Using Spent Compost

[Red]

I have been gradually using my spent compost from my flower pots as bedding quite successfully. I am harvesting this and saving the revived compost for next years flower pots. This year I grew some sunflowers in pots which have now finished. I have emptied the pots into a tray in readiness for adding to the wormery but I notice quite a lot of root from the sunflowers within the compost. Before I add this tray I wanted to know if it was a good idea. I.e. will the roots rot down or will they take forever and therefore not worth it? Thanks, Red.

[WillyWorm]

Hi, the root will rot down and become food for your worms when you put the compost into your worm bin, they may take a while to break down but you can always sieve the compost if you want to use it before the root is all gone.
Dependent upon what you are growing you may want to put a small amount of blood, fish and bone in with your compost to ensure your plants have everything they need.

Good luck
Willy

[Lilwriggler]

I use spent compost to bulk up my lower trays. I rarely seem to develop bulk using cardboard as a base

[WillyWorm]

Hi Lilwriggler, That’s interesting, I find plan brown corrugated cardboard breaks down quickly and easily. Cereal boxes and the like take an age to get started to break down I tend not to use them in my worm bin nor out door compost bins.

Willy

[Red]

Thanks guys. I’ll give the tray a go! Re cardboard. I did use it at first but it seems to take some time to go, corrugated is certainly the fastest but having quite a supply of spent compost from my flower and vegetable containers it just makes sense to keep recycling it through the wormery. Another question that springs to mind is, how many trays are folks managing to harvest? I started my wormery back in October last year. It took me until about April this year to get all 4 trays going, I harvested the first tray in May and a 2nd in June and I am about to harvest a third. Does this sound about right or could it be more productive? I keep the wormery in the garage so I have better control over extremes of temperature and moisture content. I feed kitchen scraps chopped up (banana skins, coffee grounds, spent salad and veg and some peelings)using the 4 corner method by digging a hole in spent compost at the the corners and covering back over. It’s a wormcity 4 tier system. Just thought it would be good to compare with what others are doing. Thanks, Red.

[WillyWorm]

Hi Red, you seem to be ticking all the boxes.
To fill and finish the first tray normally takes 4 or 5 months. It takes that long to build up the beneficial/balanced eco system needed to breakdown the scraps within the bin. After the fist tray with good management you should be able to harvest a tray every 4 to 6 weeks so your worms are working well for you.
The diet sounds good and being able to keep the in a garage is a great advantage.

Willy

[Red]

Thanks Willy. Yes, sounds like I am on track. I do expect things to slow down once the temperature starts to drop off but I should be able to get another tray harvested before then. As always, thanks for the advice. Red.

[Lilwriggler]

I'm not getting harvests anywhere near that quick, it’s more like 12-14 weeks for me. I probably need to fill my feeding tray with a lot more cardboard as i don’t bury food(there is nothing to bury it in), i more like cover the food.

[Red]

Sounds similar to me before I started with using spent compost. Obviously spent compost adds quite a lot of bulk to the tray to start with and contains many of the bugs and enzymes already. Only thing I can think of is to cut the cardboard into very small pieces so it can be dug into. Red.

[WillyWorm]

Hi Red, I use a mix of bedding materials, shredded paper and cardboard, spent potting compost, a little sawdust, one of my favourites is woodland floor litter and humus from around old long fallen trees. I tend to view bedding as an opportunity to increase the bio diversity of my bin and therefore the castings I produce.
Hi lilwriggler, a feeding tray should be 2/3s or more full of bedding all the time is it possible you are leaving the worms to rework the castings for too long or maybe I did not make it clear in my reply. I harvest the bottom tray of my five tray every month or so, so a tray from start to finish take 4 or 5 months.
If I’m not making it clear let me know and I will try again.

Willy