Waste not Want not - Composting with Red Wrigglers
For my birthday in June, my dad asked me what I wanted as a gift, so I said anything for my garden. I have been blessed to have a father who can pretty much build or make anything with his own two hands and what I got, was not at all what I was expecting... but I was thrilled! He made one for himself many years ago which I made use of daily when we stayed there with him, but am super happy to finally have my own one.
I got my own custom made worm bin, with balloons tied to it too haha - not very easy to make a composting bin look festive, but him and his girlfriend did a good job :) Yes, you can buy worm bins commercially, but like I said... my dad can make anything and why pay more for something commercially that you can put together yourself!
Everything was packed inside and ready to go! All we needed to do was find a spot for it to hang on the wall outside and then, get some worms... obviously. We have a wash line area around the side of the house where we keep our wood and our house gas so we decided to put it there.
In essence it is just a rectangular plastic tub with a clip off lid, and at the bottom my dad inserted a tap which you can then attach a bottle to, in order to collect the worm juice.
For those of you that might not know what the heck I am talking about... let me explain. Basically, you are using worms to compost your food scraps. Technically the worms used which are most commonly known as "red wrigglers" are indeed earth worms - of a sort, the only real difference being in what they consume. A traditional earth worm eats soil and a red wriggler eats decaying matter. So the red wrigglers eat the decomposing food which then ultimately becomes compost as it digests through their body. When it exits :) it is officially called Vermicompost and that is what you use to feed your garden!
I have a rather large garden area and whilst I do regularly purchase an organic food product called Fruit and Flower which is a slow release plant food - at just over 200 ZAR per bag and approx. one bag needed to feed my entire garden... it does get expensive. So that is where the worm food comes in!
Keeping in mind, I have only just started collecting food waste, so there is not much going on in my bin at the moment - but eventually, the bin will be filled with highly nutritious compost for me to feed my garden with.
You can use the compost itself and work it into the soil, or place it around the base area of plants, but I only ever did that when the bin was getting too full and you obviously have to be careful that you are not throwing out worms along the compost.
Mostly, I use the worm juice... which collects in the tub and about once every two weeks or so, I will open the tap and allow the juice to slowly drip out which generally takes about a day or two. The worm juice is a very dark brown liquid as you can see from the photo below of two one litre bottles which my dad gave me from his worm bin.
The worm juice goes a really long way too! You can mix about 500ml of juice to 5 litres of water and then "water" your plants with that about once or twice a month. Obviously you will need to build up a little bit of a reserve of juice first. It is going to take me a little while to get there, but I am super excited - not only to be able to make use of our food scraps from the kitchen in a mindful manner, but also to go full circle with it by feeding my garden with what we have saved... not to mention saving some cash on plant food. It is definitely a win win! A birthday present that keeps on giving :) Thanks dad!
❤❤❤
Until next time...
Much Love from Country Bumpkinland, South Africa xxx
Jaynielea
ALL IMAGES ARE MY PROPERTY UNLESS OTHERWISE CREDITED
Typos make me human. I may or may not get around to correcting them.
All written content shared here is my property, unless otherwise credited
Oh, anda memiliki komposter juga. Itu merupakan langkah positif untuk menjaga lingkungan sekaligus mendukung hobby menanam kita, karena bisa digunakan sebagai media tanam untuk tanaman-tanaman kita.
Walaupun hanya "langkah kecil", namun sangat banyak manfaatnya. Kita seharusnya melakukan apapun yang bisa kita lakukan untuk menjaga lingkungan kita.
Btw, saja juga punya komposter yang saya buat dari bekas drum cat, yang saya pasangkan sebuah kran agar bisa menghasilkan pupuk organik cair, selain kompos.
Saya lihat anda juga menggunakan bipori ketika menanam tanaman sehingga anda bisa memenuhi kebutuhan air bagi tanaman anda dan juga menyuburkannya dengan menggunakan sampah organik.
Menurut saya, anda memiliki kepedulian yang tinggi terhadap lingkungan hidup.
0.00 SBD,
5.43 STEEM,
5.43 SP
Thank you @soulfuldreamer 🙏
0.00 SBD,
0.00 STEEM,
0.00 SP
Great to see such awesome engagement rewarded xxx Much love @soulfuldreamer x
Oh that is really cool!!! So awesome to see people being innovative for the benefit of the mother nature! And you are right, there are so many benefits! It does not matter that it is a small positive contribution in my mind... every little bit counts and if everyone made small changes, then we would start to see some big changes!
Very awesome, thanks so much for sharing! :)
Oh itu sungguh keren!!! Sungguh luar biasa melihat orang-orang berinovasi demi kepentingan alam! Dan benar sekali, banyak sekali manfaatnya! Tidak masalah jika itu adalah kontribusi positif kecil dalam pikiran saya... setiap hal kecil berarti dan jika setiap orang membuat perubahan kecil, maka kita akan mulai melihat beberapa perubahan besar!
Luar biasa sekali, terima kasih banyak telah berbagi! @alee75 :)
Saya setuju. Tidak ada hal yang besar tanpa hal-hal yang kecil. Hal-hal besar terwujud dari akumulasi hal-hal yang kecil dari banyak orang, yang memilih untuk menjadi bagian dari sebuah perubahan yang besar.
Sebagaimana tubuh kita yang terdiri dari jutaan bahkan milyaran sel yang menjadi komponennya. Namun hal ini terkadang luput dari perhatian sebagian orang untuk ikut memberikan sebuah kontribusi.
Bahkan ada juga yang menjadi inhibitor dan perusak terhadap sebuah perubahan. Kita sebagai orang yang memiliki nalar, harus menentukan kita berada di pihak yang mana?.
0.00 SBD,
0.01 STEEM,
0.01 SP
Very well said!!! <3