The Compost Process

Food scraps are collected from businesses around town

Compost Bins

Food scraps are added to compost bin

Good looking veggie scraps

Cover the veggie scraps with carbon source

After food scraps are composted they are added to worm bins 

Fresh material in worm bins

Worm bin covered with wood chips

Compost sifter with casting catchment

Hopefully will have less fuss while sifting compost 

Worms can be removed using light and their tendency to group together in to a herd

The worms will move to the center of the pile to avoid light

Slowly removing material until only worms are left

Worm Ball

Worms moving

Sifting screened compost for worm castings using a 1/16" screen

Screened compost from compost sifter

Plastic container and screen

Screen is made from 2x4's, 1/4" screen and 1/16" screen.  

The screens are stapled to wooden frame

Hand screening compost

After screening, a little bit of compost

Geodesic Greenhouse 10/25/14

Ground level

Fish tank

Sprouts and worm bins

Compost sifter

Looking up

Top level

Lemon Balm & Orange mint

Algae and Duckweed

Cilantro in 1 gallon pot

Tomato, Basil and Strawberries

Duckweed and Watercress

Nasturtium

Green Cabbage

Lettuce

Harvested lettuce

Bagged lettuce, three pots yield a 1/3 pound every week

6" media bed

Red wiggler worm

Growing fish food

Yum

Worm Tea is added to water, algae and compost

Algae and duckweed

In a jar, all sorts of life floating around

Adding it to the fish tank

Worm Growth Info

The greenhouse is full of worms now, 4 full months after starting the worm bins with an initial population of 15,000 red wiggler worms.

One mature worm will produce 99 hatchlings over the time period of 11 weeks and those hatchlings will take 8-12 weeks to become mature worms.

15,000 worms x 99 hatchlings/11 weeks

= 1,485,000 hatchlings

The 15,000 worms keep reproducing given their is enough space, food and proper living conditions.

So.. for another 11 weeks

15,000 worms x 99 hatchlings/11 weeks

= 1,485,000 hatchlings

At this point (22 weeks) there are about...

15,000 mature worms 

1,485,000 additional hatchlings

1,485,000 juvenile worms (about to start reproducing)

In another 11 weeks there will be over 1,500,000 mature worms...

Fortunately the worms will slow their reproduction.

15,000 worms eat 7-15 pounds of food per day,  

1,500,000 worms would eat 750-1500 pounds of food per day.

I would estimate there are over 60,000 mature worms in the bins.

(Update 7/23/14)
More like 120,000 mature worms