General – Page 209 – Crazy About Compost

Vermicompost tea…or is it leachate?

Recognize this stuff? That's the bin under the worm bin... yummy worm leachate. Notice I didn't say worm tea... worm tea is a bit of a process to create, while leachate is just a fancy word for drainage. As with compost leachate, this stuff smells disgusting until you aerate the heck out of it. Here's a great article linking to compost tea/compost leachate by my man Bentley Christie over at Red Worm Composting...check it out: http://www.redwormcomposting.com/reader-questions/using-worm-bin-leachate/

“Can I Compost This?” Series #1: Juices and Drinks

I've decided to start a new short and sweet series dealing with the question "Can I compost ___?" So here we go: "Hey Tyler, can I compost coffee/fruit juices/tea?" Yep. All of the above are great candidates. I'd say I dump more coffee waste than anything, and it's also the best of the above to add. High in nitrogen and also friendly due to its ground-up size, it degrades quickly (for the worms, they're all about the coffee grinds as well. Juices...not as much. Tea/tea bags, absolutely). As for tea, it is preferable to empty the contents out of the teabag...unless the tea markets itself as having a compostable teabag. Apparently, most are polyester (not the ones I drink!). There's an interesting article about that found HERE. Lastly, juices. I'd…

Condoms in the Worm Bin: Latex Love or Trojan Travesty?

You may remember a few months ago when I put expired latex condoms in my compost tumbler...eventually the microbes gobbled them up, and they are now gone. How do you think worms will respond to them? My worm bin is chock full of critters other than worms, so I think that even if the worms don't want them, everything else in the bin will eat them over time. Let's find out. Does this make me a bad father? From left to right, we have the untouched condom, the barely tampered with condom, and then a shredded condom on the right: What's the point of this? Honestly, I have no idea. It's not like everyone has expired (or used) condoms just sitting around waiting to compost. Well, I'll keep you posted…