Vermicomposting Adventures in Quezon City

Is it a lame title?  hahaha...I'll live.  I just don't have a major theme.  I do have bits and pieces of worm stories. 

The other day, I made a video.  It's about how worms like melons.  What's your experience?  For me here's what happened.  I put in two melon rinds in my pail-type worm bin about two days before the video.  On video day, I checked out the melon rinds.  There were like a dozen worms or so swarming the food.  I suppose you see that all the time in worm videos in Youtube, but this was my first time.  My African Nightcrawlers never swarmed with herb leaves, macopa fruits, coffee grounds or even banana peels.  But the melon was finished in two days, well except for the hard paper-like shell.

It's funny though.  I'm not such a big melon fan, but I find myself craving for it now because the worms loved it so much.  Hahahaha...worms dictate my diet now.  I love mangoes and pomelos but I've been eating them in moderation because worms aren't into the citrus types.  One of these days, I may have to cut down on meat too.

I also have another hairbrained experiment.  I have tons of paper in the house!  So I made a worn bit out of a 10-gallon plastic bin (I think that's how big it is) and I so filled it up with wet paper.  Hey, I keep reading you can't have too much bedding so I'm putting that to the test.  This bin is about 99% carbon types (paper, cardboard, etc).  For nitrogen and calcium I also sprinkled the top with spent coffee grounds and crushed eggshells.   Will the worms survive in an ultra carbon heavy environment?  Well I placed about 10 worms or less.  I just want to see how fast they'll multiply.  So far, they seem alive and well, but still small.  The one banana peel I placed weeks ago is gone (or it's just dark).  At least I know they're eating. I also saw black castings near the worms.  Today,  I figured I'd give them a treat.  I put in a couple of melon rinds.  Let's see how fast 10 worms can finish 4-5 rinds.   I'll go fiddle with that bin again in a few days.

Lastly, I also have a vermicompost pot.  It's my second one and it's bigger this time (about 10 in diameter if I'm not mistaken).   It's also filled to the brim with wet whole newspaper (not shredded or even cut).  I just put the entire edition there.   Well, now worms are living inside the newspaper (somewhere in between the business page and the entertainment section).  The cool thing is that I see grey worm castings all around!  It's the same color as the newspaper.  Well I guess what you eat is what you $hit.

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