The UC Cooperative Extension Master Gardeners of Stanislaus County have taught adult classes at local libraries since April of 2022. Now, we are excited to present our Vermicomposting Class in June that will be fun for the WHOLE family!
Vermicomposting is the process of using red wiggler worms* to help eat kitchen scraps. Join us for this class to learn interesting facts about these worms, how to make your own “worm hotel,” and which foods the red wiggler worms eat that can help turn your kitchen scraps into compost for your garden!
In addition to presenting information about vermicomposting, you'll be able to “meet” a few live worms and see them in action in a worm bin. Kids of all ages will love "meeting" the worms, so be sure to bring them. We hope you can attend at one of these local Stanislaus County Library locations:
Vermicomposting Classes
Sat, 6/3 at 2:00 p.m. – Empire Library
Tues, 6/6 at 6:00 p.m. – Salida Library
Thurs, 6/8 at 1:00 p.m. – Patterson Library
Sat, 6/10 at 2:00 p.m. – Riverbank Library
Mon, 612 at 6:00 p.m. – Ceres Library
Tues, 6/13 at 6:00 p.m. – Oakdale Library
Mon, 6/26 at 5:30 p.m. – Modesto Library
Wed, 6/28 at 6:00 p.m. – Turlock Library
*earthworms don't like to be disturbed, so they are not used for vermicomposting.
/h3>- Wednesday, May 11, 2022 at 6:00 p.m. Vermicomposting - Riverbank Library
- Tuesday, May 17, 2022 at 6:00 p.m. Pollinators in Your Backyard - Oakdale Library
- Monday, May 23, 2022 at 6:15 p.m. Pests in Your Vegetable Garden - Modesto Library
Class Descriptions:
Attracting Native Pollinators to Your Backyard: Learn how to identify helpful native bees, wasps, bumble bees, flies, and other pollinators that live in your garden! We'll also teach you about which plants these pollinators prefer.
Pest Management in Vegetable Gardens: Wondering what chewed your plant or if your vegetable plant has a disease? Take this class to get better at identifying pests as well as beneficial insects, and learn about less toxic ways to manage pests.
Vermicomposting: Did you know some worms can help eat kitchen waste? See a "worm hotel" and learn more about these fascinating critters. Take home a list of instructions on how to create your own. Fun for the whole family!
Contact your local library branch to find out more. Missed a class you'd like to take? Look for it at another library branch in the future.
- Author: Terry Pellegrini
Red Wigglers (Eisenia foetida) are different than the earthworms (Lumbricus terrestris) I find in my garden. Instead of processing things found in soil, such as decaying roots and leaves, or eating living organisms such as nematodes, protozoans, rotifers, bacteria, fungi, the Red Wiggler prefers our kitchen scraps. Since these little red guys (getting no larger than 5 inches in the proper environment) can eat up to three times their weight each week in such things as veggie and fruit waste, cardboard, and shredded paper, bread, and pasta (in moderation) and even coffee grounds, they are able to create compost in about 6 weeks.
How do they do it? By digesting all of the yummy (to a worm) waste and then excreting it as “castings” – more commonly known as worm poop. The process starts as the worm takes in the food by mouth, technically called their buccal cavity. It then travels through the worm's pharynx, esophagus, crop, gizzard, intestine, and lastly, their anus and out into their habitat where we humans can collect it.
These castings are full of the nutrients iron, sulfur, calcium, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium (NPK rating: 5.5.3). They are water-soluble, allowing your plants to easily absorb these nutrients with little chance of “burning” that can often happen with chemical fertilizers. This poop also contains good bacteria from the worm's digestive system along with fungi, enzymes, protozoa, and actinomycetes. All of this combines to create a wonderful humus that your plants will love.
But one little worm doesn't do this alone. You need an entire colony of them! Good thing Red Wigglers are prolific breeders. Did you know that worms are hermaphroditic, meaning they have both male and female organs? They join with another worm in a three-hour mating session (phew) and when complete they create a small cocoon. They can create 2 to 3 cocoons per week. These cocoons darken and harden over the next 20 days. Then the little hatchlings inside the cocoon – anywhere from 1 to 5 of them per cocoon- grow for the next three months. Once hatched these wiggly babies will mature in 9 weeks, able to reproduce again at that point.
In order to have the best success at both the reproduction process and the production of worm castings, the Red Wiggler needs a cozy habitat to do its thing. A simple rubber tote will work as an ideal environment, or you can purchase specialized stacking trays from the Internet. If you create your own you will need to provide your worms with proper ventilation, a moist – but not too wet – bedding source (such as shredded newspaper) and food. Keep their habitat in a temperature regulated space, moist, and with an adequate supply of tasty scraps and an initial colony of worms will increase to perhaps double in 3 months and quadruple in 6 months.
Harvesting your castings is simple. When the bedding has darkened, looking more like soil than the newspaper or other material used, it is time to harvest. To do so, add new moist bedding material and kitchen scraps to the opposite side of the habitat and stop adding food to the side with all of the castings. The worms will migrate to the side with the food on it – usually in a few days. You can then harvest your castings. When the new area fills ups, repeat the process and you will have a steady supply of new compost for your plants.
Photos by Terry Pellegrini.
Sources
About Worm Castings - https://ucanr.edu/sites/mgfresno/files/262372.pdf
Red Wiggler – http://bioweb.uwlax.edu/bio203/2010/yard_jose/
California Master Gardener Handbook, Second Edition, Page(s) 56-57
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
UC Master Gardeners in Stanislaus County presented an all-natural, sustainable solution to disposing garden and food waste during a session for the community on worm composting, reported John Holland in the Modesto Bee.
All it takes is an 18-inch deep bin, equipped for drainage, and a supply of red worms. Provide the worms a substrate that contains a mix of high carbon materials - like shredded paper, dry leaves or sawdust - and kitchen scraps - such as fruit and vegetable cores and peels, leftover grains and coffee grounds. A few months later, the worms will have transformed the contents into a rich organic fertilizer ready to be applied to garden plants.
"It's a great fertilizer," said UC Master Gardener Dennis Lee. "It's very inexpensive for you to produce. You can do it indoors. There's very little odor - actually, no odor.
Learn more:
Orange County UC Master Gardeners created a video series on worm composting
Vermicomposting - Composting with Worms, from San Joaquin County Master Gardeners
Advice from the Help Desk of the
UC Master Gardener Program of Contra Costa County
Generally, used appropriately, coffee grounds can be beneficial to your garden. And if you search the internet you can find lots of information on their use. As in all things “internet”, the question is “what is appropriate”.
The Master Gardener program attempts to provide the gardener with scientifically based advice on gardening. The use of coffee grounds is no exception. Recently, Washington State University's Dr. Linda Chalker-Scott (Extension Urban Horticulturist and Associate Professor, Puyallup Research and Extension Center, Washington State University) updated her earlier 2009 review of gardening use of coffee grounds with the publishing of her latest review of the scientific literature: “Use Of Coffee Grounds In Gardens And Landscapes” (http://cru.cahe.wsu.edu/CEPublications/FS207E/FS207E.pdf). This latest review has been peer-reviewed.
While it is strongly recommended that you read for yourself the short 6-page paper, below are the edited excerpts from her findings:
Action list for using coffee grounds in compost
- Use no more than 20 percent by volume of coffee grounds in a compost pile. A diverse feedstock will ensure a healthy diversity of microorganisms.
- Don't assume coffee grounds will make an acidic compost; pH levels will change over time.
- Be sure to allow coffee grounds to cool before adding them to your compost; heat can kill your beneficial microbes.
- Avoid adding coffee grounds to vermicomposting bins; they can injure or kill earthworms in these confined areas.
- Understand that disease suppression from nonpathogenic organisms found in decomposing coffee grounds has only been demonstrated under controlled conditions on a handful of crops, including bean, melon, spinach, and tomato. Their efficacy in gardens and landscapes is unknown.
Action list for using coffee grounds directly as a mulch
- Apply a thin layer (no more than half an inch) of coffee grounds. Cover with a thicker layer (four inches) of coarse organic mulch like wood chips. This will protect the coffee grounds from compaction.
- Don't apply thick layers of coffee grounds as a standalone mulch. Because they are finely textured and easily compacted, coffee grounds can interfere with moisture and air movement in soils.
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BLOG editor's addendum: Most of the comments on Dr. Chalker-Scott's latest review center around “avoid adding coffee grounds to vermicomposting bins…” with more than a few anecdotal comments that it is common practice to use coffee grounds in compost bins. I think there is some clarification needed between compost bins and vermicompost bins… Her response so far is that she is reporting what is in the scientific literature. Vermicomposters should take special notice of this finding and manage their composting accordingly. You might search for further updates and discussion on Dr. Chalker-Scott's Facebook page “The Garden Professors”
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Help Desk of the UC Master Gardeners of Contra Costa County
Note: The UC Master Gardeners Program of Contra Costa's Help Desk is available year-round to answer your gardening questions. Except for a few holidays, we're open every week, Monday through Thursday for walk-ins from 9:00 am to Noon at 75 Santa Barbara Road, 2d Floor, Pleasant Hill, CA 94523. We can also be reached via telephone: (925) 646-6586, email: ccmg@ucanr.edu, or on the web at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/Ask_Us/ MGCC Blogs can be found at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/HortCoCo/ You can also subscribe to the Blog (http://ucanr.edu/blogs/CCMGBlog/).
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