May 2008
Journey to Permaculture
Worm Bins — Every Living Thing Has Intrinsic Worth
by Merry Teesdale
Merry Teesdale is a field biologist and permaculture designer who specializes in win-win solutions. She manages OwlWood Wildlife Refuge and OwlWood Garden, which displays and encourages the development of sustainable food production within the community.
Part 4
Besides having compost in your soil, your veggies will also like some extra food during the growing season. Worm bins are an easy and fascinating way to make garden fertilizer. I have one bin near the garden sink which is used predominately for apple cider squeezings, and one near my kitchen which processes a day’s worth of table scraps every other day.
Worm castings make fantastic fertilizer; a mere handful in a bucket of water will dissolve magically into a tea that makes plants flourish. Red wiggler worms live just fine in a wooden box placed in the shade, so it doesn’t dry out or get too hot. They are a source of great interest to friends and neighbor kids.
Start the box with a bucket of fresh, recycled coffee grounds from the local java joint. This gives worms a fine, moist substrate to eat and live in. Then, add greens, not more than they can eat up in a day or two. I stick my favorite slugs in the box too, because they eat greens and they poo even more than worms. Currently I have three pet compost slugs, one named Stripe and two named Spot. Don’t let the box get too full; two-thirds full is about right.
Tending Your Worm Farm
After a few months, the worms will have eaten everything in the bin. It is time to separate them from their castings. The process is easy if you are willing to take a week or two to do it, just a couple minutes a day. Bright light is harmful to worms so the time for this is during the evening or in dim light.
Here’s how to do it. Worms are pretty slow and they tend to stay in their optimum moisture layer which should be an inch or two below the surface. Put on some gloves, use tools, and scrape off the top wormless inch of castings and put it in another container. Stop when you start seeing worms. Then push everything over to one half of the box. Lastly, bury some fresh greens under fresh coffee grounds on the empty side and moisten it. Every day after that, harvest the top inch off the castings side. The worms will gradually move over to the new food side.
Worm Food
A note on what to feed worms. They have tiny little mouths. Food must be soft enough for them to eat it. They can’t eat hard dry stuff. They don’t eat onions, garlic and citrus skins. Also, they can’t eat egg shells. They will eat moldy stuff. Food cut up into one-inch size pieces will be processed much faster because it soaks up moisture and many worms can completely surround it. Worms like a cool, damp environment, not too wet or dry. If the bin is drying out, add some cantaloupe rinds (their favorite) or old apples. §
Principles of Permaculture
1. It’s the connections between things that matter.
2. Each element performs multiple functions (at least three).
3. Each function is supported by many elements, many energy paths, job redundancy, and each is failsafe.
4. Energy-efficient planning — Concentrate beneficial and scatter hostile energies.
a. Zones — Place elements on a site according to how much we use them or how often we need to visit them.
b. Sectors — Analyze the effects of energies (sun, wind, rain, etc.) that come from off-site. Place design components to manage incoming energy to our advantage.
c. Elevations — Use gravity to advantage.
5. Use biological resources to save energy, produce needed materials and perform work. The key is management based on timing.
6. Energy cycling and recycling. Catch, store, use and cycle energy before it degrades.
7. Appropriate technology — Make the choice of tools work for you. Design things that are life-enhancing, low-cost, durable, producing net energy, safe in production, use and disposal.
8. Design small-scale, intensive systems.
9. Stack and pack your system.
10. Create diversity and edge within the system. Increase the sum of the yield of a system and spread the yield over time.
11. Observe and replicate natural patterns.
12. Ethics and attitude matter.
a. Turn problems into solutions: everything is a positive resource.
b. Make the greatest change for the least effort: work where it counts.
c. We are only limited by a lack of information and imagination.
d. Work with, not against nature.
e. Everything gardens: everything has an effect on its environment.
f. Care for the earth, care for people and care for the community.
g. Distribute the surplus, limit consumption and population.
h. Every living thing has intrinsic worth.
