For
years I have composted my kitchen
waste into a compost heap or Possibility Pile, but I must admit, many
times my compost bucket will get “ripe” before I remember to take it out to the
garden. Decomposition
does have a distinctive smell, and naturally this is not something I want in
the house. I recently found a new way to compost my kitchen waste without smell
or hard work. I found some “ladies” who are now taking care of my problems.

My ladies are actually a group of red
wiggler earth worms and they live in a plastic tote box in my
laundry room. These ladies can eat a hundred times their weight in kitchen
waste, and they turn all that waste into rich fertile vermicompost that feeds
my garden. Composting gold is made in my home everyday, without smell or hard
work.

There are many advantages to vermicomposting. It produces fewer odors and
attracts fewer pests than putting food wastes in the garbage. It saves the
water and electricity that a sink garbage disposal unit would use. It requires
little space or labor. It produces high quality fertile compost – worm castings
are a natural fertilizer. It keeps food wastes out of the landfill. Food wast
in the landfill decomposes without oxygen, creating methane gas, which is a
major contributor to global warming.

All you need to vermicompost are a worm bin, bedding, water, worms and food
scraps. You can buy a ready-made worm bin, or you can us a simple plastic bin
or wooden box. It will need to have a cover for darkness, and holes for air
circulation. I use a large Rubbermaid tote box that I have drilled several
holes alone the stop for ventilation.

The worms need to burrow in bedding to bury the garbage. Shredded paper,
cardboard or leaves will work. This is a great way to recycle your junk mail
and catalogs. Run this paper waste through a paper shredder and add to the
bottom of you box. This bedding must be kept moist, so regular mistings of
water are necessary.

Use only red worms, or “wigglers”, which are the composting worms. Feed your
worms non-meat kitchen waste, such as veggie and fruits peelings and scrapes,
tea bags, coffee grounds, egg shells and paper products like coffee filters,
napkins and paper towels. Occasionally, when the worms are working to efficiency,
you can give them a rare amount of meat, but this should not be done on a
regular basis.

Every few months, remove the rapidly multiplying worms from the box and use the
rich vermicompost to fertilize houseplants and garden vegetables. After
cleaning the box thoroughly, add shredded paper products to the bottom and add
the worms back to start the process over.

Be warned, the worms reproduce rapidly because all they do is eat and multiply. You will probably have too many worms to add
back to one box, so be prepared to start new worm boxes. Or you can add a few
worms to several areas of your garden. They will burrow into soft garden soil and begin their cycle of eating and
reproducing as if they had never been moved.

Worm farms would be a wonderful idea for school children that are interested in
gardening projects. Worm boxes could be set up at school and then the children
could feed the worms with all the left over school meals. This would teach a
valuable lesson in the art of recycling and improving the Earth.

So the next time you don’t eat all your house salad at lunch, bring it home in
a doggy bag. Can’t eat all that bread left in the complimentary breadbasket?
Bring it home to the ladies. Tired of dumping used coffee filters and coffee
grounds in the trash? Feed it to the ladies. These ladies are hard working and
they work for food, so the more food and kitchen waste you have, the happier
your ladies will be. You will be rewarded by a decrease in kitchen waste and an
increase in produce from the garden .

Contributed by Bobbi Rightmyer, Mrs. Greenhands…read more about her gardening exploits at http://mrs.greenhands.blogspot.com