How to Compost Using Office Shreddings
Looking for a way to improve your garden plants and be environmentally conscious? If you work in an office where they shred all of their paper wastes, for confidentiality or environmental reasons, this is a way to do both. It's called vermicomposting and it utilizes shredded paper to create worm compost for your garden. Through vermicomposting, you can recycle all of that shredded paper and increase organic matter and nutrients in your garden soil, thus producing stronger, healthier plants. Does this Spark an idea?
Other People Are Reading
Things You'll Need
- Container (20 gallons or larger)
- Drill with 1/4-inch bit
- Shredded paper
- Soil
- Worms
- Kitchen scraps
- Cardboard
Instructions
-
-
1
Drill several 1/4-inch holes in the bottom and sides of a wooden, metal or plastic container. Place it on top of a shallow tray to catch excess moisture.
-
2
Cover the bottom of the container with about 3 to 4 inches of shredded paper, moistened to the consistency of a damp sponge. This is a great way to utilize office shredding, but strips of newspaper will work too. Do not use colored paper of paper with any type of coating.
-
-
3
Add a small amount of soil to absorb moisture. This will add important microbes that aid in the process of turning waste into nutrient-rich fertilizer, or worm castings.
-
4
Lay the worms on top of the bedding. Add 1 lb. of worms per 1 foot of bedding area. The best worms to use are red wigglers, but night crawlers will also work. Red worms can be gathered from your yard by placing a piece of wet cardboard on top of your lawn or garden soil at night. Red worms love to eat the cardboard. Lift the cardboard and gather the worms that have surfaced. Or you can purchase worms (see References). The worms will burrow down and disappear.
-
5
Add kitchen scraps, burying it in the bedding to avoid drawing fruit flies. Worms will eat almost anything, but do not include meat products. Moisten a piece of cardboard that will fit just inside the bin and place it over the top.
-
6
Set up your bin in a cool, dark place. Allow the worms about two months to turn scraps and bedding into worm castings. A finished worm cast pile (this is your fertilizer) looks like black, granular jelly.
-
7
Push finished worm compost over to one side and lay fresh bedding on the empty side. Add fresh waste materials to only the fresh bedding side of the container. Give your worms three to four weeks to move into the new bedding. Remove the finished compost and repeat the process.
-
1
Tips & Warnings
If your worms are trying to get out, your bedding may be too moist or too dry. You can correct this by adding water or more bedding.
There should not be any odor coming from the bin. Drill more ventilation holes in the sides to increase air circulation. Or you may be providing more food than your worms can consume, so withhold organic matter for one to two weeks.
