How To Make Compost | IN 10 DAYS

Composting your kitchen waste is an easy way to cut down on the amount of garbage that your home produces and is one way to start living more sustainably. Throwing your food scraps each day won't take more than a minute or two and you need to wait roughly for 10 to 15 days before you will have good usable compost. And the best part, you end up with a fantastic soil amendment which provides everything your plants need to grow happy and Subscribe and press the bell icon on the YouTube app and never miss another update from Urban Gardening. Setting up a worm farm is easy and it will hardly take 15 to 20 minutes to install. You can buy this worm bin kit from Vermeter website. All the details are given on the screen and in the description box down below. Use Urban Gardening coupon code UG1000 to get a discount of Rs. 1000. Vermeter kit contains two composting trays with several holes at the bottom, four legs, one top lid with all the useful information about composting, one compost tea collection tray, 250 grams of conditioner that is dolomite powder, one coco peat brick to prepare bedding, one worm blanket, one worm teacup, one pair of hand gloves, one cultivator, one tap, one user manual, live earthworms. Assemble legs to the water collection tray. Now fit the tap to the water collection tray. Now to prepare bedding soak coco peat brick in 7 to 8 liters of water. Wait 5 to 10 minutes for coco peat to expand into a bedding. Lay a layer of old newspaper in the bottom and add shaded newspaper and cardboard clippings to the bedding. Add enough to fill the bin about 3 to 5 inches high. Worms need bedding that holds moisture well so newspaper and cardboard are best. Now put expanded wet coco peat in the tray. Bedding made of cardboard, newspaper strips or leaves will hold moisture and contain air species essential to worms. Add some water. Maintain 50 to 60 percent moisture. If too wet, add shredded paper or shredded dry leaves. Add earthworms that are given with organic manual and leave it for two days for the worms to settle in. It takes up to two to three days for the worms to get settled in their new home. Cover with the worm blanket that is given in the kit. Now close it with the top lid. This will provide shade and optimum condition for the worms to thrive. Keep the unit in shade. Place it under a tree or green net. You can also store the worm bin in a closet, laundry room or other storage rooms. Cut your kitchen waste into small pieces to help your waste turn into compost as quickly as possible. The best food scraps to use are peels, leaves, cores and seeds from fruits and vegetables. Crushed eggshells, tea bags and coffee grounds also works well. It is especially important to avoid adding meat or bones or any type of dairy product. Also avoid bread and excessive amount of citrus. Avoid large quantities of onion and citrus peels. If they are added in a small quantity, just sprinkle conditioner to maintain acidic level of your worm farm. Start slow, adding up to 250 grams per day to understand the process better. You can add up to 500 to 800 grams per day of food scraps after once you understand the process and see your worm population multiplying day by day, you can gradually start adding waste. Bury the food scraps inside the worm bedding. Use cultivator to work the scraps more efficiently. Spread the food scraps all across the bedding. Worms process anywhere between 25 to 100 percent of their body weight of organic material per day. As a general rule of thumb, if you are keeping a good worm bin environment, they should process an average of 50 percent of their body weight. Cover with the worm blanket that is given in the kit and pour some water on it. Doing so helps in maintaining your worms bin's moisture, traps any type of odour if formed and doesn't attract any type of outside pest. After only eight to nine days, our compost is ready. At this stage, we can add more food scraps into the tray. The wonderful thing about worms is that whatever comes out from their back is more nutrient-rich than what goes in their front. You end up with nutrient-rich worm castings and wormy wash. This system is completely orderless and the process can be done all year round, even in the winter season. All you do is feed the worms your leftovers, preferably chopped up or even mixed in a blender. Throwing your food scraps each day won't take more than a minute or two and you need to wait roughly for 10 to 15 days before you will have good usable compost. Make sure to cover it and add some water to maintain proper moisture. Cover the bin with the lid and keep the unit away from direct sun. White fungus in your compost bin resembles actinomycites that eats decaying organic matter and helps to break down the food that is placed in the composting bin with worms, in turn becoming worm food themselves. Check after every two to three days and work the scrap into the bearing with the cultivator. If you are going away and won't be able to feed for a few days, just feed extra food and sprinkle some conditioner before you leave and even add some water to keep proper moisture. By this, you can leave your worm farm for up to two to three weeks. These worms reproduce in the worm bin and in no time they will multiply. However, the rate of reproduction is inconsistent and you can't count the worms very easily. If you feel your worm farm is acidic or too many food scraps left uneaten, sprinkle conditioner that is given in the kit to stabilize the acidic level of your worm farm so your worms work properly. Add one to two tablespoons at a time and mix well for better results. As time progresses, you will notice less and less food scraps and more and more compost in your bin. After every eight to ten days, the compost tea or wormy wash can be collected from the unit. The water gradually percolates to the bottom through the compost carrying with it nutrients through the unit. Use compost tea or wormy wash as a liquid fertilizer in one to five ratio, that is for 200 ml of compost tea, add one liter of water and use it in your garden. The wormy wash contains necessary plant nutrients, plant growth promoting hormones, enzymes, symbiotic microbes in addition to the macronutrients and micronutrients. Check the tray after every two to three days to see how much food scrap is left when all of the food scrap has been converted to compost, it's harvest time. Wormy compost is the best fertilizer for plants as it can be easily absorbed. All the organic material has undergone the breakdown process typically done by the worms. Drain water collection tray at least once in eight to ten days. Before harvesting let the bin sit under sunlight for five to ten minutes, due to this worms will migrate towards the bottom of the compost. Slowly scoop out the upper three to five inch layer of the compost, keep the bottom layer in the tray as it will contain earthworms. You can use your compost immediately or you can store it and use it Continue to compost your food scraps after harvesting, just add fresh food scraps at 250 to 500 grams of scraps daily to avoid overfeeding. Feed your worms only as much as they can eat. After every 15 to 18 days we can easily harvest five to six liters of wormy wash or compost tea. The compost tea or wormy wash can be diluted to 10 to 20 percent and can be treated as a pesticide or fertilizer on the crop plants or on the soil. The collected wormy wash must be stored in a cool and dry place. The compost can be directly mixed with your potting soil or garden soil as a soil amendment which helps make nutrient available to plants or the compost can be used as a top dressing for your indoor and outdoor plants.