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My worms seem to be doing a pretty good job composting shredded junk mail and it’s the main “brown” ingredient that I feed them. Since there are no bad smells coming from my Worm Factory 360, I assume all is well. What is amazing is how much paper there is in my life. I recycle what the worms can’t eat, but I’m becoming painfully aware of the need to REDUCE. In my printer I use the back side of previously used paper whenever I can, but still there is all of this paper on my desk, much of which I end up recycling. In the next few months, I’ll be making an effort to reduce the amount of paper that comes into my life!

I wonder what the downside is to Bokashi composting? It seems very promising… it’s super fast and you can compost meat and dairy along with everything else I’m already composting in my worm bins. I’m going to look into this further as an additional option for getting rid of some of my waste. I think it might also be something that people who say “no” to worms might consider.

• All Green Children’s Book | Organic Alice and the wiggly jiggly worms

November 4, 2009
- I love it, a composting book for kids. I think I will buy it for my niece if I can find it.

• Westview Hills students dig composting – TheDoings-ClarendonHills.com

November 4, 2009
- Another grade school classroom makes composting an extremely interesting part of the curriculum.

I signed up for a Home Composting class put on by the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences through our county’s Extension Service. So far I have mainly researched composting and interacted with other home composters on the Internet, so I’m looking forward to meeting others in my area who are also interested in home composting and also to learning in person from an expert. It’s $15 for the 2 hour workshop and includes a compost bin to take home.  I wonder if I’ll have room for it. It would be fun to try another method of composting.
photo credit: Ajay Tallam.

How do I know when the compost is ready? Since I haven’t gotten to the point of adding another tray to my Worm Factory 360, I had not yet considered if I would know that it was done. I think mainly the worms will leave the tray once there is no food left and there is food on the next tray up, but I guess it’s possible that the tray could be full and not fully composted. So a tip I read on Real Simple is to put the compost into a baggy and smell it before you seal it. Put it in a drawer for a few days and then open it and smell it again. It should smell the same as when you put it in. If it smells worse, then it could probably use more composting. Great tip and very cool to see one of my favorite magazines with a couple of articles on Home Composting.

There were more fruit flies in my Worm Factory 360 yesterday afternoon than there had been before. Previously, there had only been a couple and I wondered if the increase was because I had added a bunch of food the day before, so I went to the Internet to do a little research. After reading this article on eHow.com, I am guessing that these new tenants in the Worm Factory are probably the offspring of the “couple” I had noticed before. Fruit flies reproduce rapidly and in large quantities if there is enough food to sustain them, so it seems likely that my worm bin could become a thriving metropolis for fruit flies. Hmmm. I’m not so sure that I want that.

It’s not like they are swarming all over the house. I really didn’t notice them until I took the lid off to add more paper. But when I did, I was a little uncomfortable with the small swarm. So what can I do to reduce the number of fruit flies (or maybe they’re vinegar flies)…

• The first thing I’ve learned is that the more decomposing food that is in there, the more eggs the fruit flies will lay. Therefore, I don’t want food sitting around for days before the worms get to it. This seems to conflict with what I was thinking about adding food waste only once or twice a week. Although I will pay more attention to how much food is left in the bin before adding more, I don’t think I will be feeding them on a daily basis and I don’t think that is even recommended.
• I remember reading somewhere that several inches of shredded paper on top of the bin will discourage fruit flies and I had done that, but as I have added food and the worms have eaten paper, there were places in the tray that didn’t have 2-3 inches of shredded paper and a couple of the corners were without any shredded paper covering. So I added a more shredded paper and made sure to cover everything.
  
• I haven’t tried this yet, but may consider this suggestion that is in the Worm Factory Instruction Manual. Fill an empty working tray with dry shredded paper or dry leaves and put it on top of the working tray.  It’s supposed to at least keep the fruit flies inside the Worm Factory.
• The instruction manual also suggests that nematodes (roundworms)
  which are available at many garden centers are excellent for controlling fruit flies.
• Fruit Fly traps – if the shredded paper doesn’t work and I am unhappy with the fruit flies, I might try a live trap and then release them in my community’s garbage dumpster. There a bunch of traps on this Wikihow.com page if you are interested.

I have total confidence that this will not be a big problem, if a problem at all. I just wanted to get a jump on it and make sure that my family never notices the fruit flies around my home composter!

Up to this point, I’ve only added small amounts every few days to my new Worm Factory 360. So today (and this week) will be a test for the worm tray, as I added probably five or six handfuls of food to the tray. Of course, my hands are pretty small, but still it’s the largest offering so far. Since things have been going so well, one might ask why I would change anything…. The answer is that I want to get the most out of it and encourage that original one pound of worms to reproduce so I can add even more food and paper waste. Some stuff is still going into the trash can and garbage disposal. I guess the only way to find out how much is too much, is by testing it. I assume that it will start to smell bad in a few days if there is too much food waste in it. I may also add some more shredded paper tomorrow as I think that getting the balance of carbon (browns) and nitrogen (greens) right is also extremely important. Besides, it turns out we have more paper waste than food waste in this house and I am hoping the worms will eventually be able to keep up with all of our junk mail as well as food waste.

I was concerned about geckos getting into my worm composter, but that hasn’t been a problem. However there are frogs in my worm bin! They are very small and cute, not to mention quick and jumpy.  I saw one yesterday and thought it jumped in while I was feeding the worms and I thought it jumped back out before I covered the bin. Today when I opened it up, a frog jumped out and I was able to catch it and put it in the back yard. When I returned to the compost bin and lifted shredded paper from another corner, out jumps another frog of similar size. I never located it after it jumped. I lifted more paper and didn’t see any others, so we’ll see what happens the next time I’m in there. It’s hard to figure out how they would get in the Worm Factory design, except for when it’s open and that is possible, but it is hardly ever open, so I’m not really sure. I will let you know if there are any more frog issues in the future.
photo credit: Shandchem

Josh Dorfman just recommended the Naturemill Home Composter on an episode of The Lazy Environmentalist. If you are into the environment even a little and you haven’t seen the show, you will want to check it out on the Sundance Channel, Tuesdays at 9 p.m. Anyway, in an attempt to convert a chef who cooks for Barabra Streisand and other celebrities, over to the “green” side, Josh gives him a Naturemill composter along with a few other ideas.

I’ve been interested in this composting option since I started looking. If my budget had been a little bigger, I probably would have bought it instead of my Worm factory 360. The idea of having an odor-free composter under my kitchen cabinet that can handle meats and dairy products in addition to all the other stuff I’m composting, is very appealing. Besides that, it creates compost very quickly.

Don’t misunderstand, I’ve very happy with my worm bins, but if you just can’t get comfortable with the idea of worms and you’ve got $300 in the budget, the Naturemill Plus XE may be the way to go. If you have $400 in the budget, you might even step up to the Naturmill Pro XE for the 3-year warranty and the foot pedal. I mean if it’s good enough for the Lazy Environmentalist…

I get a lot of funny looks when I start talking about worm composting. Home composting isn’t all that common, but composting on your back porch with worms is even less common. I understand the reactions because it was only a couple of months ago that I felt the same way. “Ick, worms.” “Eyoo the smell”. But it’s not like that at all. After researching composting methods for a month and then owning worms and a worm composter for a month, I can hardly believe it was a choice I almost didn’t consider. The worms make no noise and they eat the food before it smells. Covered with damp shredded junk mail (which the worms will also turn into compost), they are seldom visible when I remove the lid of my Worm Factory 360. I admit, when I lift the shredded paper to throw in some food waste, I do see some worms squirming while trying to get out of the light. But I already think that’s pretty cool since I also see compost where there used to be food. Honestly, I bet I could have a house guest for a week and they would probably not guess that the odd looking table in the corner is loaded with worms and old food and paper scraps… not to mention worm poop. Yes, that is the next conversation that gets a less than enthusiastic reaction. The nutrient-rich compost that worms create is actually worm poop. But if you saw it, you would think it was really good looking dirt. And by the way, no bad smell there either. All I know is that if I can come this far in my feelings about worm composting, there’s no reason other can’t do the same. I’m planning to keep talking about worm composting and show anyone who is interested how easy and cool it is. photo credit: Brian Lane Winfield Moore