Turning Kitchen Scraps into Gold

ByPatNaughton

Kitchen scraps in a landfill create harmful methane gas. Kitchen scraps in a vermicomposter create a nutrientrich soil amendment for plants.

Vermicomposting is easy to do. All it takes is a bin, bedding such as newspaper, cardboard, or leaves, and worms. Worms eat the food scraps and make worm castings (worm poop), which is nutrient-rich and helps to retain moisture.

Start with Red Wigglers

The best composting worms are Eisenia fetida (common name: red wiggler). Start with one pound (about 1,000) of red wigglers to one square foot of surface area of the worm bin to have a chance of developing a sustainable system. Red wigglers are available by mail.

Estimate the amount of food scraps you create in a week. One pound of red wigglers will eat up to two pounds of food scraps a week.

Adding more food scraps than the worms can eat will result in the food rotting and starting to smell. Come up short and you’ll be begging your neighbors for scraps.

Indoors or Out?

The climate in Brunswick County is perfect for outdoor vermicomposting but it can also be done indoors in a garage. Winding River resident Bob Gelinas has both. Bob started vermicomposting 8 years ago with a suspended fabric bag and 500 worms. Food scraps are added to the top of bag. The worms migrate to the top where the food is. After 6 months, remove compost from the bottom.

To improve the composting, Bob freezes the food scraps to help break them down, then thaws them. Since worms don’t have any teeth, he adds a little sand or eggshells every so often to aid their digestion. For bedding he uses shredded paper and cardboard.

Texas Tea

Wayne Huot, also a Winding River resident, keeps his outdoor vermicomposters in his shaded garbage bin enclosure. He started vermicomposting in Texas as a science project for his kids. He kept the composter in the garage due to the heat of Texas. While Wayne was on a family vacation, the neighbor taking care of the worms thought they might enjoy being outdoors.

It wasn’t long before they were all cooked and stunk to high heaven.

In 2014, after moving to Brunswick County, Wayne gave vermicomposting another try. He uses two Soilsaver compost bins that have a door at the bottom to remove compost. As the organic matter is consumed at the bottom of the bin, the worms move to the top for more food. Wayne highly recommends the book, “Worms Eat My Garbage.”

When adding the worm castings to his garden, Wayne always finds a few worms which he returns to the bin to do more work. He started off with 2,000 worms and now estimates he has over 500,000. Wayne goes through a 5-gallon bucket of food scraps from neighbors and family every week.