Finally got my video for the composting project. You will see two parts to this video. One section of the video covers the red worms compost project, and the other is the traditional pile compost method.
Red worm compost-
is a mixture of organic sheep/ goat dung
organic topsoil
vegetable / fruit waste
here is a little history and facts about red worm composting
-Worm composting (also known as vermicomposting) involves the breakdown of organic wastes via the joint action of worms and microorganisms (although there are often other critters that lend a hand)
-Worms can only take small particles in their small mouths. Microorganisms soften the food before worms will eat it. Worms have a muscular gizzard. Small parts of food mixed with some grinding material such as sand, topsoil or limestone is ingested. The contractions from the muscles in the gizzard compress those particles against each other, mix it with fluid, and grind it to smaller pieces.
What happens to food once it leaves the gizzard?
-The ground up food is mixed with enzymes in the worm’s intestine. This mixture breaks down the food, molecules pass through the intestine wall into the bloodstream for use where needed. Undigested material, including sand soil, bacterial and plant residues passes out of the worm as a worm casting.
-Composting worms are specialized surface dwellers (not burrowers), typically living in very rich organic matter such as manure, compost heaps or leaf litter
-It is widely believed that a composting worm can process the equivalent of it’s own weight in waste each day. Under highly optimum conditions (not likely to be attained with a small home system) red worms have been found to process multiple times their own weight! This is very much dependent on the food stock and how well managed the system is.
-Red worms technically graze on the microbial community that colonizes waste materials – not really the waste itself (although they certainly ingest some of the rotting waste in the process). Some research has indicated that protozoans are the primary food source, while there is also evidence that fungi and other microbes are consumed as well.
In this video you will see the results of the red worm compost mix after 5 days
In this video you will see the traditional pile composting method
