Compost vs. Vermicompost

When we moved a few months back, I was really into the prospect of starting a compost bin. Cut back on green waste? Imporve my garden soil? Healthier, happier plants? Sign me up. So I did a little digging and found that there are 2 common ways to compost - traditional pile composting and vermicomposting.  Pile composting is basically a system where you put your green waste outside and add some browns, making sure to turn the pile often to aerate. "Browns" are materials that are high in carbon, while "greens" are high in nitrogen. The ideal ratio for compost is 25-30:1, carbon to nitrogen.

Browns

• Fall leaves
• Hay & straw, cornstalks
• Shredded cardboard & newspaper, plain copy paper
• Paper plates, bags, towels
• Sticks, twigs, branches, bark
• Sawdust
• Pine needles (but not more than 10% of the pile)

Greens

• Veggie & fruit wastes
• Clean, dry eggshells
• Coffee grounds, filters, & teabags
• Seaweed (soak first to remove excess salts)
• Horse, cow, rabbit, chicken, gerbil, goat, sheep, rabbit, pig manure
• Weeds that have not yet gone to seed
• Garden clippings

Usually people have two or three different stages of compost separated out, so conventional composting can require a good amount of space. This is probably why some people opt for a compost tumbler. It can take a lot of time (3-12 months) for the compost to break down enough to be considered finished compost, depending on the temperature, carbon to nitrogen ratio. You can tell it is finished when you can't identify any of the items and the compost smells sweet. If it is stringy or smells bad, it's not done yet.

The other common way to compost is with worms. Vermicomposting seems to be a bit more flexible. All you really need is wiggler worms, a bin (to contain them), food scraps (for them to eat) and bedding (for them to live in). There are ready made worm towers that can be purchased, and vermicompost can be successfully completed indoors. Oh and it should be noted that the point of this is worm poop (castings). Sweet, sweet, nutrient-rich worm poop. Which only comes from the wriggly kinds of worms, not the beige-ish earthworms.

Red wigglers.

A rather large regular ass earthworm discovered in my garden.

  The tower systems are usually plastic and have 3 or more trays. You put the worms and bedding on the bottom tray and feed them there. Then you put the 2nd tray on top filled with more bedding. The idea is that when the worms run out of food, they will climb up to the second tray in search of more, leaving behind the castings. Once you harvest the castings from the bottom tray for your garden, move that tray to the top of the tower. This my friends, is the circle of life. Or something.

Anyway, as I have probably mentioned in previous posts, I am both lazy and cheap. Both the towers and tumblers cost at least a benjamin, and I have no available benjamins to speak of. I also have no interest in building a compost system from scratch in a rental property. When we moved in April, I... uhhh... liberated a green waste bin from the old apartment as a means of bringing some extra dirt with us. It was the heaviest thing ever known to man and when we were failing at moving it, I wondered if I should have just left it behind. But I didn't, and that my friends, is the start of a beautiful worm poop filled story: The Tale of the Vermi-Ghetto Compost. Probably coming relatively soon.