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I compost year-round. I used to dig a hole in the garden but in winter on my hilly garden I just lift up the mulch, put the scraps down and re-cover.
Worms are in the ground year-round to break down the kitchen scraps.
But we rarely get snow here in Charlotte NC so I can see that getting the kitchen scraps into the ground can be challenging when snow covers the ground.
2 ideas:
1. Cut the bottom off a $5 5 gallon bucket from one of the big box stores and dig a hole (before ground freezes) next to a bush or flower area that would benefit from compost. As long as you can find it under the snow you can lift the top off and dump your veggie waste in it. Maybe put a little flag on the area to help find it in snowy times. You can move this bucket around once it gets filled or another area could use it.
2. Make a worm bin. Search Mother Earth News online (free) to get plans. Worms work for free all year long. They manage to get into my winter pots of dead plants located on concrete.
2. Make a worm bin. Search Mother Earth News online (free) to get plans. Worms work for free all year long. They manage to get into my winter pots of dead plants located on concrete.
IMHO earthworms are some of the most determined, single-minded creatures on the planet. They can climb, squeeze through, get into as well as out of just about anything if they don't happen to like where they find themselves.
OK indulge me: story time. Some years ago I kept a breeding colony of large terrestrial Malaysian frogs. I adored those frogs and wanted to give them the best life in captivity I could. One of their favorite most nutritious foods were earthworms. Because of a naturally occurring fungal toxin present in the local soils where I lived, it wasn't safe to feed "wildcaught" worms to my frogs. I had to import them or try to breed my own. There were no bait shops or pet stores anywhere close, so mail order was the only option. Because of the cost, buying in bulk made the most sense. So, a worm bin was necessary to keep them fed, fat, and healthy until they became frog dinners.
Many creatures won't eat the cheaper so called "reg wiggler" compost worms more than once because they excrete a noxious substance from their skin as a defense mechanism. Birds tend not to mind eating those because most birds have a minimal sense of taste/smell. Not the case for mammals, reptiles or amphibians. Nightcrawlers don't defend themselves the same way so the frogs devoured them.
Nightcrawlers are extremely picky about their habitat. I designed what I hoped would be a comfortable bin, filled it with carefully selected imported soil, newsprint, finely ground bone and cereal meal and leafy greens, and set it up on a stool in my tub/shower. The bin was indoors to protect my investment from bears, subfreezing weather, and to prevent the worms escaping to the native soil outdoors. Bins can't be completely enclosed for obvious reasons. I hoped that if any extra determined worms still left the bin they'd just end up in the shower where I could re-gather them again. Because worms newly introduced to a new habitat tend to wander around for the first few days hoping for greener pastures, I also had to arrange a rather complicated waterproof lightbulb setup over the bin so 24/7 daylight would encourage the little beggars to give up and stay put. There are no wall outlets in showers. So, an overhead hook was installed and an extension cord draped over the shower door and snaked across the room. Of course, because this was the only shower in the house, every time I wanted to use it I had to disassemble the whole apparatus.
Finally, my next order of Canadian nightcrawlers arrived: all 600 of them. They were ceremoniously dumped into the bin and left to settle themselves. Despite what I thought was a clever design, I still found a few worms making their way out of the bin, down the sides, down the stool, across the tub, over the shower door, and out onto the bathroom floor. These hopeful explorers were returned. Finally, with a higher watt lightbulb shining, the explorations seemed to stop. I went to bed.
Before dawn the next morning my alarm went off and I crawled out of bed in a dark bedroom. And promptly stepped on something slimy and cold. Then another and another. What the *&$%?. Snapped on the light to see dozens of little pinkish grey things making their tedious way across the carpet. More peppered the living room, kitchen, and hallway floors leading away from the bathroom. And those were just the ones I could see. Apparently, the lightbulb burned out hours earlier, releasing the hounds (er, worms). All 600 of them, worth who knows how many pennies each. It took me hours to round them up. Bet my employer had never heard this particular excuse for being late to work before.
For days, even weeks I continued to find half dead and desiccated nightcrawlers in shoes, drawers, cupboards, windowsills, boxes and crates, under and inside furniture, dog dishes, or behind appliances. It was like some low budget horror movie titled THEY CRAWL.
Lesson learned. Never underestimate an earthworm!
Last edited by Parnassia; 03-19-2023 at 05:16 PM..
Haha great/horrible story Parnassia.
I would not be married if I brought a worm bin into the house.
I do keep some plants in the guest shower over the winter with a grow light on to keep them alive however.
Look into bokashi composting. It was invented in Japan precisely for those who can't make outside compost piles. It is odorless and can be done under your sink. https://www.thespruce.com/basics-of-...osting-2539742
Look into bokashi composting. It was invented in Japan precisely for those who can't make outside compost piles. It is odorless and can be done under your sink. https://www.thespruce.com/basics-of-...osting-2539742
I bought a bokashi kit. Unfortunately, I did not research this method well enough before I bought the kit. It does not turn scraps into compost, it pickles them. Then, the pickled material still needs to be added to a regular compost pile. At first, I tried burying it straight into the ground. Various vermin smelled it and dug the material all up. I sometimes bury food scraps to compost naturally in the soil, but the vermin are not as attracted to that as they were the Bokashi scraps. Most of what I read online says that animals are not attracted to the Bokashi scraps. Personally, I found the opposite to be true.
I bought a bokashi kit. Unfortunately, I did not research this method well enough before I bought the kit. It does not turn scraps into compost, it pickles them. Then, the pickled material still needs to be added to a regular compost pile. At first, I tried burying it straight into the ground. Various vermin smelled it and dug the material all up. I sometimes bury food scraps to compost naturally in the soil, but the vermin are not as attracted to that as they were the Bokashi scraps. Most of what I read online says that animals are not attracted to the Bokashi scraps. Personally, I found the opposite to be true.
Interesting!
There's a couple on Instagram who use sprinkler valve boxes to add food scraps to their garden - gonna try this. I once tried fat PVC pipe to do this, but without a tight-fitting lid, critters did get into them - https://www.thecooldown.com/green-ho...ardening-hack/
There's a couple on Instagram who use sprinkler valve boxes to add food scraps to their garden - gonna try this. I once tried fat PVC pipe to do this, but without a tight-fitting lid, critters did get into them - https://www.thecooldown.com/green-ho...ardening-hack/
Yeah, I saw that but think it is impractical. In my yard, since I don't have a dog, I have critters, critters, critters that flee there and camp out. I was finally able to use the pickled scraps in my garden, but I had to dig them deep, top with a foot of dirt, lay a thick layer of mulch on top of that, and then lay down a final layer of wire screening weighed down with bricks.
I was able to grow lettuce, peas, etc in that. Which were promptly eaten down to the roots by more critters that chewed through wire netting to get to them.
What protects a compost pile? Pee. You can buy dried granules of predator pee online or through major garden centers. Or, not to gross you out or anything, you can source your own for free. Not that I have done that, but I haven't permanently ruled that out either.
Last edited by ersatz; 03-21-2023 at 09:26 AM..
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