Invasion Earth - Worm Composting

In order to turn this:

into this

you need a bit of help from these:

Today I decided to empty my mature 'dalek' composter so that I could start filling it afresh and leave the current one (I do have two you see), which is full to brimming, to rot down.

Current Composter

Current contents revealed

Mature composter

Mature contents revealed

Aside from the full capacity I have been prompted to record this event by a most interesting post on another blog.  Hot Composting


In the course of the ensuing discussion  I realised that I don't precisely know how long it takes me to fill one bin and move on to the next.  So in some ways this post is a stake in the ground to remind me of the date I stopped adding to the current (green) dalek. The clock is now running!  A really interesting comparison would be to run one bin with worms and one without, but I don't have the means to do that at present so that will have to wait.  As the worms seem to appear like magic it might not be that easy to engineer the no worm scenario.

Currently we are still in the grips of winter and worm activity will be focused primarily on survival. The will have migrated to the centre of the bin and not be feeding so much.  Once temperatures rise there will be a lot more activity and consumption.  The worms pictured above are escapees from the mature bin.  There's not much future in mining that pile (although there are still a few hundred hidden away within).

In case you are wondering I store cardboard alongside the bin where it gets rained on and is to hand when I consider the balance between browns and greens (or carbon nitrogen ratio) needs redressing.  This is very subjective, as is the addition of water if I consider the mix has got to dry.  If the worms are all on the top it is definitely too wet  and if I start seeing ants that signals to me that it is far too dry. 

I feed my compost bins with kitchen waste  - about a caddy a day.  Coffee grounds, tea leaves, vegetable trimmings, excess cooked vegetables and paper all go in, fats, dairy, meat and bones are all excluded - they go into the Council food recycling caddy.