Vermicompost

Mini worm farm….

In Permaculture, one spends a lot of time observing. I observed that folks are paying for red worms, vermicompost, & vermicompost bins. I also observed that I was tired of hauling my kitchen scraps to a separate pile to be worked and then taken back to the garden to be amended into the soil. In Permaculture, there is a saying “The problem is the solution.” I have many black nursery pots…. This is one of my many uses, and it creates a great solution to amending my soil and feeding my vegetable plants directly.

I dug a hole deep enough to cover half of a nursery pot, sunk it into the dirt and started to add kitchen scraps (no egg shells or citrus), shredded paper, & any other organic matter I have on hand. I live in Prescott, Arizona, so the pot had to remain cool & moist. I can pile straw up around the outside if we are in the hot/dry months or I can lay a terra cotta dish on top that keeps the pot below at a nice temperature. The dish also allows the birds to come have a drink while hopefully eating an insect or two and leaving a small bit of manure. The shallow dish also allows bees & butterflies to get a drink (make sure to put a rock or stick in there to help the bees if they start swimming). Smaller scraps make it faster for the worms to do their work. I have multiple pots in my beds. If I have company & end up with lots of scraps, I can add the second bucket on top of the first and the worms will crawl up the drainage holes in the bottom of the bucket. A second bucket also allows me to empty the bottom bucket contents around the garden or use for seed starter. “Where do you get the worms?” you ask….if you build it, they will come 😉 Mine found their way to the bucket and quickly multiplied…..

Making sure the pot stays moist is important, normally all the food scraps can help maintain the moisture level, but on occasion I add a small bit of water. The plants (tomato plants above) will eventually grow above the pot and help keep it shaded. They in turn take in nourishment from the worm castings. We have had 7° F this winter & lots of snow and rain. When I went to the garden to check on the buckets and add more scraps, the worms were still moving around in the bottom black bucket which was being warmed by the sun! It is important to mention that my garden is fenced. It is permeable to smaller critters like rabbits & skunks, but the Javelina are unable to enter and root up the scraps in the buckets. I will say that this garden was built on a piece of property that contained all sorts of backfill debris like asphalt and concrete, pieces of metal, broken ceramics, etc. We took the chunks out and started amending with straw, manure, bark chips, and detritus I collected from my catchment ponds & swales. These photos are from the first official garden on this site.