No one wants gooey, mushy, nasty compost And it’s time consuming to sort and process.
If you’re composting at home the end product should be as crumbled as possible. Rich compost in terms of nutrients and very crumbly in texture.
Probably best way to get crumbly compost is to have lots of worms in it. Bacteria breaks compost down, but worms help to move and distribute the waste.
They wiggle through it, eat it, poop in it and generally make its texture a whole lot better. Crumbly compost? Obtain worms.
How Do I Get Worms In My Compost Pile?
Generally speaking, if you are composting correctly, worms will appear all by themselves, because you are providing everything that they want with an easy supply of food and their usual habitat.
However if you have problems getting worms, there are a few things that you can do.
First, make sure your compost has the right water balance:
- If your compost is too wet, the worms stop reproducing and eventually die.
- If your compost is too dry, they can’t live either.
Compost should be wet enough so that you get a few drops of moisture out if you squeeze a handful
Fixing Compost
It’s simple enough to remedy too dry or too wet compost.
Lightly sprinkle the compost heap with a hose and let the water soak in if the heap is too dry.
Try adding some wet foods such as melons or other fruit.
To remedy too dry compost, tear up scraps of cardboard or paper and toss these in. They will absorb excess moisture and dry the heap out nicely. On the whole, watch your balance, especially in extreme weather.
Greens to Browns Ratio in Compost
If you’re adding the right amount of browns and greens, your pile should pretty much maintain its water balance, so let’s look at that next.
Browns are the carbon ingredients, and greens the nitrogen ones.
Greens include things like:
- grass clippings
- food waste
- weeds, etc.
They are “wet” ingredients, and if you have too many of them your compost will turn to sludge. Eighty percent of what you throw in to compost shall be browns.
Brows include things like:
- cardboard
- straw
- eggshells
- nutshell
- sticks, etc.
They are “dry” ingredients, and if you have too many of them your compost will dry out and stop composting.
You want a ratio of about 4:1 in general, although there are no hard and fast rules.
Perfect Conditions for Worms
Next, if your bin gets too compacted, the worms will leave.
That means that every now and then, you should stick a garden fork in and lift and stir the compost around.
Shifting the heap helps to break it up, ensure everything is composting, and add air to compost that might otherwise have little oxygen in it.
You can also keep your bin loose and aerated by adding lots of structured materials.
Sticks and tough stems might take a long time to break down, but they are an invaluable source of air pockets in your compost.
Worms will benefit from this, and will also help with it, because they aerate the heap as they crawl around inside.
As long as your compost is looking healthy and breaking down nicely, you should find that worms live in it.
They may retreat deep into the ground when the weather gets cold, but they will soon return.
Make sure your compost bin stands on bare earth, or you may not be able to attract worms.
What to Avoid: If your bin stands on concrete or another hard surface, try and find somewhere else to put it. It will still work on concrete, but not as efficiently and your compost may be lumpier.
Should I Buy Worms?
Some people do buy worms for their compost heaps and if you want to do that you can.
However, if your bin stands on earth, in general the worms will find their own way into your compost heap and you can save yourself the money, and the fuss of postage.
You can also find the worms for yourself, if you want to, but you have to know that the worms in your compost heap are not earthworms, and so just digging a handful of those will not do.
There are a couple of different kinds of compost worms to choose from, but red wigglers are the most common. These are thin, red coloured worms.
They have lots of names, and indeed there are a few different kinds that often get confused since they do look very similar to each other.
But in general, as long as they are composting worms they will do the job.
You can’t just dig them up in your yard or in the park near your house however. If you have a friend who composts, you may be able to go round and source some worms for your new compost heap from them.
The worms multiply rapidly and will soon have filled their food space, so you do not have to worry too much about depleting your friend’s compost.
A few handfuls is plenty and before you know it your compost bin will be all alive and wriggling.
From Experience: Earthworms will not work for your compost bin and don’t put them down. They feed at such much lower depths, that they won’t wriggle through your pile, making it nice, crumbly compost.
What Else Can I Do?
If your finished product compost is lumpy and hard, try drying it out a bit.
This should help to break it up and make it softer.
You can use a composting screen to turn it back into smaller lumps, or you can use a garden fork to break it down.
Compost should not be lumpy, so if it is, you may find that it isn’t quite ready yet, and needs further processing.
Put it back in the compost heap and give it a little longer for the worms and bacteria to do their jobs.
Conclusion
Crumbly compost is what you are after, and if you keep the balance in your bin right, with plenty of worms then it should be what you get!
If your struggling with great lumps then try stirring your compost more regularly, and make sure you have the right ratios and moisture balance.