Vermicomposting Workshop

 On Wednesday August 1st I held a Vermicomposting Workshop at the Emery Garden. Students from Emery and visitors from East Scarborough Community Garden Association took part.

In this hands-on workshop participants learned how to set up and maintain their own indoor worm composting bin, how to store and use worm castings as a natural fertilizer in their gardens, and how to make vermicompost tea. Participants brought containers and took home some red worms to start their own bins at home using the skills they learned in the workshop.

Composting with red worms is a great way to reduce your waste stream at home while simultaneously producing an excellent natural fertilizer that you can use in your garden or indoor houseplants. Worm castings help with water retention in soils and also make nutrients that are in the soil available to plant roots. Give your plants a boost and start a worm bin!

 Making fresh bedding for the red worms from strips of newspaper moistened with water

Harvesting the worm castings by separating old bedding and worms from the worm poo

Careful sorting; keeping an eye out for baby worms and cocoons

Red wigglers

Sorting complete! 3 containers full of precious worm castings

Putting the worms back in the fresh bedding made earlier and adding crushed eggshells to reduce potential acidity levels in the bin, plus a bit of soil

 

Brewing vermicompost tea using the communal stirring method to aerate the solution

Photo Credits: N. Dufour, 2012