Green or Gross

Funny video on HuffPost, showing two worm bins side by side and giving a little critique of the differences.

I gleaned some good advice -- looks like I'm putting too much food in. You shouldn't put food in the next highest level until it's all eaten in the current working level, but I've got food to spare and it's in the higher levels. What this means is that the food will sit around longer and get a little grosser before the worms are ready to come up and eat it.

What this also means is that I either need more worms... or another bin. Who's going to tell Pete?

Independent verification! ... almost

I love CleanAirGardening. The whole idea behind it -- a guy too cheap to buy a gas mower finding his eureka with a push reel mower -- tickles me. (I was inspired and now am the proud owner of a Scotts push reel mower, although sometimes I run out of inspiration to mow by July and Pete claims it doesn't really cut the lawn anyway.)

Now I'm perusing the wonderful website this morning and what do I find in the worm bin entry? Independent verification that vermicomposters can handle pet poop. Whew. The Book doesn't discuss much beyond cat and dog waste, but CleanAirGardening has a whole discussion about what can and can't be handled. Yahoo! [in a non-trademarked, completely spontaneous use of the word]

From CleanAirGardening, in the [Can-O-Worms] round composter description:

Can this bin handle Pet Droppings? Yes - worms will eat pet poop if there is no other food available. If you want to compost pet waste, you should not put any food scraps in the bin along with the droppings. When composting pet poop, you'll need a dedicated worm bin that contains only poo. The worms will avoid the pet waste if another food source is available, and the waste is likely to contain pathogens that can pose a health risk over time.

Some pet droppings should never be composted. These include kitty litter, pig waste, and bird droppings. Kitty litter is not biodegradable and can kill compost worms. The other types of waste are too likely to contain pathogens and are not worth the risk to compost.

Worms make short work of dog droppings, but they can also handle ferret and cat droppings if the waste is not mixed with gravel. Other animal waste that can be composted includes droppings from rabbits, hedgehogs, prairie dogs, chinchillas, and a few other pets. Animal waste from pure herbivores doesn't require a pet waste composter though - this waste is pathogen free and can be used as an activator for compost piles or compost bins.

Now, cavy droppings are not specifically mentioned, but if rabbit poop is a viable compost component, then the cavy waste should be as well -- they eat very similar food, they're both herbivores, the resultant waste is really small (and really numerous).

Basically, what I get from Lar's description (he's the guy who was too cheap to buy a gas mower), is that I can either put the used bedding/poop from the cages into the vermicomposter as the brown material (OK, pun intended). Or I can put it into my bin outside -- which I also do.

Whew. I actually used the used bedding/poop directly in my garden, using the material as the bottom level of "soil" in the raised beds I built last year. The vegetables and companion plants grew gangbusters.

Another reason to love CleanAirGardening -- it's enabling my reuse of cavy poop.

Quick detour because the sun is shining

Got a question the other day from a friend that got my gardening juices (not leachate!) flowing. She wanted to know what I would be planting this year. Yowza. Those are dangerous words for me after a real Chicago winter.

The short answer is this: everything I can get my hands on. Sadly, that won't be as much as I planted last year (Pete and I discussed my obsessive gardening overspending last year, and the issue has been put to rest. It's so 2008 to overspend on gardening, right? Right? Hmmmm.)

To be more specific: fell in love with dahlias last year. They were blooming beautifully in my garden way into October. I know they're a little high maintenance for Chicago -- you have to dig up their tubers after the first frost, clean them off and hang them somewhere to overwinter. (I got the dig up and dust off part right -- but I think I left them on our back porch over the winter, and I'm thinking they're candidates for the outdoor composting bin at this mushy point.) However, I'm all for celebrating small success -- gorgeous blooms -- and working on past issues -- not remembering to hang the tubers before the first snow. So I'm back to dahlias.

Dahlias. Ahhhhhh. Some of the ones I ordered this year:

Dahlia Melody Allegro, from Whiteflower Farm









Dahlia Karma Corona, also from Whiteflower Farm










Dahlia Karma Fuchsiana, Whiteflower Farm











Dahlia Paso Doble, Whiteflower Farm












And just in case that isn't enough, also the Last Hurrah Collection of 5 tubers, from -- you guessed it -- Whiteflower Farms











I like Dahlias.

[Note to anyone concerned that this purchase of Dahlias might qualify as "obsessive gardening overspending," al la 2008. The answer to that is a resounding thank you to my parents, who sent me a lusciously large gift certificate to my favorite online nursery as a birthday gift. So ha!]

For your reading pleasure

Found this in the NYT the other day -- Urban Composting: A New Can of Worms.

See, Pete -- I'm not crazy. Or, rather, I'm not the only crazy one.

Can-O-Worms

Oops, Christmas refers to this post, not the last. Being crafty in my composting marriedness, I inveigled my poor spouse to procure the bin. I sent him pictures from Amazon and my favorite composters site. He ignored me and purchased the Can-O-Worms.

The Can-O- Worms is considered to the most popular home-vermicomposting system in the US. You get a legged base with spigot, three trays, and a top. The spigot is for releasing the liquid (called leachate) that may drain from the composted organic waste -- this makes prime fertilizer for indoor plants. The Can-O-Worms is made with recycled plastic and comes packaged in cardboard that you then use in the Can -- nothing is wasted.

You can vermicompost in just about any plastic or wood container that allows aeration. Some people get Rubbermaid bins and drill holes in appropriate places -- this would be horizontal vermicomposting, since they'd be using the entire bin at the same time. With horizontal vermicomposting, there's time and mess with harvesting out the finished product, separating the worms, etc.

The Can-o-Worms is a vertical unit that supposedly makes harvesting and separating easier. Ostensibly, you start with the worms and the food in the bottom bin until it's full, then add food to the next up bin and the worms migrate up once the food is fully digested in the lower bin.

In the beginning...

A long time ago, I didn't like dirt, worms, gardening, noxious odors, or decaying material. I liked my carbon in paper form, neatly bound, preferably containing a beguiling story about horses and a young girl.

Then I went to law school. I had kids. I learned to appreciate the concrete world around me, not the fantasy world in a book. And then I found gardening books, and my nirvana was complete.

So the truth is I didn't set out to compost, much less compost with worms. After politely ignoring my mother's love of plants for 26 years, I began gardening in the tiny front court of our coach house off Addison, more as a way to fill the time before the beginning of law school than as a bona fide interest. A casual purchase of red salvia from a neighborhood Walgreens turned into using my brother's car during his honeymoon as a vehicle for plant purchase from farther afield. By the time I had grown my first sunflowers taller than Pete, I was hooked.