Composting/wormery

FallenAngel_2

Apologies if this topic has been addressed in other threads. I've almost bought my first flat and would like a hassle free and inexpensive way of composting- on ground floor with v small outside space. Any advice please?

BungleGirl

I have compost bins and a wormery and they are both quite different things:-

The wormery is great for kitchen scraps, they can't get through a huge amount...about two or three handfulls per day and you have to start with just a handfull per day for the first couple of weeks. They are great fun though and if you have kids they will love the worms!!

For proper compost bins you ideally need to have two...you use one until it is full and then leave it alone while you start filling up the next one. I have a family of four and we have two compost bins (one is used while the other is left to compost) and a wormery - this is enough to cope with all our kitchen waste and some of our garden waste (the rest goes in our green bin which the council collect).

I really enjoy both. The bins provide us with good compost and the wormery gives us a really good quality compost (it's just worm casts) and also 'worm tea' which you get from a tap at the bottom of the wormery and dilute with water to use as a plant feed.

This site gives good information on composting and I think has a bit to put in your postcode to see if you can get subsidised bins/wormeries - http://www.recyclenow.com/home_composting/composting/index.html

And this site has loads of info on wormeries - http://www.wigglywigglers.co.uk/

Depending on where you live you can get really good subsidised rates for them - unfortunatey where I live the bins are a good price but the wormery wasn't much less than the normal price.

If you google for how to make a compost bin or wormery there are plenty of instructions on how to make both yourself which is much cheaper.

I'm sure I have seen somewhere slimline composters which would take up less space but I can't remember where I saw them.

Composting is great however you do it and I'm sure you will be hooked on it when you get started!

Sophie

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exlibris

OH and I have just spent a delightful afternoon sieving compost from our bin. The bin was full and is now half empty and we filled 4 large pots and had some over for later. I was surprised how long it seems to take to reduce potato peelings plus we also had a crop of very small potatoes which I have given back to the worms.

We came upon clumps from the kitchen compost bin with loads of worms happily chewing on them. These were returned to the bin in-sieved!

We are planning to use most of the compost in the garden pots but I wondered if I would be introducing nasties if I used it for house plants?

nanamags

I have just ordered a junior wormery from www.originalorganics.co.uk for £31.90 which can be kept indoors or outdoors. You put in normal kitchen waste such as peelings, cooked and uncooked scarps, teabags.egg shells etc. Liquid feed takes about 8 weeks to produce and compost about 6 months.