This sheet composting video from Mayo Creek TV

will give you a visual of a somewhat different version of how you can put your sheet composting pile together. You will notice that sheet composting methods can vary according to who is putting it together and the materials at hand.

As you can see in this sheet composting video, sheet composting is easy to do.

All that must be done is pick and outline your spot. Make sure you have both green and brown materials in your sheet composting pile, keep alternating from green to brown to green etc. from layer to layer, make sure each layer is moistened, and you can end with a layer of straw. Then like the guy in this sheet composting video, you can sit back and picture in your mind how the plants growing in this brand new garden will be beautiful, lush, and healthy plants thanks to the sheet composting method and your efforts.

Sheet composting (often referred to as lasagna composting or sheet mulching) is a rather neat, easy way of preparing your garden for planting without digging, removing sod, or tilling, and at the same time  preparing a feast for worms.

When the ingredients are put in specific layers, they quickly decompose, and the gardener then has a garden full of rich crumbly, dark soil ready for planting.

By using this form of no-dig gardening, one may cover any base or unwanted plant material including weeds, old lawn or open ground with layers of materials referred to as the barrier, compost, and mulch.

As the name implies, sheet  composting (or lasagna composting)  is put together as you would put together a lasagna to eat: layer by layer.  However, before you even begin building your sheet composting pile, you must become familiar with the terms “greens” and “browns”  because you will have to gather both types of material before you can build your pile.

In composting jargon, “brown” ingredients are woody materials  such as autumn leaves, paper, cardboard, peat moss, sawdust, cornstalks, hay and straw, etc (non-living material) which are high in carbon.

“Green” materials are ingredients such as garden refuse, manure, tea and coffee grounds, feathers, hair, and food scraps (living material) which are high in nitrogen.

Some materials can actually be both: for example, fresh grass clippings are “green,” but dried grass is “brown”.

So How Do You Prepare For Sheet Composting  (lasagna Composting)?

1. First you choose a site which gets at least 6 hours of  lots of sun, hopefully protected from high winds, and mark off this area with stakes and a string. Let’s say you want to start small. so for your first sheet composting pile set in the place where you wish to have your  garden, you stake out an area roughly 4 ft by 8 ft which will give you enough room to grow several different crops.

2. Next gather your ingredients.   If this is your first lasagna garden, you need something heavy as your first layer of your sheet composting pile to smother the grass and weeds which may be in the area you picked. You can use wet flattened, overlapping cardboard boxes or thick layers of wet newspaper. Do not include the glossy fliers.

If you don’t have that much homegrown mulch and compost to build your sheet composting pile, consider buying some of your sheet composting material. One great ingredient found in any gardening nursery is the sphagnum peat moss which can be bought in huge bags.

Other ideal materials are chopped leaves, grass clippings, compost, aged manure or store-bought  manure, other organic materials, and even sand alternated with 2-inch layers of peat moss. You can also add 3 to 4 inches of wood chips (uncontaminated and no oak chips) where you might want a path throughout the garden.

Note: Do not use proteins such as fat, meat, or bones; all materials must be organic.

Other ingredients which will help the sheet composting procedure are bonemeal (to add phosphorus which promotes root growth) and bloodmeal (a high nitrogen material that can substitute for manures or grass clippings).

For successful results, you can use the simple rule that your sheet composting pile needs to be about half “brown” and half “green” by weight.  Don’t bother weighing your ingredients, though — an estimate is fine.  Composting soon becomes a matter of instinct, like the cook who bakes without a recipe.  Whatever you use must be easily biodegradable and unpolluted by paint, oils, glue, or other pollutants.

Along with the ‘greens” and the “browns”,  your composting pile must be moist and have lots of air coming through.  All three, (air, moistness, and a combination of greens and browns) must be present at all times in order to attract the worms and have the pile decompose in record time.

3.  Now that you have gathered your ingredients, you can proceed to creating your “lasagna” gardening compost pile by adding your composting ingredients in layers.

An example of How To Build the Sheet Composting (Lasagna Composting) Pile

1. The first step is to outline your garden.  You can stake it out with sticks hammered into the ground around the perimeter of the garden, or one tall, strong post in each corner of the garden with a strong rope or twine being drawn from one corner post to the other until you can clearly see the outline of your future garden.  Once your garden is outlined, you can immediately start adding your browns and greens; however, some gardeners prefer to somewhat loosen the soil  with a garden fork in order to encourage the worms to come up to the material being layered.  So if you wish,  you can loosen up the ground with a garden fork. Push the fork into the ground, then lean back on the handle just to loosen the soil.  Turning the soil is not needed.

2. Lay a good base for your sheet composting pile by putting down a layer of “browns” such as newspaper or cardboard.   Before setting the cardboard in layers, be sure all the tape has been removed as tape is not biodegradable.  Whether  you use cardboard or newspaper, overlap your material so that all the sod, rocks, debris is well covered; also be sure to overlap the edge of the garden by at least 5 inches.

3.  If you have not presoaked your newspaper or cardboard,  water this first layer well with your garden hose or pails of water.  You want every inch of that newspaper or cardboard to be very moist through and through.  You want to attract the worms who prefer moist but not soggy areas.  You may want to cover these newspapers or cardboard with a 6-inch layer of topsoil to introduce those essential soil bacteria and speed up decomposition.

4. The next step in building the sheet composting pile is to put down a layer of “greens” which could include grass cuttings or broken down leaves over the “brown” cardboard layer.  Grass clippings is a good choice.  Cover the whole layer of moist cardboard with 2 to 3 inches of loosened grass cuttings so that air can circulate; then,  water the grass cuttings to moisten it.  The idea is to keep the whole sheet composting pile moist by watering each layer of material until the material is quite moist.  You can also add earthworms to get the composting started, but if you don’t have any, don’t worry — the worms will come.

Layer 3: Add a 2-inch layer of peat moss then sprinkle with water.
Layer 4: add a 4-to-6 inch layer of barn litter and if dry, sprinkle with water.
Layer 5: Add a 2-inch layer of peat moss and moisten.
Layer 6: add a 4-to-6 inch layer of compost mixed with soil or pure compost, then sprinkle with water until moist.

Keep adding water to the following if needed:Layer 7: A 2-inch layer of peat moss
Layer 8: A 4-to-6 inch layer of grass clippings
Layer 9: A 2-inch layer of peat moss
Layer 10: A 4-to-6 inch layer of chopped leaves
Layer 11: Another 2-inch layer of peat moss
Layer 12: You can top your pile with a layer of loose straw.  Be sure to loosen the straw and spread evenly over the pile.  Be sure you moisten the ingredients as you add them.

Try to keep the sides of your sheet composting pile as vertical  as possible so that the rain stays in the garden and doesn’t flow off.

Final steps to creating your sheet composting pile

Test your soil with a pH thermometer. On a pH thermometer, a pH above 7 means your soil is alkaline. A pH below 7 means your soil is acidic. Most plants thrive in soil that has a pH somewhere between 6.5 and 7.2

If your soil test shows that your soil is acidic, adding powdered limestone to the pile will add calcium and raise the pH of the soil.
Caution: add only a little bit at a time as a small amount goes a long way. Then test your soil after a few days.  If the soil shows it is still acidic, add another little bit.  Follow directions on the box or bag.

If on the other hand your soil is alkaline, adding powdered sulfur will help lower the pH of the alkaline soil. (Please read the labels. If more than necessary is added to your soil, you can ruin your soil.)

Sprinkle bonemeal, or wood ashes, lime or sulfur (depending on your soil’s pH) over the top layer of peat moss. Do so CAREFULLY as these items will change your pH very quickly to alkaline or acid.

Keep adding layers until your sheet composting pile is 18 to 24 inches high. After decomposing has occurred, you will be left with about 5 to 6 inches of rich crumbly soil.

The good news is that as the worms work in your garden, they will also tunnel through the soil under the newspapers perhaps to a depth of 3 to 4 inches. This could give you a total of 8 to 10 inches of super soil to plant in.

The Best Season For Creating Your Sheet Composting Pile

Fall is a great time time for doing this type of sheet composting, for you can use as many chopped up leaves as you want since it is readily available. Also, during the winter the pile will decompose and the end result should be dark and loose soil, much like deeply dug soil ready for you to set out your plants or sow seeds in the spring.

If you do this sheet composting in the early spring, you might want to “cook” it by first making sure you put about 4 times more brown material as you do green (high-nitrogen) material as you are building your pile.  Then cover the sheet composting pile with a yard cloth and weigh down the edges all around the pile with bricks.  If you wish to get the pile to heat up, cover with a plastic.

The black plastic helps keep the materials moist and traps the sun’s warmth for fast heating. After about 6 weeks, most of the pile will have broken down into a dark, crumbly material ready for you to plant seeds or transplant. Remove the pieces which have not quite decomposed.

Let’s Review:

1.  Before beginning your sheet composting pile, don’t remove the sod or do any extra work such as removing weeds or rocks.

2. Using a water hose or a long rope to select the desired shape, mark the area for your sheet composting pile .

3.  Cover the marked area with wet newspapers, cardboard or other paper-based product,overlapping the edges using at least fivesheets.  This first layer is cardboard (a brown material). Spray with water if not already quite moist.

4.Cover the paper/cardboard with one to two inches (2.5 to 5 cm) of  peat moss, peat moss substitute, or other moisture holding organic material such as   leaves, grass clippings, or garden waste on top of the peat moss.   You can also add a mixture of clay soil mixed with compost.  This would be the time to add bone meal or blood meal or limestone or sulphur. (Be careful.  See why above)

6.  As you continue building your sheet composting pile,  alternate layers of browns such as peat moss and and greens such as organic material, until desired depth is reached (18-24 inches or less depending on the raw materials available). You can top it off with a layer of loose straw.

7.  Hose down each layer as you add it to the sheet composting pile so that the pile has the consistency of a damp sponge.

8.  If done in the fall, finish by covering the sheet composting pile with garden cloth so that the pile stays all together and less nutrient is lost through water leaching.

Each year after usage,  increase soil level by introducing large amounts of mulch and compost to your garden and sheet mulched area.

Yes, you can change an unmanageable area into an area full of rich crumbly soil not by digging, tilling, or removing sod  but by sheet composting also referred to as Lasagna Composting.

Our forefathers called this leaf mulch backyard gold because decayed leaves is one of the best soil conditioner you can add to your soil, and it is free for the taking. Contrary to freshly fallen leaves which are quite acidic and use the nitrogen in the soil when decaying, leaf mulch adds humus (decayed vegetable material) to the soil, and amends the soil.

Now you may be asking yourself, “Why not just throw them in the compost bin with other composting material?’

Well there’s a reason for creating a separate pile made up of leaves only (My favorite leaf was the maple leaf) and allowing them to slowly decompose and become leaf mulch without adding anything else to the pile.

While compost is excellent for improving soil texture and adding nutrients to the soil, the broken down leaf mulch (often referred to as leaf mold) is the best soil amendment you can use.

Leaf mulch (or leaf mold) helps the soil hold onto its water thus protecting it from erosion and drought; improves the structure of the soil; provides carbon, a much-needed ingredient in all good soil types; and is a fantastic home for earth worms (worm castings add more nutrients to the soil) and other beneficial bacteria.

When fall would roll around, I always made it a point to gather as many leaves as possible even if that meant gathering up the neighbors’ leaves which had been left ready for pickup on the side of the road, and use these as leaf mulch.

At first I would not shred the leaves but would bury the leaves, as is, into my garden and hope I would end up with leaf mulch. However, I found that in the spring when I was ready to start gardening, the leaves had not quite finished decomposing.

Since nitrogen is an important factor when leaves decompose, these half decayed leaves were using the nitrogen meant for my growing veggies which in turn were not growing as well as they should. So finally I decided to begin shredding the leaves to speed up decomposition so that I would have leaf mulch by spring time. The positive vegetable growing results proved I was on the right track.

So to create leaf mulch, here are at least seven methods you can use to further decomposition:

The first three methods require less work, but the decomposition takes longer (six to 12 months). The last few methods will speed up decomposition drastically but does require more work (well worth it, I might add . . . and easy to do)

1. You can make leaf mulch by piling all the leaves in a corner of your yard and letting the worms gradually drag them under.

Better still, if you have a set up like my friend whose garden is bounded on three sides by a fence, you can spread your leaves all over the garden, wet them down and turn them over occasionally by shuffling your feet as you walk through them. Unless you have a super pileup of leaves, most of them should have disappeared by spring.

If you notice, when leaves fall in a wooded area, they end up on the ground where the wind occasionally fluffs them over; other than that, the earthworm and fungi take over. The leaf mulch has turned to a dark brown to black soil which has a beautiful earthy smell and a crumbly texture.

People who understand cold composting and recognize the value of the leaf mulch will go to these wooded areas and gather up this black soil and mix it with their garden soil as soil amendment.

2. A second way to create leaf mulch is to pile your leaves into a bin.

Using either wire or wood, you can build a bin at least three feet square by three feet tall. Then you pile your leaves into it, wet down the leaves with a hose, and when the pile is thoroughly moistened let it sit for the winter.

3. A third method used to create leaf mulch is to store your leaves in large plastic garbage bags

You simply fill each bag with your leaves, and moisten the leaves thoroughly. Since you are using a cold composting method, you may want to prevent anaerobic decomposition (which can be smelly) by cutting or puncturing slits in the bag to allow air to circulate inside the bag. (A garden fork works well).

Then the next step is to pile up your filled bags somewhere where they are out of the way. If you drive four long 2×2 pieces of wood into the ground, two at one end and two at the other end of a small area of land, you can then stock pile your filled bags between these 2×2 pieces of wood.

Note: You can also use these leaves as brown matter to be added at intervals in your compost bin during the winter months to create the perfect match with “greens” (left over scraps from the kitchen). You do need both in the compost bin for the material to heat up. See the post on how to build a compost pile.

4. A fourth method used to create leaf mulch is to use a grass trimmer and a big garbage can to shred your leaves.

As you gather your leaves, you begin by putting an armful or so in a big garbage can and run your trimmer through that until you’re satisfied the leaves have been broken down enough for you. Then add a second armful of leaves on top of the first lot and use your trimmer again. Every so often you can empty your shredded leaves in a big bag or a bin as mentioned above. (See video on how to use a grass trimmer and a garbage can to shred leaves in the next post)

Keep repeating the procedure until all the leaves have been shredded. See the video which explains the procedure of shredding with a grass trimmer and a large garbage can.

5. A variation of the number 4 method to shred your leaves as a way to speed up decomposition is to use a mulching lawn mower.

If you have a thick blanket of leaves on the ground, you begin by spreading them so your lawn mower does not choke up on you. Then you run over your leaves a few times with your mower in order to shred your leaves. See video on ( how to shred leaves with a lawn mower.)

To finish, you either gather the shredded leaves with a rake and put them into a bin or leave them on the ground to decomposeand slowly turn to leaf mulch. If your lawn mower can be equipped with a bag, then you can collect your shredded leaves more quickly and more easily. The only hard part is to empty the bag every so often.

6. My favourite method when creating leaf mulch was to gather up the fallen leaves with a handheld electric blower/vacuum.

When shredding leaves in order to create leaf mulch, I would set up the blower in such a way that the leaves would be swept up and blown into a bag. As it would go through the system, all the leaves would be shredded many times over. The overall bulk of leaves would be reduced tremendously but the decomposition to ensure having leaf mulch by spring would speed up.

I would then empty the bag of shredded leaves into big garbage bags until I had time to shred them further (No 7). Some of these bags of leaves would be stored near my compost bins so that I could add some brown matter to my compost bin in the winter time while leaves in other bags would end up as winter mulch around my roses.

7. To further break down the leaves into extremely fine pieces, I used a leaf eater through which I would run the already shredded leaves in the bags (No 6).

This seventh method of leaf mulch creation required more work but I loved the resulting mulch. I still remember those cold November days or evenings when I would shut myself away in the garage to further shred the leaves to tiny tiny pieces. I would end up with bushel baskets full of this finer leaf mulch which I would mound around my roses and other plants to protect them against extreme cold in the winter .

In the spring, this mulch had broken down to a brown humus which I would then work into the soil. I never lost a rose to frost or bitter cold.

If you wish further explanation on how to shred your leaves in order  to create leaf mulch, watch the videos at http://supercompostingtips.com/shredding-leaves-videos/ .

Enjoy
Marcie

There are so many ways you can be shredding leaves in order to create your backyard gold, in other words, in order to create leaf mulch or leaf mold. You can read an in-depth explanation on the many ways you can get your leaves ready for decomposition at
http://supercompostingtips.com/making-leaf-mulchleaf-mold/

Since it’s so much better to see how things are done, I have decided to create a second post where you will be able to view two videos on shredding leaves: one is by using the lawn mower and the other by using the grass trimmer.

In this first video, home improvement expert Danny Lipford shows you about shredding leaves by using a string/grass trimmer and a big garbage can so that the raked leaves will turn into mulch more quickly.

In this second video, well-known New England meteorologist and horticulturist David Epstein shows you how a lawn mower can be used for shredding leaves in order to speed up decomposition.

David Epstein is host of the popular program Growing Wisdom at GrowingWisdom.com , a weekly video show presenting hands-on gardening advice, organic tips and inspiration for gardeners.

If you’re interested in breaking down your leaves even more minutely into tiny tiny pieces, I strongly suggest you use a leaf eater,an electric leaf shredder such as the Flowtron.   It can be set up on its three legs, or the legs can be taken off and the funnel part set on a garbage can.

The only drawback with the Flowtron is that I had to be careful not to overfill it with leaves because the motor would then overheat and time was lost while waiting for it to cool down. I had one for many years and had to get it serviced only twice. In both cases it was my fault because I became too impatient and threw too many leaves into the Flowtron once too often; as a result the motor died, and I had to get it replaced. Of course I was using these before 2004, so perhaps today’s little motors has more resistance built into them.

Fortunately replacement service was fast and could be easily done at a small-motor shop. So just don’t be in a hurry and do as I did Stay cool; be patient, and you’ll be fine!

By clicking on this picture, you will see other types of Flowtron leaf eaters and/or get more information:

Now that you have seen how shredding leaves is easy to do,

you can create leaf mulch and use it to

1. mix in with your plantings or potting soil to make it more rich and fertile

2. or to top dress your planting beds as a slow release fertilizer.

If you would leave a comment telling us how you have made out shredding your leaves, it would be greatly appreciated.

Happy Gardening,
Marcie

Types of bins vary from the stacking worm bin or worm factory, which can be bought(see below), to a homemade worm bin which may be made by using a combination of window boxes or plastic bins/totes  or wooden boxes with plenty of air holes punched in the sides and tops.

On the post “Worm Bedding Material’, I’ve explained one type of worm bin you can use; that is, my method of using two window boxes to make a worm bin.

In this post I will give you two other ways besides my window box idea to construct your worm bin: 1) using a big garbage plastic bin and 2) using a smaller plastic container/tote  as explained on video by Christy Ruffner from

http://www.vermiculturenorthwest.com

First example of a homemade worm bin:

One enterprising young man who wanted plenty of worm castings used a big garbage plastic bin to create his worm bin.  At the bottom on one side of his worm bin, he cut out a door so that he could quickly retrieve the worm castings without necessarily having to deal with the worms themselves.

Then he bought rods that wouldn’t rust or rot, and with the proper size drill, he made holes all around the plastic bin about half way up from the ground.  Then he inserted these rods  from one side of the worm bin to the other side.

These rods more or less created a platform which was about 2 feet from the bottom of the bin and parallel to it.  He made sure the rods were close enough they could easily hold a bedding of damp newspapers to hold his precious worms in this homemade worm bin.

One added precaution to make this worm bin even more efficient would be to put a net or screening under the newspapers to avoid losing the tiny baby worms once the newspapers have decomposed or been eaten by the worms.

Second example of a homemade worm bin:

This video is called DIY Worm Bin 101 in which Christy explains step by step how to prepare a plastic tote so it can be used for worm composting.

Obviously the important things to do to keep your worms happy in the worm bin is to make sure that they are in a damp environment, not a soaking wet one nor a dry one

, hence the reason for having the holes drilled in the bottom of the worm bin for drainage and containers of some sort to harvest this “compost tea”. On the other hand, if the bedding dries up, spray with dechlorinated water until the material is damp.

Second, the worms need air.

Therefore, you must drill holes in areas where the soil (if you’re using soil) or castings will not fall out these holes. As well, make these holes towards the top of the worm bin where the holes can get the most air through so would be the most beneficial. Putting screening or some sort of net as explained in the video is also a good idea.

Click on the image for a better view of what is called a “Worm Factory”.

3-tray Worm Composter

However, now that you have read about three different versions of “what to use for a worm bin” from three different people, you probably realized that these bins are as varied as the people who make them. What will you use for your worm bin?

Good luck!

Marcie

1. Loam or black topsoil available from garden centers makes particularly good worm bedding material for your worms.

2. Worm bedding material can also be shredded newspaper which have been soaked and drained to soften the edges.

The newspaper should be damp and not soaking wet when you place it in your “worm’s home” as worm bedding material. Since the worms will eat this too, avoid colored inks and glossy paper.

3. Other worm bedding material could be a mixture of sawdust, peat moss, shredded leaves and ordinary soil (all of these should be moist, of course).

By the way, peat moss, although a great soil additive, should be used with restraint only because our bogs where peat moss is gathered are getting depleted. Bogs  need to be given time to replenish.

Instead, for your worm bedding material,  try using soil which is cheap and easy to use. If you live in an apartment, you have to buy soil anyway, so why not enrich it with vermicompost?

If you use trays, moist paper is sufficient as worm bedding material.

If you use a deeper container, fill the worm bin with about a foot of soft bedding, about as damp as a wrung-out sponge.

Since you have provided air holes all around and underneath the bin itself, you can add a lid on the bin to help maintain the correct moisture level.

I use a window box to hold the worms, soil, and food,  tip another window box over it, and  make sure there is plenty of air circulation space where the two window boxes meet in the middle  by skewing the top one a bit.  If the top one is larger than the bottom one, then obviously no skewing is needed.  This “bin” is kept in a  cool corner of my apartment where the sun can not reach it. My worms seem to like it and have never tried to escape.

Click on the thumbnail for better view of my soil as worm bedding material.  Notice the containers under the bottom box to catch drippings when I add water to moisten the drying soil.

At first I had only about a 1/2 dozen worms and I had split up my container into two areas where I had added soil. When the  time for harvesting the compost was right,  I was hoping to entice the worms with food to the other end so that I would not have to sort out the worms.

Here’s what it looked like back in the fall of 2007.  Click here for the  full story on how I got hooked on using vermicompost for my plants.

Now I fill the whole window box with soil as my worm bedding material because I have so many more worms.  I spread the food on top or work the food into the soil to avoid having to deal with fruit flies.  Notice how the top box extends farther out than the bottom one because it is a larger window box, so the worms get plenty of air circulation which in turn allows for anearobic composting i.e. no smell.

For drainage, I raise the container holding the worm and mulch about 1 inch from the floor and slide plastic containers (Or whatever you have around) to catch the drippings. I never overwater  . . .  just add enough when the soil gets drier so the worms are kept happy.

(Please note:
I never use water just out of the tap because here in the city the water from the tap contains chlorine and fluoride; instead I will fill containers about 1 day ahead . . . enough to water all my plants, and I leave the water sit, uncovered, so that the chlorine can escape from the water.

Also, if you have a house, you can gather rainwater in barrels and use that for the worms if needed.

(Thank you, Irvine, for reminding me about using barrels.  When I had my house, I had 3 rain barrels, and I loved using the rainwater on my gardens too.  I can’t do that here at the apartment, so I had forgotten that other people have the space to do that.)

Again, you may want to read about my experience with worms when I first started making vermicompost a few years ago by going to http://PlantsAndGardeningTips.com/worm-castings-how-well-does-it-work/.

If you look at the side panel, you will see links to articles on what types of worms you can use and what food you might give them…now that you have an idea what can be used as worm bedding material.

Happy composting!

This past spring I have personally found out how superior to synthetic fertilizers and other liquid fertilizers even a trowel full of soil with worm castings in it can be. Here’s more about my experience with composting worms and using the castings at http://www.plantsandgardeningtips.com/.

Although harvesting vermicompost or the nutrient filled soil or worm casting can be somewhat work intensive, it is  not difficult to do.

If you use a whole container or, as in my case,  the whole window box without dividing into sections for feeding the wigglers, it will take a little more work when it’s harvesting vermicompost time.

When removing the nutrient-filled soil from the container in order to replace it with new soil, I will have to be so careful about not removing the worms with it.  I want them to remain in the new soil which I will use for bedding.

When I feel I should be harvesting vermicompost because there is sufficient nutrient-rich super soil in the entire window box and I want to use it,

I begin by shining a strong light on one end of the box, and the worms will bury below the soil.

Then I skim the top of the soil with a trowel and transfer it to a plastic zip bag.

If I happen to pick up any worms in my trowel while I am harvesting vermicompost,  I fish out the worms with my fingers and throw them back into the window box where they are out of the way. Worms don’t like having a light shining on them, so they will immediately look for shelter in the soil.

As I continue harvesting vermicompost, I skim more and more soil off the top of the pile and gradually get to the point where I see the worms.

Once more I manually, with my fingers or with the trowel, pick up the worms and move them out of the way as I keep working my way down to the bottom of the window box.

When there is no more nutrient-filled soil to be removed from that first side, I then fill up that corner with new soil, moisten it so the worms will feel at home, and bury food in the soil.

Then it’s time for harvesting vermicompost at the other end of the window box.

I go to the other end of the box, shine the light on this area and repeat the above procedure.

This time I will notice how some of the worms are slowly finding their way back to the new soil where I had put the food.

Little by little most of the worms will migrate to the new soil. Again when I happen to pick up worms with the soil in my trowel, this time the worm is placed in the new soil section. And when I get closer to the bottom, I will transfer the worms “en masse” with my trowel or my hands to the new soil section.

PS If I wait a few hours or even a day before harvesting vermicompost on the second side of the box, most of the worms will have migrated on their own to the side where there is food; in other words, the worms will have transferred to the new soil so there is less work for me when harvesting vermicompost on this second end of my window box.

When I have finished harvesting vermicompost from the second corner, I add some new soil and food to this end too. Sometimes I retransfer some worms back to the second end, sometimes I don’t bother.

Since I had been transferring the nutrient-filled soil from the box to a large ziplock bag which had originally held frozen berries, all I need do now is zip the bag and store this bag into another darker plastic bag to keep light away from it as I want the vermicompost to remain somewhat moist. I will be using all this compost for my balcony containers.

I hope this all makes sense to you. However, if you don’t like all that workwhenever it’s time for harvesting vermicompost, here’s a video that shows an easy way to tempt the worms into moving from one tray to another:

So the bottom line is to recognize your vermicompost; that is, you will know that the soil is ready for using when you can run your fingers through the soil and it feels like you’re running your fingers through coffee grains (not quite, but it’s close enough).

Also your soil should have a different smell — like when you’re walking through the woods just after a lovely light rain and you can smell the mulch. Believe me, it’s a special lovely smell you cannot forget.

The next post will deal with what to use for bedding for the wigglers when vermicomposting.

Meanwhile, enjoy your vermicompost. By the way, did you realize that even the big companies are starting to use vermicompost more and more as organic nourishment for the soil around their fruit trees or for growing their vegetables organically. It IS a faster way to get compost than by using the hot or cold composting method,and it is easier to mass produce.

So good luck with your vermicomposting.

On the next post I will discuss worm bedding material.

Meanwhile….
Happy gardening!
Marcie

I have a different type of bin — a window box with holes in the bottom and containers under the window box to catch any leaking water.

As a cover, I use a bigger window box which I place upside down over the one with the worms. I make sure this big window box is placed in such a way that plenty of air is allowed to circulate inside the bin so that the worms and the decomposing material have access to oxygen. We do want aerobic decompostion which does not smell, right?

If you double click on this image, you will have a better view of my homemade vermicomposting bin.

You will notice that I have no soil in the middle of the window box.  At one point the box was filled with soil, and I’ve since used the soil from the center of the window box as compost for my balcony plants.

At first I had purposely left the middle empty so that when I figured there was quite a bit of worm castings in the soil at both ends, I would put fresh soil and the food in the middle to attract the worms and then use the nutrient-rich super end soil as compost.

As the number of worms increased,  I started  keeping the box filled with soil and spreading  the food all over the top of the soil right across the box.

If you prefer not to touch the woms, there are special kits you can buy. Here’s an example tray bin system from Amazon:
Worm Factory DS3GT 3-Tray Worm Composter, Green

You can also google these words:

vermicomposter + Toronto or the name of your city or town

and you will find suppliers.

Some people move their worms out to a balcony or yard in warm seasons, but I would hesitate putting the bins in the sun for the worms would fry in temperature above 80 degrees F. (approximately 25 degrees Celsius. If you wish to put them outside on a balcony, try to find a spot which remains shaded.

However, I keep my bin in my living room in a dark corner behind my furniture. I do not get any smell or mess from it. Also in the past teachers used to set up a bin in the classroom where students would take in food for the worms. I know one teacher who bought a tool box in which to keep her composting worms. Anything will work as long as you take care of it.

If you plan to move the worm bins back and forth to the balcony, you may find it more convenient to have several smaller, more portable units rather than one large one. The size of the box will also depend on how much space you have.

So if you live in an apartment and prefer to nourish your plants with compost, why not try the vermi composting method.

Take care

Marcie

who don’t have yard space and for those homeowners who don’t want to hike through snowdrifts to a backyard compost bin.

In addition, kids love keeping hundreds of wigglers for pets.  As a matter of fact, worm composting can be used as an activity in the classroom.  Children just love feeding these worms and watching them wiggle around.  Any container will do the job as a “home” for the worms.

If you do not wish to build your own “home” for your worms, there are several companies now who can sell you not only the bins but also the bedding, the worms, and all you need. Just search with the words worm bins + Canada(or the country you want).

In future posts I will discuss homes for worms, worms bedding material, types of worms needed, what can be used as worm food, harvesting the worm castings,  outdoors worm composting pit, and my experiments with worm castings.

See you on the next post.

Marcie

Mulch discourages weeds, protects soil from compacting or eroding, and keeps the roots of plants cool and moist in hot weather and insulated in the winter.

My Favorite Mulches:

1. In the summer I would buy cedar mulch to spread around my shrubs and flowers. A layer of 3 to 4 inches would help keep the soil fairly moist even in hot summer weather; in addition, where I had spread the cedar mulch, very little, if any, weeding needed to be done.

My roses just loved the cedar mulch… and the ants and the cats seemed to  hate it. So that suited me just fine!

2. Another type of mulch I just loved was the cocoa bean shells; how I loved to inhale the beautiful chocolaty aroma which would permeate the air when it rained or when the flowers were being watered.

In addition, because cocoa bean shells decomposed so quickly, the plants could benefit from the composted material after 4 to 8 weeks.

Unfortunately, cocoa bean shells turned out to be more expensive than cedar mulch because the shells would decompose fairly quickly so I had to buy more cocoa bean mulch a few more times during the summer to replenish my beds.

Because this method was fairly expensive and I had a lot of ground to cover, I used this mulch for only one season during the 1980′s. Perhaps it is cheaper now.

3. For winter mulching, I would gather all the fallen leaves not only those in my yard but also in my neighbours’ yard every fall and put them through the leaf mulcher.

(Because I live in Southern Ontario, Canada, where the cold weather usually begins around November/December, I couldn’t add the mulch to the rose beds until the temperature was much closer to zero Celsius because I did not want the shrubs to begin growing new branches which would then be killed by the frost/cold.)

So in late October or early November , I would spread layers of this broken down leaf mulch all over my rose gardens. I made sure each rose bush would be protected from the winter elements with as much of this leaf mulch as possible.

Although piling up the soil around each bush works fine, I found that when I used the leaf mulch (along with the soil for I never had enough mulch), I would have more roses earlier in the spring, and my roses seemed to be more fragrant.

4. A fourth way to mulch is to spread bark mulch or wood mulch around your trees. You can buy this type of mulch or you can make your own if you have a wood chipper and put your scrap branches through it. (Note: For some reason, roses do not like pine tree or pine leaf mulch. So I never used pine mulch around my roses)

When I would trim my fruit trees and my red maple trees, I would then make mulch by putting the cut branches which were less than 2 inches thick through a small wood chipper bought at Canadian Tire. (Obviously I never used diseased branches or twigs.)

I had cedar hedge all around my back yard, so when I would cut and trim those hedges, I would gather the cut material and put that through the chipper and then cover the ground around my hedges with this newly made  cedar mulch.

5. One type of mulch which appeared on the market in the spring of 2009 and  which is fast becoming extremely popular is what is known as Nincompoop (http://www.nincompoop.info/1.html) sold through Home Hardware (at least here in Ontario in 2009).

I  used it last summer (2009) in my balcony containers, and I love how it helps retain moisture and at the same time every time the plants were watered they were being fed by the nutrients in this mulch.  What people like is that although the major component of this   gardening and landscaping mulch is manure,  the finished product  looks like earth.

According to the creators/owners, “this Nincompoop is the world’s first Eco-Friendly, Weed-Resistant Organic Mulch that amends your soil by providing food for your worms while retaining 3-times its weight in moisture!  It is a “Moisture Blanket” for your gardens which provides complete weed resistance (when applied properly).

Nincompoop is the only garden mulch that is Weed-Resistant, made of organic ingredients, retains 3x its weight in moisture, that turns into Black Earth…that is why it is Patent Pending.”

You can read more about it at the nincompoop website.  (No, I am not an affiliate, and I am not getting any advertising compensation.  I just love the stuff. If you can’t get the real manure, or you don’t have enough homemade compost, then this is the next best thing for your garden.) 

If you need a mulch that protects and nourishes, use nincompoop.  It may seem expensive, but it’s well worth every penny.

Mulching tips:

1. ONE NOTE OF CAUTION: In the spring, you have to move this leaf mulch away from the rose stems so that the “little decomposter critters” do not decide to include your rose stems as mulch to be decomposed.

I lost two of my favourite beautiful tea rose bushes before I realized what was eating them. From then on as early in the spring as possible, I would push the leaf mulch away from all rose stems to avoid having them being eaten away.

2. You can break down your leaves by going over them with your mulching lawn mower or by putting the leaves in a large metal garbage can and using your whipper snipper(lawn edger) to somewhat break down the leaves.

As you can see, there are as many different types of mulches as there are gardeners. The idea is to use the cold decomposting method via mulching by breaking down woody material (either with a chipper or with a mulcher)and then  spreading the resulting mulch on top of the garden soil so plants can keep growing undisturbed by the decomposition process going on.

3.  To my chagrin I understand that some people are using rubber mulch in their gardens. Now  this is important! Before you decide to add rubber mulch to your flower beds or to the garden, please oh please find out more about what you are planning to add to your beautiful earth.

Please read my post about the  dangers of rubber mulching  at my organicvegetablegardeningguide.com/blog if you are planning to use rubber mulching. Hopefully you will not make the makers of rubber mulch richer by ruining your soil!

4.  Also, if buying mulch for your garden, please be aware that red dye is toxic for both humans and for our little critters doing the decomposting.  Remain natural.  It’s prettier, safer, and healthier for the environment.

Next post is indoor composting.

Until then . . .

Happy Gardening!

Marcie