So tonight my housemate and I assembled a pretty quick & dirty vermicompost bin. I'm pretty excited about this, especially since they took away the compost bin from the apartments next door as they began the renovations. I'm looking forward to a healthy, bountiful garden this year (dangit!), and I'm hoping the little red wigglers can help me out in that respect. All that remains is to buy the actual worms (though our garden may turn some up over the next day or so).
The nice thing about vermicompost bins is that, in addition to requiring less maintenance and processing time, worm bins are less smelly, despite the fact that you're basically turning the contents into worm poop. In fact, the only time it smells is if you're doing something wrong, so it makes a great built-in alarm bell. In the end, the worm "castings" are one of the richest, safest forms of fertilizer, and they're pH neutral (like water!).
Anyway, there are any number of ways to build a vermicompost bin, but the simplest worm composter involves taking an opaque 18-gallon rubber tub with lid, drilling holes along the top and bottom of the bin, and throwing in some damp newspaper, a couple handfuls of soil, some leaf litter, and cardboard, then placing it over a drain tray and covering it. This is what we did, and it took all of 5 minutes from start to finish. I know it's rather nerdy, but I'm eagerly awaiting a vibrant worm bin.
On that note, I leave you with what is by now a classic youtube viral: the disgusting sewer worms under Cameron Village in Raleigh, NC.
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