Sunday, October 18, 2009

Setting up the wormery for Kingsley St. John's

A few weeks ago Wiggly Wigglers offered some freebies to organisations who might be able to make use of them and the children's school, Kingsley St. John's, was lucky enough to get offered a re-furbished can-o-worms and value pack.

I've been trying to get the school composting in some way shape and form for a while now so I went along to their eco-club to help set it up.

As you can see from the photo's the children were absolutely fascinated with the whole process of both composting their food waste and having the worms do it for them.

So while the coir block was soaking for the bedding I took them through adding the legs and fitting the tap while explaining why there was a sump and what the tap was for etc.  More than one knew why you collect the liquid and how good it is for fertilising plants but they were really fascinated when it came to adding the bedding and the worms themselves.

Everybody got to hold some worms as I pointed out the adults, babies and even a few cocoons (that hold between 1 and 20 baby worms).

I then explained about the trays and how we should feed food waste (preferably wrapped in a sheet or two of newspaper to stop the fruit flies), add lots of shredded paper for extra carbon and soaking up excess moisture as well as giving them the much needed dark that they work so well in.

So the school now has a wormery and they have a rota system for emptying the liquid, diluting it with water and applying it to their raised beds.

I'll be visiting regualrly to keep an eye on things and explain what is happening as the bin becomes more mature and eventually needs the bottom tray emptying.

Next, to try and persuade them to use Bokashi for their cooked kitchen waste...