes a picture is helpful. The Appendix deals with how to determine the correct sizes for different sized "bakery trays".

Some of my other photos show earlier versions that didn't work as well as I wanted them to. This is a work in progress, so if you come up with something we can all benefit from please share it.

"Beyond Compost" y "Mas Alla del Compost"

I have written two instruction manuals, called "Beyond Compost" that are for sale at Amazon.com

The Spanish translation of the same manual is "Mas Alla del Compost"


For more information, click on the tab above.

Inorganic Soluble Salts

Have you ever wondered what was being sprayed on the farmer's fields? Plant roots can only absorb "inorganic soluble chemical salts" (not table salt, of course), so the spray is not organic material. Organic material must be converted by soil microorganisms into these inorganic salts, so it follows that if soil contains lots of microorganisms it will grow better plants. The spray is a quick-fix. Putting organic material like compost into the soil will release these salts for as long as five years. Vermicomposting increases the microorganism content by eight times. The best farmers incorporate lots of composted organic material into their soils for a long-lasting improvement of their yields. Bad farmers consider this too much work and want short-term profits.

The VermiChester story is not about commercial composting. It is about MEDIUM-SIZED vermicomposting for large gardens and small truck farming.

What is BIOCHAR ?

In 2011 I saw the word "biochar" for the first time (or at least it was the first time I paid any attention to it). I could give you a sermon on it, but you will do better to look it up for yourself. Start with Wikipedia. There is a quick link up above. Strangely enough, your next stop may be YouTube or Michigan Biochar. Both will keep you fascinated for hours. I am not exaggerating when I say that this may be the most important information you have ever seen.

When you are done with your personal research, reserve at least one 40-quart bag from us, or from Michigan Biochar, for under $50. We'll have it available by Spring, on a first-come-first-serve basis.

Next, after you understand the connection, imagine a product that is a 50/50 mixture of biochar and VermiCompost. Help us out with a comment.

Note: The first comment is from a person who is well-known in the field and deserves your attention. He has included many valuable references for us.

Compost Tea

If you happen to be in the Battle Creek, Michigan, area, visit the Leila Arboretum. Along the east boundary is a large greenhouse where there was a working VermiChester system. The cover of my book has a photo of the system. Unfortunately, funding shortages required the closing of the greenhouse and removal of my herd in the fall of 2009. The VermiCompost was harvested with a VermiHarvester, bagged and sold as a fundraiser. The constantly dripping VermiJuice (my name for Compost Tea), was collected and incorporated into the irrigating system. Those plants that received the benefit of this liquid seemed to exhibit a lack of white flies, compared to other areas of the greenhouse.

Stacey Rocklin, the former Horticulturist, was experimenting with enhancing the growth of beneficial microorganisms by bubbling air through the liquid, and adding some blackstrap molasses and fish emulsion.

In 2010, I have met some people who are growers of "medical" marijuana and who endorse indoor soilless gardening. Unlike larger hydroponic growers of plants who use inorganic chemical ingredients for their nutrient solutions, the cannabis growers favor organic nutrients such as bat guano, etc. Many of them have encouraged me to pursue the use of VermiJuice as a source of "soluble inorganic salts" immediately available to the roots of plants in a soilless, or hydroponic, growing system. The inorganic soluble salts that plants must have in order to absorb the nutrients are converted from organic compounds by the microbes, therefore more microbes = more nutrition.

Compost Tea is made in three ways. Merely hanging a bag of compost in a pail of water, or just dumping it in, is called "steeping" like making tea in a cup with a teabag. Adding water to a VermiChester worm bin that percolates down through the VermiCompost into a pail accomplishes the same thing in reverse.

The other two methods are by using VermiCompost (eight times more microorganisms than typical compost), either by simple steeping or by a more complex method called "brewing". Testing the values of nutrients in Compost Tea is done in a number of ways for Nitrogen-Potassium-Phosphorus (NPK). VermiCompost that has no manures in it is generally lacking in the Nitrogen category (but, the trace elements are abundant in a compost that receives a variety of organic wastes). After testing, any nutrients that are lacking can be added to the brew where oxygen is bubbling to create a really potent solution that is readily available to plant roots or foliage.

We really need to share the results of this brewing.