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What Does Worm Composting Mean? How Can I Get Started?

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If you have heard about worm composting, you are probably wondering what it actually is. It certainly sounds like we are planing to make compost from worms doesn't it, but don't worry they are just our little helpers. Worms have some really interesting properties, and most people are unaware of just how important they are to agriculture, nature and the survival of plants everywhere. Go outside and look at the ground; great your back, and did you see soil. If it wasn't for worms you would not have seen any soil, because what we know as topsoil is essentially worm poo.

Worms travel along slowly and patiently taking rotting matter in one end, and from the other comes high quality compost. They are little through-put machines, that literally allow the world to exist the way it is, by turning rotten things into soil. So if you are interested in not only helping natures little unsung heroes, but using their ability to make compost, I have the perfect plan. Worm composting is the ultimate in natural ways to help your garden, and to essentially recycle in the most efficient way possible.

Worm composting is essentially just making sure our little helpers do what they do best, in a controlled environment. By placing our food refuse in a sealed area with worms, they will diligently work away to our benefit, and they wont ever ask for a pay rise. If you want really powerful nutrient rich compost for your garden, worm composting is how you get it. Hopefully at this stage you are ready to get started, and this is great news because I like to think I am helping to encourage recycling, and especially this kind of natural recycling.

So to start with you are going to need a worm composting container, and I will provide links for that at the end, but it is important to know how large that container must be. The size of your worm composting container determines the amount of food that can be recycled per week, as if you try to recycle to much, you will just get fat lazy worms and it wont work. Even though worms are our perfect little eco-warriors, they can only work so fast.

You need roughly one square foot of container surface, per pound of food waste. This ratio should allow your worms just enough food to keep them running like a finely tuned team, and not to much so as they cannot do the job. You should fill your container ? full with ordinary soil and compost, and I recommend a hand full of sand to help with the worms digestive process, and then add your food refuse. You are going to need plenty of worms, but luckily nature gave us the perfect worm catchers; children. If you don't have children of your own just ask the neighbors kid if they want to make a few dollars filling a jar with worms. Worm composting is very interesting to children for some reason, so it is best to use your own children for this task, as you may have trouble getting rid of other peoples.

So you have everything set up and you have even added the food, so now what? The next stage is mostly waiting and adding more food, but once you have a large amount of worm compost that you need to get out of the container, there is a procedure. The worm composting final result is great compost, but you have a slight problem which is that it is full of worms. Now you can just tip the whole lot onto your garden and this will certainly help your plants, but you may wish to keep the worms.

Tip the contents of your worm bin onto some large plastic sheets and pick the worms out. Again this is a great job for children, and often their favorite stage of worm composting, but make sure they know to also keep the tiny yellow worm eggs. As each egg can hold between five and twenty worms, this is your next generation of workers. Why not let half of the adult workers go free in your garden, as they will greatly improve the health of your plants. If you do retire some of your worms when getting ready for a new batch of compost, make sure you put them under the compost you are putting down, because otherwise the birds will eat them.

For more information and products to get you started check out Barrelsandbins.com


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