Description

Value your organic waste and obtain quickly a quality compost!

Felipe, HopHost La Minga (Colombia), explained us how vermicomposting works:

“Here is our vermicomposting system, which is our second natural fertilizers production system here at La Minga. It’s a system designed for an agile transformation of the kitchen waste, mainly of the Food.

It’s located near the kitchen. This is a system which is the nearest to the main house because it’s easier to move the waste and in addition, it doesn’t produce bad smells.

The vermicomposter consists of a covered wooden box, which our case, were the plastic banners we recovered. It will be the home of our compost worms. Those are the Californian worms, who have the ability of eating the waste and turn it into humus.

It’s therefore a wooden box with certain slant, horizontal or vertical, in order to one of the corners will be lower than all the rest. We introduce the waste in a stepped way. During the first week, we put in the waste in a row, then in another row the next week and so on.

The compost worms start to ingest what we deposited the first week and once they finished, they will ascend in the box insides, following somehow the food we give them, row by row, and throwing back gradually an amount of fully processed humus and without containing any worm since they emigrate to the next row.

Is that so we arrived to the middle of the box, we already obtained humus in all this zone and here, we begin to put in the waste of the third week. This allows us, all the time to spray the fertilizer on one of the gardens near here, gathering directly the humus located on the top, the rest is moved down directly.

In addition, we cover everything with straw, to maintain a certain humidity level and freshness in the inside of the worms’ home, what they need to live.

It’s equally important not to leave many citrus peels, nor meat or dairy products residues, because it’s said they don’t help to the good feeding of the worms.

Finally, the vermicomposter slant, besides its timing, it allows us to collect a liquid fertilizer which comes from a worm decomposition process and we recover here, on this bottle. Through this pipe, we can mix it with water and obtaining a liquid fertilizer of an excellent quality.”

Translated by Estefanie Mendoza.

Find out more information on the video below, click in the right bottom icon of the video for turning on the subtitles.

Seen at

Name		Type of facility	Environment	Country	Swap?
	Rancho Margot	Activities, Community based tourism, Hotels & guest houses, Restaurants & Co	rural, montagne	Costa Rica	Yes
	Rio Muchacho Ferme Biologique & Ecolodge	Activities, Campings, Hostels, Hotels & guest houses, Restaurants & Co	rural, zone-chaude	Ecuador	Yes

Provider

self-construction