Soka Instructional Garden, Soka University of America. Photo credit: Leia Marasovich

Composting where I live in a sunny Southern California desert climate is very different than the composting we have done since I have been here in tropical Thekkady, India. Here are some pictures of our composting at my university garden I work at. We do ‘hot composting’ above ground. At Cardamom County they’ve been doing a type of vermicomposting, or worm composting. As a gardener, I have always considered earthworms to be a little magical. When there are worms in our garden beds, we always take it as a good omen that our soil is healthy, and healthy soil is the only path to healthy plants. They speed up the decomposition process and essentially create compost gold. They add really beneficial microorganisms to the soil and their castings, or poop, is extremely nutrient rich with the essential ingredients of good soil: nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium! Where I work in the Soka Instructional Garden (SIG), we make compost tea from the worm castings, and any time a crop is struggling, we can usually nurse it back to life within weeks of adding worm compost tea.

So here, I was happy to see, not only are the worms already dancing happily in the soil, but they have a thriving worm composting bed.There is a hole dug in the ground, maybe 6 feet deep and a good 10 feet across. They fill the hole with any garden waste, add several wheelbarrows of dirt dug up from the poultry area, which is already rich in nitrogen from their poop (therefore speeding up the decomposition process and helping the pile heat up) and then just let the worms feast. Continue reading →