Читать книгу Raising Composting Earthworms for Fun and Profit - Daniel C Merrill - Страница 4

About this eBook

The Mount Diablo Worm Farm and Dr Merrill’s extensive web site www.earthwormsgalore.com were motivated by his belief that something must be done to reduce the adverse effects of human generated waste on our increasingly fragile environment. This eBook is a further extension of this endeavor.

The basis of the this environment challenge revolves around the use of composting earthworms to dispose of the kitchen waste and newspapers that comprise about 50% of the human generated waste that presently ends up in our landfills. The environmental havoc created by the transportation and disposal of our organic waste today is clearly unacceptable. Home composting with earthworms provides one solution to this increasingly serious problem.

In this Ebook the author describes simple and relatively inexpensive, as compared to the present methods of garbage disposal, ways homeowners and apartment dwellers can use composting earthworms to turn their organic waste into valuable organic forms of fertilizer. Not only is home vermiculture the correct thing to do from an ecological standpoint, but it is fun.

For those who want to use worm farming to supplement their living or retirement income, this book will tell them how to do it! There is nothing like experience to make good things happen in any field of endeavor. Dr. Merrill has that experience in home vermiculure and he shares it with you in this eBook.

1. Why Grow Earthworms?

First, because it’s fun!

Besides being incredibly beneficial to mankind, earthworms are very interesting creatures. Once you start raising composting earthworms you may find, as I did, that you cannot resist the urge to check up on them the first thing every morning, just to see how they are doing. Anyone who enjoys gardening and growing things will enjoy this hobby. If, on the other hand, you do not like getting your hands dirty, this might not be the thing for you.

Second, because it is the right thing to do!

Composting with earthworms provides a solution to one of the most pressing problems facing modern man: the disposal of our, newspapers and kitchen waste, in other words our garbage.

At present we pay a huge price economically and environmentally, for the disposal of human generated waste. The local garbage trucks which collect our wastes and the long haul trucks that carry it to the increasingly scarce landfills, contribute greatly to the destruction of our local streets and highways. More importantly, these trucks make a significant contribution to the noxious gases that are polluting the earth’s atmosphere. Once deposited in our landfills our decaying organic wastes continue to produce methane and other atmospheric pollutants for centuries. Even the most well managed garbage disposal landfills will be unfit for housing developments and other similar human endeavors for our life time and the lifetimes of our children and grandchildren.

Commercial Vermiculture, the composting of organic waste with earthworms, already has made a significant positive impact in large farming operations such as dairy farms which employ earthworms to compost the manure produced by their cows. Several municipalities, including most notably San Francisco, have initiated programs wherein the organic waste collected by their waste management trucks is collected in separate containers so that it can be composted locally rather than hauled to distant landfills. This process, of course, is a very labor intensive and expensive. More importantly perhaps, is the fact that the organic wastes to be composted must be collected by the same garbage trucks that are presently ruining our streets and polluting the atmosphere we and all other living creatures’ breath.

Home vermiculture, the composting of kitchen waste and newspapers by home owners and apartment dwellers, provides a relatively simple solution to this increasingly serious problem. It has been estimated that at least 50% of the waste collected by garbage trucks could be composted by earthworms in small inexpensive wormerys designed for home use. This would greatly reduce the need for garbage trucks. Fewer garbage trucks, of course, will result less air pollution and a significant saving in the moneys now required to maintain our streets and highways.

Why not just composite your garbage? Composting in the usual sense is not an option for apartment dwellers who have very limited space. However, there are more important reasons not to compost organic kitchen waste in a backyard compost pile. First, if the composting area is not enclosed it will attract undesirable vermin like rats and it will smell bad. Second, it takes forever for organic waste to be converted to compost in a compost pile. Third, the compost generated in a compost pile is inferior to worm castings as an organic fertilizer. Finally, and most significantly, decomposing organic waste in a compost pile devoid of earthworms produces the same undesirable atmospheric polluting gases that are generated by the landfills that we are trying to eliminate. Thus, by composting without earthworms you have created a mini-landfill in your backyard.

The third reason to raise earthworms is because they produce a valuable organic fertilizer.

Earthworm castings are one of the most, if not the most, desirable forms of organic fertilizer. Earthworm casting are priced by gardeners and those who grow house plants because they are an excellent source of slow release nitrogen and because they contain a high concentration of beneficial microorganisms that encourage robust plant growth.

The castings from earthworms, of course, can also be used to fertilize the garden and the lawn. If you want to have the greenest lawn in the neighborhood, worm castings are the answer!

In summary, there are several good reasons for home owners and apartment dwellers to compost their kitchen waste and newspapers. However, by far and away, the most important goal of small scale home vermiculture is to reduce the adverse effect human generated waste has on our environment by reducing the need for garbage trucks and landfills. While it is true that no individual or family can make much of a difference if they compost their kitchen wastes and newspapers, a great deal can be accomplished if large numbers of our citizens join such a program.