Hi Robin,
"compost pile": are they really just piles or contained in any way? Are you sure they don't have worms already (wild worms)?

"Is that much kitchen waste too much?" It depends on the amount of worms you have in your piles. Are you planning to buy worms or collect red wigglers from a horse farm/stable and release them into your piles?
If you do, I suggest you release them into 1 pile only as a start so they can do their thing and multiply. Then over time, split the population with another and so on except for one (1) where you add your LEMON RINDS. I wouldn't add lemon rinds to my worm pile. Once they're broken down and composted, I guess you can add them to your worm pile but I would do a test with one pile and see how the worms take it.

"Would I have to do something, ummm, extra, like actually turn it or something?" Well, you do have to WATER it. Dry piles will get you dead worms or they may just take a hike, lol, to the neighbour's property where it's wetter and the grass is greener.
Does your compost pile heat up? How high are they? If they do heat up and they're high enough, the worms will just go deeper till the heat passes. I believe, by not turning the pile you will get "cold" composting. However, I don't know if the worms will get enough air though.
"how the heck to do THEY know if they're in a bin or not?" They will find it out soon enough if your pile is dry.

I am seeing a pile or bags of leaves next to a shredded aimed into a compost bin. Then when your boat comes in shred the watermellon followed by a couple of bags of leaves. When the lemon rind boat arrives, same thing. With the leaves of 67 trees, the rinds of 40 watermellons, and the rinds of 400 lemons I figure you should come out even at the end with the nitrogen carbon ratio. With that tasty buffet, unless you are in a desert, if you build it the worms should find you.

Thanks Otis!

I was beginning to think I had committed some kind of "gardening faux paux" and you all were in total and complete shock that I would ask such a question.

I don't currently have the compost piles (to which I did not add worms years ago) or the worm bins. The compost piles were just huge piles of leaves (about 4') to which I added either rabbit poo, parakeet poo, no poo etc. I'm totally clueless as to whether they were hot or cold or wet or dry. All I know is that at the end of the year I had some nice black stuff in each pile.

I can see that I will need to be a little more organized if I add worms and kitchen scraps to the bins. I like your idea of trying the lemon peels in one pile first. I think I may do that and even attack this the same way I did the piles years ago to see what does better ... worms or no worms ... lemons or no lemons ... etc.

Thanks! I can't wait to get started!

Robin in NC

LOL! Thanks Equinox "squared"! You hit it right on the money the watermelon and lemon rind boats! I think I am going to enjoy this whole process. I've been reading about how to do this the right way and am narrowing down my options "to build" or "to buy". Since I'm old, I'm leaning towards buying three bins, but I really like the idea of the wire bins. Maybe I'll hire myself some brawn.

Thanks for the info and I'll let you know how it all turns out!

Robin

"With the leaves of 67 trees, the rinds of 40 watermelons..."

Robin, your worms will love you. I agree with Otis' suggestion to keep the lemon rinds in a separate pile to rot a month or so before feeding them to the worms. If you get someone to build you the wire bins, make sure some of them have wire floors and lids so critters don't get in. These would be the bins where you plan to dump food scraps. I doubt the critters care much about piles of leaves.

Andrew

The only problem you will encounter is heat. A properly maintained compost pile will heat up to the point of killing your worms. After a while, the pile will stop heating up (unless you continue to add poop and kitchen scraps) and it will be an ideal habitat for worms.

You may lose your worms over the winter if your piles freeze, but the survivors and the eggs they lay will bring the population back in the spring.

Oh, and the lemon rinds... just toss them in. In a large enough pile, they won't be a problem. The worms will avoid them for a week or two, but after they have a chance to go moldy, the worms really like them. At least that is my experience with orange rinds.

Thanks Bryce. I think you just answered the question I was going to ask. I have been thinking of taking one of my COW trays, one about half way to harvest with lots of food and lots of worms, and dumping it right onto the top of an outdoor compost pile. I will take care that I don't add anything to cause it to heat up. It should be interesting to watch.

I am always surprised when I turn over a pile how few native worms I find. I know we have them. In days of yore when I used to go fishing I would put out a sprinkler for a couple of hours before dark then go out with a flashlight and pick up all the big fat nightcrawlers that I needed for the next days foray.

This should be fun. Going too do it today. I already have a round tuit.

Dave Nelson

I've decided to go with a separate compost pile and worm bin. Just set up the worm bin yesterday. Overnight those little buggers just fattened up! (Had to leave a science fiction note for my 19 year old who gets home from work at 3 AM. "DON'T turn off the kitchen light or the worms might escape." I could just SEE her face when she read that.)

I may do some experimenting next year, but I've decided to do things "by the book" this year. Here's hoping it all works out!

Robin in NC

Robin in NC:
I hope you are still following this thread.
As a follow up about citrus rinds in a compost pile with worms, I can tell you the following. I have a compost bin made of mason wire where I put dead plants etc. etc from the garden and a month ago I emptied a 3 gal. bucket full of orange peels from making orange juice, so still the nice 1/2 orb hollow shape in the pile and covered it. I have watered the pile several times to make it attractive to worms. I checked it yesterday and the top ones are really moldy and the deeper ones are mushy on the inside part and full of worms (wild ones) and has a slight lemonny smell. The worms do look like composting worms. Which species .... I don't know.

I use both a regular composting bin, BUT I also add some of the partially composted wastes to my worm composting system and the worms love it. I find it to be far less trouble in the normal hassle and preparation of properly adding fresh wastes directly to the bin (which I still also do on occasion).

Here is a link that might be useful: Precomposting wastes for the worm bin

My limited home composting experience has shown me that composting kitchen scraps tends to take a lot more work (storing, chopping, freezing, pre-composting before worm-binning etc.) than stepping down the street when my neighbor mows and picking up (Grunt!) just one of his bags of grass clippings and carrying it home to the compost tumbler. Those grass clippings are pre-shredded, uniform, damp, and will compost for sure with no probable surprises like vermin, flys, etc.

So the composting of kitchen scraps depends on the person's objective. Getting lots of compost at little work and risk, or being Green at any/all costs! So my kitchen scraps typically go into the trash unless they are something like carrot peelings that are already ready to be dumped in.

Jim

JamesMarconnet, you surprise me! Not that it's a bad thing. Just that a lot of my fun and pleasure comes from the fact that I'm NOT putting kitchen stuff into landfills. It's actually going back into the earth.

I guess we all have our own reasons for this crazy fun hobby. :)

Hi! Last year we bought a few rolls of green vinyl coated fencing aka hardware cloth. We unrolled it, and cut into sections long enough to make 3 foot diameter circles (+/- 10 feet). Cuts leave "tags" of wire that you use to fasten one end to the other by wrapping (use gloves and maybe pliers). We dumped shredded leaves (got a wonderful leaf shredder with metal blades, not plastic) and then some dirt and fertilizer in layers repeated to the top (about 4 feet). Be sure to wet itdown as you build it up. You will not believe the compost we have already. These are near a wood fence, they get watered from our sprinkler system 1-2 times a week, and that's it. We also paid a lot of money for the black plastic cube bins. They do OK but this technique is cheap and makes lot more compost a lot faster. They have become a raised garden for us now (we are trying tomato plants in two of them now.) The stake goes in easy! Try it. They cost a little time and about $6 each at Lowes ($58 for a 50 foot roll). If you really want to go fast, put a small trail of kitchen scraps in as you build it and then a good bit at the top (put in more every week) nd then throw some red wigglers (or any other worm) in and watch it go!

Here is a link that might be useful: Example of the fencing

This post was edited by BobCowman on Sun, Jun 2, 13 at 11:00

I'm glad BobCowan brought this thread back to life, because I hadn't seen it before and when I began reading it I didn't notice that it began in 2011.

l could say that my reason for starting to vermicompost was because I was, and am, a total failure at ACTIVE natural composting. I have piles of yard decompositions going on that eventually do turn into good compost, but vermicompost is my expertise because it is really, really easy.

I could say that because it is true, but the reason I'm posting is to comment on EQ2's absolutely brilliant response to the boatload of boatload references in 1st post.

I was gonna do it but I'm 2 years late.

Chuckiebtoo

Back to dowbright, May last year: we also get two bonuses - - buying/using fewer plastic kitchen trash bags, and less smelly barrels to pull out to the curb on pick up day (for those of us who live in the city, at least)

Lynn

I tell you Chuckiebtoo I copied your posting style because it was the funnest to read. Before that I was too afraid to put a bit of "life" into my posts. Like I had to post generic and almost unnoticeable lest the leaves rattle. It was the lack of you on the board that encouraged me to take it up to breath some life into a few on their death bed boards of various topics. The board is probably not big enough for both of us. One of us will have to go. :-)

Not to worry, EQII, I have gone off on a tangent and started experimenting with lots of our "worm rules"...which I've consistently throughout the years found to be fuller of holes than those first plastic bins I obediently drilled hundreds of air holes into.....and am now gonna explode some of those holy grails with the truth.

Beginning in my next thread, "WORMING WITH WATERMELONS, GANGNAM STYLE".

Look for it within the next day or too.

Chuckiebtoo

I could not touch that with a Wonder Stick TM.

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/verm/msg121740407072.html

Now I have an earworm.