Vermiculture Club

Vermicomposters, put yourself on the map–literally!

Oakland’s Steven Chow recently found out about vermiculture, or composting with worms, and set up a worm bin at his home. Steven launched the site to see who else was worm binning. Based on the site, plenty of people–156 as of this posting.

The site also features a forum for user tips, photos and videos. But I appreciate the running tally of total pounds of food waste diverted from the landfill by site members vermicomposting. Currently, they’re composting half of a ton per week.

For those not in the know, worm binning is a great way to compost and creates an organic soil amendment. Worms tend to eat just about anything, including bones, paper and cardboard.

You can buy a wide variety of worm bins or make your own. For supplies and general advice, vermicomposter (vermiculturalist?) Brenda Lotito of Upstate Worm Farms (NY) is friendly and helpful.

For urbanites without a yard, vermiculture enables indoor composting, provided you have a basement or somewhere you don’t mind keeping a box of worms. Then again, why not display your worm bin like a fish tank? OK, maybe an ant farm is a better comparison…