For over five years now we’ve been actively composting almost 100% of our bio-degradable waste in a small bin that lives in the garden. When I say “we’ve been composting” I really mean it – it’s been a team effort between me, Em, and about ten thousand worms.

Vermicomposting is remarkably effective, and because we recycle everything else, our weekly rubbish mass for the household usually amounts to a single half-full refuse sack. The added bonus is that the refuse sack is rarely slimey or smelley, because it never has food remains mixed in with it, so if you do throw something away by mistake, it doesn’t come out covered in the remains of what you ate yesterday.

The worm bin we use is an Australian design called a [goog]Can-o-worms[/goog]. We find it particularly effective because it’s designed as a stack of trays. When you first add waste to the can you start just one tray, and when that tray fills up, you can place a second tray onto the top – the worms can then move up to tray two tray when they fancy a change of scene, and over time, as more worms breed, both trays become well populated.

After a while, the second tray also fills up, so the third and final tray is added. The theory is that by the time the third tray reaches capacity, the first tray should be ready for rotation. The tray in the picture above is a perfect example of a tray that’s finished composting. The rotation process typically involves a little sieving in order to separate the rich vermicompost from the worms. Then, once emptied, the tray, and the worms from it, move to the top of the stack and the process continues.

That’s how it’s supposed to happen anyway.

When the worm bin first arrived, it came complete with several hundred worms, but we very quickly realised that there weren’t enough worms and they weren’t eating fast enough. We could have waited for the worms to breed, but impatience can be a virtue too, and we were surprised to find that there are plenty of places on the internet where you can [goog]buy composting worms[/goog] and have them delivered by the regular postman! We immediately added another few hundred nemetodes to the bin and the composting rate increased to a level that balanced with our output.

Recently, we’ve installed a new kitchen, and ramped up the amount of real cooking we’ve been doing. Traditional foods made with fresh locally produced ingredients are healthier, and cheaper than ready meals and take-aways, but they also have a side effect that we should have planned for.

We’re now generating more compostable waste than ever before. Every meal that’s not from a plastic sachet; everything that doesn’t come in a box; everything we now eat, is made of real ingreditents that have to be extracted from natures bio-degradable packaging, and that packaging has to be composted.

The result is the worm bin is full to brimming, and we’re going to have to start throwing compostable food into the waste bin, which we dont’ want to do. We need to somehow turbocharge our vermicomposting efforts, or introduce a longer pipeline so that the worm population can grow and thus, increase it’s throughput.

The most obvious solution that I can see is that we could buy a couple of extra trays for the can-o-worms, but I’ve not seen anywhere that sells individual trays in the UK.

My search will continue, but in the mean time there may be alternative solutions to this minor glitch, so if you’re in posession of any nuggets of turbo-vermicomposting wizdom, please leave them in the little box below and receive the our eternal gratitude (and when I say “our eternal gratitude”, that’s the gratitude of me, Em, and about ten thousand overworked worms).