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When is a worm a friend? When he’s eating your garbage and pooping out nutrient-rich, garden-ready compost. It’s called vermicomposting, and it’s one way to assist the natural process of decomposition. Another is the traditional compost pile, which uses heat generated through microorganism activity to break down organic matter.

Working worms
Fort Collins resident Elizabeth Mozer, mother of two young boys and self-proclaimed tree-hugger, opted for the worm method when she set up her composting system.

“We throw everything that originally came from a plant in there,” she says” Old jeans, sweaters, baskets, paper, food, even so-called ‘biodegradeable’ plastics, which is interesting, because if you leave stuff in there long enough you can find out what’s really biodegradable and what’s not.”

Mozer’s system has run for about four years with little effort on her part.

“I basically turn it over twice a year, once in the fall and once in the spring,” she says. “Whatever was on the bottom that’s now on the top is compost to use.”

Mozer says she looks at her worm bin more as a natural garbage disposal than compost producer. It’s not big enough to meet all her compost needs (she’s an avid gardener), but it does away with most of the family’s household trash.

She procured her garbage-eating worms from John Anderson, a.k.a. the Worm Man. Anderson, a Master Gardener and Composter Volunteer, took an interest in vermiculture more than a decade ago. Through his business, GarbageBusters, he buzzes around town in the “Wormbulance” collecting organic wastes from local businesses and organizations to feed his worms. He also sells the worms he raises, and he serves as vermiculture consultant and advocate. “Starve a landfill. Feed a worm.” That’s his credo.

“Nature takes everything organic and turns it into a smoothie for something to eat,” he says. “We’re just getting involved in the process.”

Anderson says worm composting is more practical than traditional compost piles or hot composting and has a lower carbon footprint because you don’t have to go get stuff to establish a pile of sufficient volume.
“Vermicomposting is just a lot easier,” he says.


Hot microbes
Easier perhaps, but Anderson and Connie Meyer, volunteer coordinator and composting expert at the Gardens on Spring Creek, agree that composting of any sort is more art than science.

With a traditional pile “you can measure and test if you want to, but you don’t have to,” Meyer says.
In other words, if you’re the sort that enjoys injecting math into every situation, there are methods to determine how much carbon material (brown stuff like leaves and dried hay) and nitrogen material (green stuff like grass clippings) to use in order to build a pile with the ideal 30:1, carbon to nitrogen, ratio. Or you can do what Meyer does: Every so often she plunges her hand deep into the pile and squeezes a fistful of material to test the moisture level. If it’s drippy, the pile’s too moist. She’ll turn it well, and maybe add some more dry material to it. If it’s dry, she might add a little water. Ideally, she retrieves a handful of dark, moist humus that crumbles like cake when she works it through her fingers. Turning the pile is a big part of traditional composting. By sticking in a pitchfork and reshuffling the contents you aerate and unpack to add oxygen and reduce moisture.

Whichever method you choose, expect to wait a bit for finished compost. While worm composting done correctly might offer somewhat quicker results, it will still be six to twelve months before you have garden-worthy compost.

“Mother nature has a cruel sense of humor,” Meyer says. “She doesn’t give us a good balance of types of material at the same time of year.”
Still, increasing numbers of planet-loving folks are composting, and why not? Composting is the ultimate tool in the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle movement because it does all three. And of course, your finished product nourishes the soil and helps it retain water, which helps things grow, which ultimately gives you more stuff for your pile.

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Composting
If you’re interested in composting, you’ll find plenty of resources online.

Here are a few:
www.fcgov.com
www.cowormman.com
www.extension.org
www.mastercomposter.org

If you don’t have the space or inclination to start your own composting operation but would like to compost your organic waste and/or purchase certified compost, waste management services and companies such as Eaton-based A-1 Organics can help.

For more information visit:
www.fcgov.com
www.a1organics.com