The Wormery

Last February, fed up dealing with our landlady's well-intended but nasty compost pile I built a worm composter.  My last vermicompost foray resulted a soupy mess so this time I went with a breathable design a la the Worm Inn.  Here's what I came up with:


Improvised from an L.L. Bean fleece, a laundry basket, karate 'brown' belt, stakes, and a jump rope, it's essentially a bag o' worms.  The drawstring zippered neck of the fleece make for easy compost access and the material itself improves the air-flow, making it stink-free.  Here it is loaded and topped with damp newspaper:

Six months after initial assembly I collected my first batch of compost.

Uncomposted bits were separated into the yellow bin, worms into the white and compost into the blue.   I found the easiest way to get the worms separated was to let the compost sit in a bright cool spot.  The worms in an effort to avoid the light burrowed to the bottom and I gently scraped a layer of compost until I was left with mostly worms.

I returned the uncomposted material and worms back into the composter and we begin anew.  With weekly food scraps and damp shredded newspaper additions in 6 months we should have more of this: