Part 1: Getting Started
If you caught my last post, you would know that it’s time to start planting seeds for your favorite fruits and vegetables, even if you live in the city, and that the right soil is a huge factor in determining whether your garden is successful or not.

We were told by an experienced gardener that purchasing the EKO brand potting soil “WITH COMPOST!” (as she repeated several times) was necessary for a successful container garden.   We did buy that soil and our garden last year was amazing!   A neighbor even asked us once what that “tree” was doing on our balcony, when it was really a happy mound of tomato and cucumber plants climbing up a trellis.

This year, we’re watching our expenses and creatively trying to cut our costs.   We looked at bags of EKO potting soil (with compost) and they’re just under $7 a bag for 1.5 cubic feet.   One bag really doesn’t go very far when you’re filling multiple containers, so we started searching for information on composting indoors.

It turns out that, in addition to helping the environment, making your own compost indoors is actually quite easy and it’s cheap to get started (and NO, it won’t smell if you do it correctly).   All you need is a suitable container, shredded paper, water, food scraps, and the key ingredient: red wiggler worms.

We all used to play in the dirt as kids, right?   So hopefully the idea of keeping some friendly trash-eaters around isn’t too odd or scary for you.   Jonathan and I don’t mind – we actually like the little guys and think they’re kinda cute.   Since composting saves materials from being dumped in landfills, you should be able to find a list of resources on your city’s recycling or waste management website.   The City of Denver’s website lists several local and online sources, including a lady named Sandi [wirfarm@yahoo.com] who lives just east of the city and offered us a pound of worms and a 30-minute training session for $20.   Without the training session the worms are $15, and you can also schedule a 2.5   hour class with her (worms included) for $30.

A week before getting the worms you should find a suitable container and start adding food scraps and bedding.   Just about any medium-sized plastic container should do, though a depth of 8-12″ and a surface area of at least four shoeboxes lined up is ideal.   Anything deeper than 12″ is fine, you’ll just have some wasted space since the worms are surface eaters.   We didn’t have any storage containers that weren’t in use, so we picked up some 10 gallon Rubbermaid containers on sale at Target for $6 each.   They’re 9″ deep and stackable, which is perfect.   If you want, you can splurge on a commercial system that will slowly migrate the worms from one bin to the next as the compost is created, but those systems start at $60 and Sandi tells us that they don’t work as well as they claim to.   She also told us that some worms fall into the water compartment at the bottom and will drown if they’re not rescued in time.

Once you have your container, you’ll need to fill it about 3/4 full with moist bedding.   If you have a cross-cut paper shredder, this is easy: just shred some newspaper or non-glossy office paper.   If your shredder can handle it (ours will take 15 pages at a time), you can also shred some thin paperboard or corrugated cardboard.   Soak the bedding in water for at least an hour and then wring it out by hand, one handful at a time, and drop that in your container.   Be sure to fluff it up so that the worms can easily maneuver through the bedding.

Next, you’ll need to add about two cups worth of food scraps and you’ll want to bury them in one spot in the bedding: it’s the layers of bedding that filter out any smells.   Anything that was once part of a plant can go in.   We added coffee grounds (filter included), tea bags, apple cores, avocado peels, banana peels, cabbage stems, tomato and onion pieces, juiced limes, and even used paper towels.   Citrus, salty foods, spicy foods, and oily foods are ok in moderation, but too much of these could kill the worms.   Also, since you’re composting indoors, you don’t want to put in any meat or dairy.   These take too long to break down and they’ll cause a nasty smell.   If you’re so inclined and want to speed up the composting process, you can chop the scraps into smaller bits.   We read online that it helps to microwave the scraps for 2 minutes to kill any fruit fly or gnat eggs, but Sandi told us that it’s easiest to just toss your scraps in a freezer bag and leave them overnight.   Freezing the scraps will help break them down, and it’s a good place to store them until they go in the bin.   You’ll want to put the lid on the bin and either crack it open a bit or drill some 1/8″ holes around the top so that air can get in.   Air is necessary for decomposition, and worms DO need to breathe!

If you’ve followed all the directions up to this point, great!   Now leave the bin as-is for 7-10 days so that the composting process can begin.   If you’re purchasing your worms locally, contact your supplier to set up an appointment with them, or start looking for online vendors and shipping times so that your shipment will arrive in about a week.

Next up: The Key Ingredient

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When James isn’t working to save the environment, he is producing high-energy dance music that you can hear on iTunes or learn more at www.jamesroymusic.com.

Photo credit: James Roy.