Vermicomposters: I have a vermi- vs. traditional compost question

[MomOfOneFunOne]

If I have the space and inclination to compost with a regular outdoor composting set-up why would I also have a vermicompost set-up in the kitchen?

 

Would there be a benefit to having both?

 

Anyone out there actually vermicompost?

 

The one advantage I can think of, and it's the one reason I'm thinking of vermicomposting, is that we're currently working on establishing an indoor garden of sorts. We have basil currently growing in the kitchen and on Christmas (well, actually now but I'm the only one who knows) we'll have several more herbs and a meyer lemon tree growing in the there. In addition, if the new herbs and lemon tree do well, I'd like to add another fruit bearing tree and maybe some other fruit bearing plants. This is our first attempt at countrifying our little urban patch. I have read that the vermicompost and the compost tea make excellent fertilizer/food for indoor plants. So, with all those indoor plants that I have and hope to have, it seems as if vermicomposting would be a good idea.

 

And yet . . . we have a lot of yard waste. We have 9 full-size very large trees (ranging from magnolia to oak to maple) and two "juveniles:" persimmon and maple. We also have an ornamental tree and some bushes. So, we have a ton of yard waste! Outdoor composting makes sense. With outdoor composting we can do both yard and kitchen waste.

We have a mulch mower, though, so we don't pick up the leaves or grass, though.

 

I don't know. What do you think? I'm getting a gift cert to the local hardward shop (I know this b/c I bought it and am giving it to myself) and will probably have just enough to do both projects.

 

I don't want to do both, though, if both don't make sense. kwim?

 

What think the hive?

[KS_]

Well, I tried vermicomposting for awhile several years ago. I thought it was pretty cool, but there was an odor that I didn't care for and after awhile, I gave it up and moved the worms to the outdoor compost pile. If I would have had a space indoors that was not a main part of the house (like an unused basement area or something), I may have kept it up, but I'm pretty sensitive to smells and just didn't like it in the house. I don't even really remember what it smelled like (not necessarily rotting or anything like that), but just that I didn't care for it.

 

So I compost outdoors and am a pretty casual composter. I have a couple of small bins made out of old, 35 gallon plastic garbage cans and then sheet compost in my garden beds before and after the growing season.

[JeneralMom]

We do both.

 

I use the worms to compost kitchen waste. For our yard waste we have an outdoor compost pile (sans worms). We do it this way because we have dogs and I don't want them digging in my outdoor compost pile (we do not have an enclosed composter).

 

And, I like using the worms to teach the kids about composting...holds their interest more than a decomposing pile of leaves and twigs.

[MomOfOneFunOne]

 

And, I like using the worms to teach the kids about composting...holds their interest more than a decomposing pile of leaves and twigs.

 

Yeah, and being able to say I have a dog, a bird, and 50 worms.

[MomOfOneFunOne]

and then sheet compost in my garden beds before and after the growing season.

 

What's sheet composting?

[KS_]

What's sheet composting?

 

It's just basically digging a shallow trench in the garden bed and putting the stuff in it. So during the off-season, I put a lot of my kitchen scraps directly in the garden beds (often the compost bins are full of yard waste by then anyway).

[Spy Car]

I do both.

 

For the worm bin we've used two Rubbermaid "Roughneck" bins. The one in which the worms live (with holes poked in the lid and bottom with an awl). The bin is set in another bin of the same size that traps any excess moisture (in the form of tea) from the main bin, and the extra lid is kept loosely on the main lid to keep out rain.

 

Since the temps are mild here, our worm bin is kept outside. To be honest, I wouldn't want to keep a worm bin in the kitchen, because it can be "musty" smelling.

 

But roses love the high-grade worm compost.

 

Bill

Edited December 24, 2009 by Spy Car

[OrganicAnn]

Organic Gardening has lots of information about worm composting (magazine and website).

 

I think often it depends on if you have a place to put a worm bin and if you are willing to deal with the wigglers. We just don't have a good place for one and I really don't like touching worms.

 

I would love to have the compost they create. We do regular composting and I guess that will have to be good enough for us.

[missmoe]

I have done both in the past. Like previous posters have mentioned, I didn't like the bin in my kitchen because of the smell. The bin was moved to the basement. I think that an outdoor compost pile is different than the worm compost. I used the worm compost as a fertilizer and the outdoor compost as more of a mulch or topsoil.

[MamaSheep]

I have worms...not exactly IN my kitchen, but just around the corner. I keep them in the top drawer of a two drawer plastic drawer unit and I keep newspaper and junkmail and whatnot for 'bedding' in the bottom drawer. As long as I don't put in more food scraps than the current number of worms can manage well, I don't notice a smell most of the time beyond a sort of earthy smell like good, newly turned soil when the drawer is open. If I get more food in it than the worms can deal with well, or if too much moisture accumulates then it can give off a little bit of an odor--my clue that the balance is off and I need to take out some scraps, add more bedding, or just clean the whole thing out and have another go. I don't put in potatoes, tomatoes, or citrus because those also tend to make it smell. Other than that, though, it's not bad. I don't have a place to compost outside, nor does our yard generate much waste (yet...still working on landscaping, and we'll see how it goes once the vegetable garden is operational, but I think most of that will be able to be sort of trench composted). I like it there because it's convenient. I tried an outdoor compost bin with worms for a little while but found that I was too lazy to walk all the way out there with my scraps and didn't like having a smelly container to collect them in and then dump periodically. In the house it's convenient and as I said, I haven't noticed a smell if I don't overload it, and even my son with the sensory issues (the incident with the air-freshener in the resource room is legendary in the school district, evidently) has not been bothered. Or even mentioned it as far as I remember. My kids like it because there are easy to access worms to feed to our pet frogs as treats.

[Peela]

I have done both in the past, but the worm composter has gone on the balcony outside, not actually in the kitchen.I knew peopel who kept theirs in their laundry. I tended to put the finer scraps in there like the juicing leftovers. However it gets very hot here in summer and I have killed my worms a few times over the years and don't have any presently.

 

Nowadays, we have chickens and a rabbit for scraps- and we get eggs in return. And for the kitchen, I bought myself an indoor anaerobic composter like this:

http://www.cleanairgardening.com/kitchen.html

There is no smell because it is sealed, and you also sprinkle some healthy bacteria impregnated sawdust over it.

I bought it because I am juicing again and going through a lot of fruit (its summer here) and we can't give fruit scraps to the chickens because it tends to rot and smell and attract rats.

This type of composter doesnt turn the food actually into useable compost- it does break it down somewhat, but then you take it out to the garden and bury it lightly or dig it in, or put it in your outdoor compost heap. I have been putting it in a pile and putting a shovel full of dirt over it- within a few days it is broken down, so it is an effective system.

 

I am however getting an outdoor composting bin for Christmas. Not everyone's joy, but I am excited about it!