Does plastic affect compost worms?
I’m starting a compost bin at home. I am currently using pink earthworms and kitchen waste. I have heard that paper can be used for composting. I already have shredded paper from my office. Is it OK to use any type of paper? What if some of the shredded material contains the plastic windows in mailing envelopes? Will that affect my earthworms? I appreciate any guidance you might be able to offer.
Go to a fishing department and buy Puss worms/Manure worms. When you break one apart, it will ooze out a smelly yellow juice. They may be called Red wrigglers. They can stand the heat much higher than ordinary garden worms and Night Crawlers. If the center of your compost gets too hot they can go to the outside edge and be safe from drying out.
Don’t shred the envelopes with the plastic windows. Just dampen them down. and add it too the pile. The worms will compost everything but the windows. I’m sure you are going to use the compost for plants etc. You don’t want the shredded plastic windows mixed all up in it. You can just remove the whole plastic sheet at once’.
News papers are ideal. Like the first response (Laurie)said, avoid the hard, slick papers. The ones with bright colors used to be avoided because of the chemicals needed to make them bright. I think that’s a thing of the past. The typewriter paper should be OK.
Avoid getting it too wet. They only need it damp. Once you get worms in the paper add kitchen scraps. You can place it any where in the paper mass/ The worms will migrate towards it. No meats, bones etc. Veggies,bread and other produce made from plants is fine. You don’t want to draw mice,rodents and scavenger insects. The worms will compost everything. Except those windows. The worms won’t do so well on just paper. Add veggy scraps.
There is nothing better than worm castings for your plants. House plants and garden plants eat it up. It is quite expensive to purchase. You’ll be having your own before long. I keep a fine screen over my composting bin. It keeps out those little fly things. To wet of a mix will cause an anarobic reaction and your compost can get pretty rank smelling. Hold back on the water. Don’t get it too wet. But the worms do need to be damp all the time.
Can you use earth worms for compost?
Also, please tell me some tips on composting ether way.
Worms? Plain ol’ ordinary earth worms? You bet your booties! There is only one finer nutrient source and is bat guano, and I’m not so sure about that.
If you are composting kitchen waste in addition to garden waste, then worms are a must as kitchen waste simply does not break down fast enough without them. Most of the time the compost pile/bin will attract worms, but whenever I find one in a spot, I toss it into the compost.
Composting is one of those things that can be as simple or complex as you want to make it. I have an enclosed binn(made by Rubbermaid about 15 years ago) that kitchen waste goes in, and then just a simple plastic trash barrel with the bottom cut off (or not), some air holes, a lid, and thats how fancy I get with clippings, weeds, dry matter, and the like.
I also plant my tomatoes around a compost ring, and I am able to get twice the number of tomatoes and twice the weight in half the space. With a compost ring I just take a ring of chicken wire and make a circle. In the middle of the circle I bury a large 3-liter soda bottle with holes punched all over it, and inside that a length of pvc pipe. I plant the tomatoes around the outside of the ring, on their sides so that their root ball is close to the bottle, but outside the wire. I water through the pvc pipe/soda bottle and I use the inside of the ring as a compost ring, throwing in garden waste, clippings, weeds — layers of dry and wet. As the tomatoes grow, I string them with nylon pantyhose to the chicken wire. The watering through the bottle and the compost ring keeps the roots evenly moist, prevents surface moisture dehydration, and is a constant supply of nutrients. Towards the end of the season, the chicken wire ring makes it a snap to toss a protective covering over on those frosty nights. It doesn’t get any simpler or lazier than that to produce enviable tomatoes!
Good luck. Decide how fancy you want to get, then go from there.
ADDED: You can attract even more worms by laying down a few old boards in out of the way and cool, damp spots. The worms will gravitate to the board (as will slugs) which makes them easy pickings for transplanting into the ground-based compost pile, and the castings easy scrapings for putting directly into potted plants.
Incoming search terms for the article:
can axolotl be feed compost worms or just the common earthworms.?
My axolotl will only eat earthworms. As earthworms are hard to find all year round I was wondering if compost worms are ok to give them.
do not listen to the other answer. you have to at least feed it every other day. You can buy a bag of compost and set up a wormery by putting some leaves and compost in a container. you can buy worms from a fish and tackle which are bred and are perfectly fine for your axolotl. Put the worms in the container with the compost and they will breed. Try to make your axolotl take frozen bloodworm as it will save you time and money. To make it take them just put a some in and dont feed it anything until it is so hungry it will tank them. Also as you asked, if you get worms from the compost put it in the wormery for four days and you can feed it to your axolotl.
Incoming search terms for the article:
- axolotl and compost worms?
- wormery axolotl
- what worms can i feed to axolotl?
- vers de compost axolotl
- pellets axolotl
- make a compost for my axolotl
- feeding axolotls when you\re away
- feeding axolotls gardon worms
- feeding axolotl
- compost worm axolotl
Do you need worms to make a compost pile ?
My school is very in to reduce, reuse, and recycle. And in my science class my teacher said she will give us extra credit if we make a compost pile and she will use that for her gardening club. I already started one,and I know flies are one de composer but do you really need worms to complete it ? And where can I find some worms ?
Worms do make composting a bit faster, but, the key is layering green material (like veggie scraps or plant cuttings) with brown (hay, leaves, that kind of thing).
If you simply start a pile on the ground, the worms really will find their way there, if however, you compost in a bin, adding worms can be really helpful.
Composting is a really amazing way to reduce your trash, and your garden club will be able to grow even better foods and flowers with the nutrients all that spent food provides!
Incoming search terms for the article:
Is it a problem there are earth worms living in my compost pile I started last year?
My compost looks ready and when i was turning it I noticed there are earth worms living in it. I red only red wigglers are useful in a compost bin. I sure didn’t add any worms, they came by them selves. There was some earth in my compost because I have dumped a few potted plants in the bin.
I run a number of worm farms at my business not only do they process vegetable matter into fertilizer but also animal waste from the business (dogs and cats) and is just about the best you can get .
Earthworms will also oxygenate the soil helping the material to break down to usable compost much quicker than turing with a fork if anything encourage them they do a good job in lawns and compost bins.
Where can I order worms for my compost?
I have a small pile of toilet waste in my backyard. Not a big pile or anything. It is maybe a foot high and I am keeping it maintained. I have been covering it with a bed sheet so no one can see it. Either way, it is not composting, you can still see the individual pieces. There are supposed to be worms that eat human waste, but I don’t know what kind of worms they are. But I need some worms to wiggle around in that stuff and compost it down. Also would you date someone who is doing what I am doing?
Bacteria eats feces not worms. I would suggest having a septic tank man come out and remove it. Maggots may eat little but that will be spreading around bacteria.
If you dont add worms to compost, is there some kinds of bug or worms that can develop?
I HATE WORMS WITH A PASSION, and i don’t want them in my compost. any ideas of how to keep them away?
bleach to compost? isnt that deadly to anything.???
Well if you kill the little critters and worms you may as well throw away your ideas to compost at all. They are natures animals that take care of all the non broken down stuff you put in there. It`s the worms that eat whatever is in there and your compost is actually worm casings ( or poop ). Don`t like worms? Get rid of the composter. Leave them alone, they are there to help you , other wise , there will be no compost for you to use
Can you compost without worms and if so how?
It’s winter and I am trying to start my science fair project but all the websites that say how to compost say you need worms. I can’t find any worms in my back yard and don’t feel like ordering them offline. Please tell me how I can do it if it’s possible or tell me stores that I can by them from.
It depends on how you want to compost.
Composting with worms is called vermicomposting.
With regular composting you can compost on the ground or in a tumbling composter. If your compost is in contact with the ground then worms will naturally come into your compost pile. If you use a tumbler you don’t want to add worms since the tumbling would kill them.
Hope it helps.
-GG
Incoming search terms for the article:
- compost without worms
- composting without worms
- how does a kitchen composting without worms
- how to kitchen compost without worms
- kitchen compost without worms
- kitchen composting without worms
Compost worms in a worm bin: better to let the bin get hot or try to shade it?
I have a black bin where compost worms live. I know when it’s cold they go dormant. If they get real hot in the sun (easily over 100 degrees) will they become less active, or do they like to be hot?
Thanks,
Houyhnhnm
Direct sun will kill your worms. Bake them to be more exact.
Temps over 90, make sure your bin is damp and do not feed scraps, they will heat the bin more.
Worms do not go dormant in the cold, they die, but the eggs hatch when it warms again.
Should I compost worms or buy organic fertilizer?
My friend thinks I should just buy a gallon of fertilizer for $45 than just composting worms in my worm bin. He said it takes too much effort for what you get when you can have a gallon that would last probably a year for a backyard garden.
I say as a long time organic farmer you need both. Unlike non Organic growing, you need a multifaceted approach to soil fertility.
The worm castings are wonderful food for your soil, so is compost (and you should have a couple of compost piles working along with the worm farm that produces worm castings.) you should also be planting cover crops that are there to be grown than turned into the soil and if you have not yet done a soil test you should do so (do not use the kits they sell at the box stores as they are wildly inaccurate as most people do not use them correctly because they do not use distilled water and if any other water is used than the results will be way off) your county extension agent should have information as to who does soil testing (they may, though fewer and fewer extension services do this any longer and they test for the not Organic farms so you have to make your own interpretation of the test and what remedies to use). A good soil test costs around $25 and is worth every penny.
My favorite liquid fertilizer is Maxi-crop, a water soluble kelp powder. You can buy an 11 ounce can of it for around $25 and it will make something like 50 gallons of juice. And because it is a powder it has a very long shelf life. if you buy a gallon of a liquid fertilizer you have about 4 to 6 months to use it all up before it becomes junk.
