Tip: Compost Fall Leaves

October's Sustainable Living Tip

Collect your leaves for making great compost. For quick results, make a pile at least three feet tall and three feet in diameter, add a compost activator, water thoroughly, and turn every few days. Another option is to allow your leaves to dry in the sun, then collect and store them under cover or in garbage cans for use throughout the year. Dry leaves are a good source of "browns" to add to your kitchen "greens."

 

Facts about Cold Weather Composting

1. To make compost, you W-A-N-T four things: water, air, nutrients and temperature.
2. Now that fall has arrived, outdoor temperatures start to fall below the range that supports composting. You can still collect materials, but the composting action will slow down the colder it gets.
3. Making a big pile of leaves helps keep the temperature in the center of the pile high enough to complete the composting process before winter comes.
4. The trick to successfully composting fall leaves is to ensure that you remember to provide the water, air and nutrients needed, in addition to building a large enough pile that will retain heat.
5. Water is essential to making compost. You'll need to water your pile of leaves to get things started, and you may need to add water every few days. Building a pile in the sun will help with heat, but will require extra water. Building the pile in the shade will retain more moisture, but doesn't take advantage of the sun's energy for heating things up. Some people like to build their pile in the sun and cover the top with black plastic. This keeps some moisture in and also collects heat to keep those microbes toasty.
   
6. Periodically turning your pile will allow air to circulate. Aerobic microbes require oxygen to do their work. In the absence of oxygen, anaerobic microbes take over. If that happens, be prepared for odors. Ensure an adequate supply of oxygen for your microbes by turning your pile every few days. And if odors do develop, remember the best remedy is fresh air.
7. A pile of leaves by themselves won't compost as quickly as a pile of leaves with some added nutrients. Compost activators supply the missing nutrients--mainly nitrogen. Other sources of nitrogen include manure and kitchen scraps. If your leaf pile doesn't seem to be "cooking," try adding water and an activator to speed things up. But once temperatures fall too low, if your pile isn't cooking you may just have to wait for warmer weather.
   
8. Besides building a big compost pile, you have other good options for using your leaves. Shredding them and using them as mulch around bushes and trees, or on garden beds, is a simple and sustainable approach. After all, your trees are expecting their leaves to feed their roots for next year.
9. Another option is to store your leaves to use when you take your kitchen compost out. Whenever you empty your compost pail from your kitchen, it's a great idea to cover your scraps with dried leaves. Now is the time to collect those leaves for use the rest of the year.
10. If you shred your leaves they'll take up a lot less space, and break down into compost quicker when you add them to your compost pile. You don't have to buy a shredder; a weed wacker in a garbage can works well. Just remember to wear eye protection and be prepared to get covered in little leafy bits.
11. We're often asked whether you can continue to add things to your compost pile in the winter. The answer is yes! Just don't expect much to happen. On the positive side, you don't have to worry about odors once things start freezing. That means you don't have to be as concerned about adding browns to your pile. Late fall and winter is the time of year when you can "dump and run" with your kitchen compost pail and get away with it. The rest of the year, it's a better idea to cover your kitchen scraps with a layer of "browns" (shredded leaves or sawdust or the like).
    
12. If you're the type that doesn't want to just wait until spring for your compost, consider bringing your composting action inside. Worm bins are a fun choice. You can use leaves as the top dressing in your worm bins. Simply bury your food scraps under the leaves and let worms eat your garbage. In a few months, your hard-working pet worms will turn both your scraps and your leaves into beautiful castings.
13. If you start your garden from seeds, you really ought to try worm castings for your seedlings. My favorite mix is half and half worm castings and coconut fiber (also called "coir"). Many people consider coir to be more sustainable than peat moss. Some peat bogs are being harvested faster than the peat forms. Coir, on the other hand, grows on coconut trees--it's the stringy stuff in the coconut husk. Plus, if you think about it, every coconut is just a big seed.  The coir is designed to help that seed grow. So it makes sense to use coir for seedlings.
    
14. A great spot for a worm bin is down in the cellar next to your boiler. Worms like it dark and dank. You can provide a good home to some deserving invertebrates and save yourself the hassle of taking your kitchen scraps outside this winter by keeping a worm bin.
    
15. Now is the best time to start a worm bin to produce castings in time to use for your spring seedlings. It's never too early to be planning for next year's garden!

Keep Composting Kitchen Scraps

December's Sustainable Living Tip

Set up an indoor composting system to make it easy to compost kitchen scraps all winter long. With the right tools and a little thought, you can keep food waste from going to waste all year long--even in the dead of winter.

Cold Weather Composting Facts

1. According to the US Department of Agriculture, Americans throw away more than 25 percent of the food we prepare, about 96 billion pounds per year.
2. As a nation, we spend about $1 billion per year to dispose of our food waste.
   
3. Less than three percent of our food waste is diverted from the solid waste stream; each year we send 31 million tons of food waste to landfills and incinerators.
4. The three largest solid waste streams are yard waste, paper waste and food waste. All three could be diverted from the solid waste stream and composted instead. Turning garbage into compost would replenish our soils instead of polluting our water and air.
   
5. A goal of composting 100% of your food and paper waste all year round is reasonable as long as you have an outdoor area for storing materials. Indoor options can process quite a bit of material, but you'll probably find from time to time that you have some waste that needs to go outside.
   
6. You can add food scraps to an outdoor composter all winter. Scraps will freeze during cold weather and begin decomposing in the spring. You can also store kitchen scraps in five-gallon buckets for the winter. Some people find it convenient to have buckets on their porch or in their garage, saving them the hassle of getting to their composter in the snow. Just leave a little room at the top to allow material in the bucket to freeze. In the spring, once the path is clear, you can dump your buckets in your compost pile.
7. Insulated outdoor composters can extend your composting season. The tumbling Jora composer, for example, features dual chambers and several inches of insulation for hotter composting. Not only does this heat-trapping design allow for composting later in the fall and earlier in the spring, but it also makes it possible to compost meat and fish which are problematic at low temperatures.
   
8. Having a compost pail in the kitchen is a handy way to store food scraps for a few days, allowing you to plan your treks to your outdoor composter. Look for pails with activated charcoal filters in the lid to eliminate odors.
9. Many people find that a compost pail in the kitchen and their regular compost pile in the yard is all they need to keep composting all winter long. They simply put on their boots and beat a path to the composter.
10. Other people prefer to set up a system for handling food waste indoors. Bokashi buckets, worm bins and automatic composters are three popular options.
    
11. A bokashi bucket lets you collect and store food scraps for several weeks inside. These buckets feature a tight seal and promote anaerobic decomposition of food scraps. Once the bokashi bucket is full, you can transfer the contents to an outdoor composter, or in warmer weather bury the material directly into garden soil, where it completes the decomposition process.
12. You sprinkle bokashi, a dry powder containing dormant microbes, on each layer of waste you add to the bucket. This will innoculate your food scraps with fermenting microbes, preventing unpleasant odors from developing. When opened, a bokashi bucket has a distinctive pickled smell. There should be no odor at all when the bucket is closed.
13. Every so often, drain liquid from your bokashi bucket. This liquid can be diluted and used for watering plants, or it can be poured down your drain. Bokashi liquid can be especially beneficial if you are on a septic, since the microbes living in your bokashi bucket are the same types as those found in a healthy septic system.
    
14. Worm bins are another convenient method for composting indoors. Composting worms completely digest food scraps, producing solid castings which can be used as a soil enrichment for houseplants, lawns or gardens.
    
15. Plastic totes make convenient worm bins. If you make your own, be sure to provide a reservoir for liquid and a way to drain the bin. Tray systems like the Can O Worms are a step up from home-made worm bins, making it much easier to harvest the castings when the worms have finished eating all your food scraps. Holes in each tray allow worms to crawl up to find fresh food in the upper trays, leaving the trays on the bottom full of castings.
16. As with a bokashi bucket, drain liquid from your worm bin every so often. This "worm tea" makes a great liquid fertilizer when diluted with ten parts water to one part worm tea.
    
17. Meat, cheese, and highly acidic foods like pineapple and lemon rinds can cause problems in small worm bins. These food wastes are best handled indoors by bokashi buckets or outdoors in enclosed compost bins like the Jora composter. In general, the larger the worm bin or compost pile, the more variety of materials you can successfully compost. Vegetables, fruits that are not acidic, coffee grounds, and tissue paper are the easiest materials to compost in worm bins. Shredded paper or leaves should be added as a top layer and replaced as necessary.
    
18. Automatic composting machines such as the NatureMill work like waterless garbage disposals. Simply plug them in, toss in kitchen scraps and sawdust pellets, then let them heat and aerate the mixture to produce finished compost every two weeks.
19. NatureMills feature a thick layer of insulation and a small heater, so they can work equally well in heated and unheated spaces. The kitchen may be the most convenient location in terms of adding material to the unit, but a basement or garage may be more convenient in terms of space availability.
20. NatureMills use about 17 watts of electricity, about the same as four strands of energy-efficient LED holiday lights and much less than one strand of inefficient incandescent holiday lights.
21. Besides keeping unnecessary materials out of our landfills and incinerators, winter composting is a great way to get ready for gardening season. Worm castings in particular are great to have on hand when starting seeds. If you plan to start your own seedlings, you can't beat a mix of equal parts potting soil and worm castings to give your plants a healthy start on life.
22. Between four and five gallons of wet kitchen waste produce about one gallon of dry compost in my experience. Assuming you produce one gallon of kitchen scraps every three days, composting for six months would turn 60 gallons of garbage into about 12 gallons of compost. Once you start composting and using compost on your yard and garden, you'll discover that you can always use more. To produce one yard of dry compost, you'd need to start with at least 5,600 pounds of wet kitchen scraps!

Cold Weather Composting Clinic

F.W. Horch Sustainable Goods and Supplies, 56 Maine St., Brunswick, will host a talk by founder Fred Horch and Brett Thompson, Master Gardener Volunteer, titled "Cold Weather Composting," on Thursday, December 10th, from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm. The talk is free and open to the public.

"Promote global worming," says Brett Thompson. "Worms work inside when everything outside is frozen solid, and they make the best compost."

Worm composting is one of several systems for cold weather composting that will be discussed. The goal of the workshop is to help people understand their options for keeping food waste out of the local landfill all year round.

Worm composting (or "vermiculture") is an indoor technique for year-round composting of paper waste and kitchen scraps. Thompson will demonstrate how worm bins work, and answer common questions. Worms and worm bins will be available for sale.

In addition to worm bins, automatic NatureMill composters, anaerobic bokashi buckets, and insulated outdoor composters will be demonstrated. Free informational handouts will be provided. Seating is limited, so those interested in attending are encouraged to call the store at 729-4050 to reserve a seat.

The talk is part of the F.W. Horch series on sustainable living. Each monthly talk is held at the F.W. Horch Sustainable Goods & Supplies store, 56 Maine Street, Brunswick at 7:00 pm on the second Thursday of the month. January's talk will be a workshop on making interior storm windows.

For more information, please call 729-4050.

Balanced Compost

May's Sustainable Living Tip

Keep a bucket of dry leaves, shredded paper, sawdust, wood chips or coconut coir next to your composter so you can easily add the "browns" you need to promote fast, odor-free, and thorough decomposition of organic waste.

More Facts About "Browns" for Composting

1. Composting works best when you have a balanced ratio of carbon to nitrogen in the mix of materials you are composting.
2. Materials with a low carbon to nitrogen ratio are called "greens."
3. Materials with a high carbon to nitrogen ratio are called "browns."
4. Fresh yard cuttings and kitchen scraps are "greens."
5. Dried leaves, shredded paper and cardboard, sawdust, wood chips, peat moss, and coconut coir are "browns."
6. If you have too many "greens," your compost will likely smell bad, get slimy, ball up, and take more than six weeks to finish.
7. If you have too many "browns," pieces won't break down, your compost will never heat up and will take months or years to finish.
8. If you need to add lime to your pile, that's an indication that 1) you have too many greens, or 2) you aren't turning your pile often enough. Add more browns and turn your pile to ensure good mixing and air flow; you'll probably find you get better results with no need for lime.
9. Compost "activators" give a shot of "greens" to your pile. These are the perfect solution for compost piles that are heavy on the browns and aren't getting up to temperature. Mix the activator into your pile and add water; your pile should quickly heat up and start decomposing. If it doesn't, add more water and mix again, or wait for warmer weather. Getting a compost pile going is a lot like lighting a fire: you need to have the right fuel and it may take a few tries to get it started.
   
10. "Digester" style composters are stationary designs that sit on the ground, digesting scraps from the bottom up. Too many "greens" in this type of composter can become densely packed and odorous. Too many browns can also become tightly packed and biologically inactive. A good strategy is to always toss in a layer of greens and then a layer of browns on top. If necessary, you can also use a compost aerator to poke holes down through the layers to help water and air get to the microbes doing the work of decomposing.
11. "Tumbling" composters are a great way to make compost fast, but they also are prone to creating "compost balls" with uncomposted food waste in the middle of the ball. Try adding coarse browns like wood chips or coconut coir to keep clumps from forming. Also, a "poking stick" is handy to have on hand to break up any clumps that do form.
    
12. Your compost pile should never smell like a cesspool. If odors are a concern, it's better to err on the side of too many browns. Your compost will take a little longer to finish, but you'll avoid nasty smells.
13. If I have just one piece of advice to give to novices when it comes to composting, it is that "browns" are NOT optional! Especially in the spring, you really do need to have a plan for adding browns to your compost. Putting nothing but kitchen scraps in your composter is a recipe for a stinky disaster. Think of it like baking bread without the flour: you may end up with something edible, but it's a lot easier to follow the recipe. The good news is that whether it's leaves from your yard, or junk mail from advertisers, almost everyone has a convenient source of browns at hand.
14. Whenever you're diagnosing a composting problem, always remember what you W-A-N-T:
    W = Water
    A = Air
    N = Nutrients (greens and browns)
    T = Temperature
    
15. Keep your compost in mind as you clean up your yard throughout the year. If you can store some dried leaves, sawdust or wood chips over the winter, you'll be all set for next spring's composting season!

Featured Products

Featured Products for May

Sun-Mar 200 Garden Composter

This innovative outdoor composter is based on a brilliant concept: put yard and kitchen waste in one opening, and remove finished compost from another. Inside the unit are two drums: new material enters the outer drum, fills it up, tumbles into the inner drum, then comes out the middle as finished compost. Suitable for handling kitchen scraps and small volumes of yard waste.

Direct Shipped $275 + shipping
Pick Up in Store $299

Learn more »

Kitchen Compost Bucket - Recycled Plastic

Make your home composting program easier to manage. Perfect for short-term storage of kitchen scraps, this kitchen compost carrier features an optional carbon filter to eliminate odors caused by composting materials.

Small (5.8 qts) $17.95
Large (9.6 qts) $24.95

Learn more »

Compost Swift Activator

Use this non-toxic and concentrated activator to speed the activity of aerobic bacteria in any backyard composter. Dilute one part activator with 8 parts water, then mix into materials to be composted.

32 ounces $19.95

Learn more »

Organic Seeds from Fedco

Grow your own organic garden with MOFGA certified organic seeds from Fedco Seeds. We have more than 50 varieties of their most popular vegetables, herbs and flowers, all heirloom and certified organic. It's time to start putting seeds in the ground!

Organic Seeds Packet $1.95

Learn more »

Last seed reorder May 29. We'll be placing reorders for our seed display until Friday, May 29. If we don't have what you want in stock, we may be able to special order organic seed for you from Fedco.

Worm Castings

Have you tried adding worm castings to your seed starting mix? If you have, you know what an incredible head start these give your little plants! For ensuring plant health and vigor naturally, nothing beats worm castings.

One pound $1.25

Learn more »

Kitchen Compost Pail - Stainless Steel

Do you compost? Our stainless steel compost pail is a stylish way to collect your food scraps for the compost pile or bin. Beautiful enough to leave on the kitchen counter. Easy to carry and clean. Carbon filters in lid contain odors. Replacement filters available. Holds about a gallon.

Pail and filters $34.95

Learn more »

Compost and Castings

When starting seeds, use 1 part finished compost or worm castings to 3 parts potting mix to give your little plants a healthy head start without synthetic fertilizers.

More Facts About Compost and Castings

1. It's easy to make your own compost or worm castings from kitchen scraps.
2. When micro-organisms decompose organic matter, the result is called "compost". Finished compost is dark brown or black, crumbly, and has a mild organic aroma like mushrooms.
3. When worms process organic matter, the result is called "castings". Castings look like wet coffee grounds and smell like healthy soil.
   
4. Both compost and castings provide essential nutrients for growing plants.
   
5. Most families can produce enough compost or castings to provide a rich mix for starting their seeds.
6. You'll need to add some dry materials like shredded paper, leaves, or clean sawdust to your kitchen scraps. Adding these materials helps the decomposing process go faster without nasty odors.
   
7. A plug-in kitchen composter like the NatureMill reliably produces compost in two weeks by maintaining the perfect conditions for hot composting by microbial cultures. The compost it produces is ready to use right away, or can be stored for later use.
   
8. Worm bins generally take a little longer to produce results--about six weeks start to finish--depending on temperature, the type of food scraps, and the appetite of your worms. Worm castings can be used as is, but if you plan to store them for later use, you'll probably want to dry them first.
   
9. Worms like the same temperatures as we do, but will tolerate cool temperatures down to the mid-50s and high temperatures into the mid-80s. They work best in the low-70s.
10. If you put a worm bin in your basement, use a portable thermometer to determine the temperature range. Near the boiler is often a convenient and relatively warm location.
    
11. Keeping your kitchen scraps out of your garbage benefits you and your community; neither landfills nor incinerators need wet organic waste.
12. Whether you make compost or castings, most of your kitchen waste will literally vanish into thin air as the process creates water vapor and carbon dioxide.
    
13. Compost and castings improve the texture and health of soil, helping it retain moisture while allowing roots to penetrate.
14. Recycling organic nutrients back into the soil completes the cycle of life and allows new plant growth to occur without requiring exogenous synthetic chemical inputs.
15. Building healthy soil with compost and castings is an essential part of successful organic gardening.
16. Besides mixing compost or castings in your seed-starting medium, you can also use them as a top dressing periodically in your garden, around trees, or on your lawn.
17. A kitchen compost pail makes it easy to collect scraps. A tight-fitting lid with a charcoal filter controls odors and keeps everything contained until you're ready to add it to your composter or worm bin.
18. It's fine to toss your kitchen scraps in an outdoor compost pile all winter. They won't start composting outdoors until warmer temperature arrives, but there's no harm in letting your food waste freeze and thaw before it turns into compost.
19. Some people even store their kitchen waste in their freezer until spring. This isn't as crazy as it sounds. It actually helps your freezer's efficiency to be full rather than empty, and if you ever lose power, hunks of frozen garbage can keep your food cool. Just make sure you label everything carefully!
    
20. Composting equipment, information and supplies, including worms and worm bins, are available year round at F.W. Horch in Brunswick and online at www.FWHorch.com.

Composting - August's Sustainable Living Tip

Compost year round to ease the burden on your local landfill while building soil fertility in your own landscape.

Composting Facts

1. Composting is the best way to handle food scraps and other solid waste that can decompose into a beneficial soil amendment.
2. Anything that was once living can be composted, including kitchen scraps, yard clippings, paper, cardboard, meat, fish, bones and wood.
3. The easiest items to compost are vegetables, coffee grounds, leaves, grass clippings, and other soft plant trimmings.
4. A kitchen compost pail makes it convenient to collect and transport food waste to another location for composting.
5. A successful composting process breaks down waste into a rich humus without producing foul odors or attracting pests.
6. Finished compost improves soil fertility, providing minerals and nutrients that are essential for plant growth.
7. Any soil can be improved by adding compost: sandy soils will better retain water and clay soils will become less dense.
8. You can compost outdoors or indoors, in any climate and any season, using a variety of tools, techniques and equipment.
9. Depending on the mix of materials, you will produce about 1 liter of compost for every 8 liters of garbage.
10. According to the EPA, at least 40% of the municipal solid waste stream could be composted instead of landfilled, incinerated, or dumped at sea.
11. It is a common misconception that putting food waste in your garbage helps the operation of incinerators and landfills; it does not.
    
12. Wet food waste reduces the efficiency of incinerators, because water doesn't burn.
13. Rather than breaking down naturally, organic materials in landfills persist and can release dangerous gases and contribute to water pollution.
14. Aerobic (with oxygen) decomposition is faster and does not produce the foul odors associated with anaerobic (without oxygen) decomposition.
15. During an aerobic composting process, microorganisms combine oxygen from the air with hydrogen and carbon in the waste materials, to release energy and water and carbon dioxide gas.
16. During an anaerobic composting process, microorganisms employ slower metabolic pathways to release energy and methane and other gases that do not contain oxygen.
17. Water, air and warm temperatures are necessary for aerobic composting.
18. With suitable composting conditions, you can produce compost in a few days.
19. The fastest and most reliable way to compost all year round is to chop waste into small pieces and use an automatic composter like the NatureMill, which includes a fan, heater and mixer.
20. You can compost in simple piles, burial pits, above-ground digesting bins, tumbling bins, and composting worm bins.
21. Watering and turning a compost pile can dramatically improve the speed and consistency of the results.
22. All organic materials contain varying amounts of nitrogen and carbon. "Green" materials such as plant clippings, kitchen scraps and manure have a higher nitrogen content than "brown" materials such as dry leaves, cardboard and paper.
23. The ideal ratio of nitrogen and carbon for decomposing microorganisms to thrive, requires roughly equal amounts of greens and browns.
24. Storing shredded, dry fall leaves in a garbage can or bag is a good way to keep a ready supply of browns for use in the spring and summer.
25. Tissue paper, paper towels, newspaper, office paper, cardboard, wood chips and sawdust are other sources of browns.
26. If you add too many greens, your mixture may begin to smell bad. If you add too many browns, your mixture will take longer to turn into compost.
27. Finished compost is black or dark brown in color, uniform in consistency, and earthy in odor.
28. Composting recycles nutrients to benefit lawns, gardens, trees and bushes, and houseplants.
29. You can mix compost into your garden soil, use it for sprouting seeds, enrich potting soil with it, apply it as a mulch, or simply spread it on your lawn.

Composting on the Fourth of July

Of all the ways I've worked to help save the planet, I'll always cherish one unforgettable Fourth of July. I volunteered myself and my in-laws for the “recycling” crew at the Festival for the Eno in Durham, North Carolina. Despite the heat and humidity (both 97), we reported for duty.

I then discovered the organizers had decided to expand “recycling” to include “composting” for the first time. Our job was to stand knee-deep in garbage, sorting out recyclable plastic from a sea of water melon rinds, cotton candy cones, half-eaten plates of nachos, and other rotting refuse.

I learned three valuable lessons:

1. My mother-in-law and father-in-law are amazingly forgiving people.

2. Recycling is just the tip of the garbage iceberg.

3. A little planning goes a long way when it comes to composting.

In the years since, I've discovered that composting is actually easy—it's less work to make compost than to haul heavy garbage bags—and arguably even more important than recycling. What better future can you imagine for your garbage than to replenish the Earth?

If you're having a family get together for the Fourth and want to make it a little greener this year, think about a composting plan. Some tips:

• Figure out ahead of time what you're going to compost. Separate containers make it easy for guests to do the right thing; you won't have to sort through their garbage.

• A family picnic is the perfect opportunity to start making a batch of compost. Food scraps like corn husks and watermelon rinds can go right in your compost bin. Use your judgment for other types of waste.
  
  Easy to compost:
  vegetables, fruits, grass, bread, coffee grounds, paper towels, tissue paper
  
  Harder to compost without odors or vermin:
  cheese, fats, oils, butter, meat, fish, shrimp and lobster shells
  
  Difficult, dangerous or impossible to compost:
  pet waste, bones, pressure-treated sawdust, wax-coated paper board, plastics
  

• You can buy plates, cups and even forks, knives and spoons that will compost completely. There are also garbage bags that look and feel like plastic, but are made out of corn so they will compost.

• If you don't own a compost bin and don't want to make a pile, you can still compost. Just dig a hole and bury your food and paper waste about 18 inches deep. In a year or so, worms and soil microorganisms will convert your garbage to “garden gold”.

If you have a good plan and people pitch in, you'll be digging through rich soil by next summer. It sure beats the alternative.

Composting Links and Resources

• Home Composting
  University of Maine Cooperative Extension Bulletin #1143
  http://www.umext.maine.edu/onlinepubs/htmpubs/1143.htm
  
  
• How Compost Happens
  University of Maine Cooperative Extension Bulletin #1159 http://www.umext.maine.edu/onlinepubs/htmpubs/1159.htm
  
  
• Composting Bins
  http://www.fwhorch.net/garden-and-composting/composting-bins.html
  
  
• Compost Pails
  http://www.fwhorch.net/garden-and-composting/compost-pails.html
  
  
• Composting Tools
  http://www.fwhorch.net/garden-and-composting/composting-tools.html
  
  
• Composting Supplies
  http://www.fwhorch.net/garden-and-composting/composting-supplies.html
  
  
• Composting Books
  http://www.fwhorch.net/garden-and-composting/composting-books.html
  

Earthworm Castings - Sustainable Living Tip for March 2008

Earthworm castings are a gentle, slow-release, natural fertilizer that works especially well for seedlings. Mix 1 part castings to 3 parts potting soil to start seeds, or line the bottom and sides of seed furrows with 1"-2" of castings to give your little plants a healthy head start.

More to know about Earthworm Castings

1. Unlike synthetic fertilizers, which require the unsustainable consumption of petroleum for their production, worm castings rely on worms and soil micro-organisms, resources that are plentiful and renewable.
2. You can make your own worm castings from kitchen scraps. In a few months, worms in a bin can turn twenty parts kitchen scraps into 1 part castings.
3. Worms eat about half their weight a day; the more worms you have, the more waste they can consume.
4. The best type of worms to use for indoor worms bins are red wigglers (Eisenia foetida).
5. In warmer weather, you can grow worms outside. They will multiply happily between 60 and 85 degrees, but most will not survive at temperatures below 40 degrees.
6. If you need worm castings sooner than you can make them, you can purchase them. A little goes a long way!
7. "Finished" worm castings that are ready for use as fertilizer have a pleasant, earthy smell.
8. For a highly effective liquid fertilizer, soak 1 part worm castings in 3 parts water for 24 hours. Stir well, then use to water fruiting, flowering, or difficult-to-access potted plants.
9. Unlike synthetic fertilizers, worm castings do not lead to run-off pollution because the nitrogen in them is mostly water insoluble.
10. In our store in Brunswick we sell worm castings, breeder packs of red wigglers, worm bins, and books about how to raise your own worms.

Interested in starting a worm bin to make your own worm castings? Worms Eat My Garbage is an essential resource.