Composting and Worm Bins
For the last two years I have been composting food scraps. I started out with a New Zealand style bin I built in the far reaches of my backyard. The upside - it was very inexpensive and easy to make. Took me about an hour total to get it set up. The downside - with the open top, our resident Sacramento rats enjoyed their fair share of treats.
So the second compost bin my husband made out of old wood scraps from a fallen fence. This time, we put a lid on it to keep out the rats, but made sure that there were little spaces between the boards to allow for air flow, and a larger space at the bottom for more ventilation. This bin looked fantastic in our yard - my husband affixed the boards in a horizontal fashion, which matched the 1950s style home we had and the post-modern style of the neighborhood. The only downside to that bin was that turning the compost was difficult as the sides were fairly high.
Recently, family and WRC business relocated to the East Bay. As a result of downsizing our physical space from .25 acre to a postage stamp lot, we have a new challenge - how to build a bin that will fit in our tiny yard.
Our first attempt in small-space composting failed and stank. We tried just burying the food scraps under some yard clippings and adding some compost enhancer. While it was very exciting for our cat to catch all the little mice that enjoyed a nightly feast, we did not enjoy the smell or the addition of the mice to our yard. (Okay, the reality is that they live under the deck, but at least there I don't have to see or smell them! Our cat is still bringing us daily "presents" of little mice parts. At least she is having fun!)
So, after much research, we are going to build a worm bin! Many worm bins are made out of tubs you can easily buy and adapt, but being the plastic-phobe that I am, it doesn't seem very earth-friendly to create such a wonderful, natural soil fertilizer in a container that may contain BPA or phthalates. Thus, we grabbed some old wood scraps from a family member's deck and are about to embark on building The Worm Bin Tower.
We'll let you know how it goes - I'm still researching different styles to make sure we don't end up with a heap of dead, rotting worms.
And for those of you who wonder WHY in the heck we should compost our food scraps, let me give you the "short list":
So the second compost bin my husband made out of old wood scraps from a fallen fence. This time, we put a lid on it to keep out the rats, but made sure that there were little spaces between the boards to allow for air flow, and a larger space at the bottom for more ventilation. This bin looked fantastic in our yard - my husband affixed the boards in a horizontal fashion, which matched the 1950s style home we had and the post-modern style of the neighborhood. The only downside to that bin was that turning the compost was difficult as the sides were fairly high.
Recently, family and WRC business relocated to the East Bay. As a result of downsizing our physical space from .25 acre to a postage stamp lot, we have a new challenge - how to build a bin that will fit in our tiny yard.
Our first attempt in small-space composting failed and stank. We tried just burying the food scraps under some yard clippings and adding some compost enhancer. While it was very exciting for our cat to catch all the little mice that enjoyed a nightly feast, we did not enjoy the smell or the addition of the mice to our yard. (Okay, the reality is that they live under the deck, but at least there I don't have to see or smell them! Our cat is still bringing us daily "presents" of little mice parts. At least she is having fun!)
So, after much research, we are going to build a worm bin! Many worm bins are made out of tubs you can easily buy and adapt, but being the plastic-phobe that I am, it doesn't seem very earth-friendly to create such a wonderful, natural soil fertilizer in a container that may contain BPA or phthalates. Thus, we grabbed some old wood scraps from a family member's deck and are about to embark on building The Worm Bin Tower.
We'll let you know how it goes - I'm still researching different styles to make sure we don't end up with a heap of dead, rotting worms.
And for those of you who wonder WHY in the heck we should compost our food scraps, let me give you the "short list":
- If every one composted, we would have a 30% reduction of waste in our landfills!
- The castings from worms and the hummus from composting is THE best fertilizer for any and all plants - natural and safe
- It's a great way for kids to learn about the environment and how we're all interconnected and interdependent on one another
- It's fun - really!
posted by The Well-Rounded Child at
5:17 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home