I have a happy worm bin that takes care of most of my composting needs. I use the castings around my garden, mostly when I’m planting something new, but I also feed my established plants with it when I can.
But! I’ve also been thinking it’d be great to deliver castings right into the ground, and would love to use semi-buried containers in the beds to compost right there. There are plenty of native composting worms in my location.
I have a bunch of small (1-1.5 liter ish?) buckets with lids that I’d love to repurpose for this. I was thinking I’d make a bunch of holes in the body and lid of the buckets, and bury them up to the rim. Then fill with some bedding and some scraps, and inoculate with come castings and some worms. And just feed whenever there’s space, hoping the castings spread a bit into the ground, or otherwise dig it up when it’s full of castings and bury it in a new spot.
My main concern is that the buckets would be too small. The reason I’m aiming for this size is honestly because I want to use these containers for something useful instead of tossing them out. I’d love any suggestions and to hear about your experiences with in-ground composting!
The technique used to be called ‘worm towers’. See if you can find a blog or post that is about the same size as you’re suggesting.
Personally, I wouldn’t put plastic out in the garden anymore. I found some stainless steel colanders, a pencil holder from IKEA in charity shops etc, and tried that. Works ok. Maybe masonry bits through terracotta or concrete pots would be good.
To add to this, don’t add in any worms. Let the local worms find your tower. You don’t want to accidentally be adding non native species to your soil if you can avoid it.
Old stainless flu pipes with holes would work well.
Thanks, yeah that’s generally good advice. I live in a location where both red wrigglers and european nightcrawlers are native, and I’m using both of those in my worm bin, so wouldn’t be introducing anything new. But always good to advise caution.
Living in an island nation I’m very biosecurity concious haha
That’s a good idea with the flue.
You can find them at recycle centres and the dump fairly often. They’re good for all sorts
Ah, thanks, that search term was very useful!
I do struggle a bit with finding reliable information on worm composting. So much of it seems to be regurgitated info from unreliable sources, and there’s so much “knowledge” out there that seems to be incorrect but constantly repeated anyways. At least, with all the conflicting things people say, at least a good chunk simply has to be wrong…
So you have experience with in ground composting? Does it work well for you? How does it compare to other ways of composting?
You’re right about the blog posts, I used to say the same thing on reddit. Almost everybody that writes one is freshly into it, it’s hard to find someone with 20 years experience writing something online.
I tried worm towers, I tried trenching beside planting lines, I was a moderator on the PRI forum (Permaculture Research Institute) and was exposed to many others doing it (forums were great at about 2005 onwards, people like Darren Doherty et al were regularly posting). The trenching worked well but only because I was urban, there was minimal animal pressure (no rats even). There is no chance I could do anything in-garden now without it being Fort Knox because the pressure is freakishly high, even all types of gardening is difficult. I prefer methods of composting that don’t require labour inputs so tower, trench, worm farm are the best for me. I used to do proper piles at the right ratio but that was full on work gathering ingredients. I use pyrolysis to clean up everything else and chop/drop.
Once I decided to use the worms to process char and my experiments with ratios were finished, I just stopped all that, moved fulltime into the bathtub and started cycling more in there. I found an old blender and could increase processing speed some too. And then years passed and I’m still doing it as it handles out family output just fine as is.
I can suggest an alternate use for the buckets with a lid. We do ‘roman composting’ with a couple. Put all the thing’s you don’t want in a compost heap - dandelion roots, grass roots, weeds with seeds on etc in the bucket then fill with rain water and leave it well alone, because it will really stink if you poke at it 😄
You can pour liquid off to use as a feed, the solids should be well rotten after a few months and stop smelling so bad. I usually chuck them in my normal compost heap. But I guess you could try them as a dressing.
Thanks for the suggestion! I’ve heard of this before but never tried it. Some questions: would I close the lid airtight? How long do you have to leave it? And then just pour the smelly water into my garden because it contains nutrients?
How long? Months if you want it not to smell much at the end.
The liquid that comes off should be diluted, 20 to 1, and used as a plant feed, yes.
The solids left behind might be harder for you to deal with, I put them in our compost bin with everything else. You could try mulching around your plants perhaps.
Sort of related: I think it was Charles Dowding (a no-dig pioneer, lots of nice videos on YouTube) who is in favour of spreading almost-but-not-completely ready compost on his beds so the worms can finish it off and spread the castings in the process. That would mean you’d need a ‘normal’ compost bin/heap to add your scraps to, and there is little actual tangible involvement with the worms, so it may be less fun than what you are after here.
Thanks, that’s interesting! I’m happy with any tips that improve my garden. Unfortunately I don’t have the space to add a regular compost heap/bin to my garden. But I’ll find me some compost and try this in the fall, I think.