Lack of space doesn't have to mean you can't compost at home.
Two forms of food waste recycling are ideal for small-scale composting - wormeries and bokashi bins.
Wormeries
What are wormeries?
Wormeries, also called worm farms, are small, self-contained food waste recycling bins that are ideal for composting in small spaces.
They’re also a great way to introduce children to ecology through the fascinating world of worms and the concept of recycling food waste.
What are the benefits of wormeries?
· * Ideal for year-round composting
· * Produce excellent worm-made compost – vermicompost – for your garden. Use the compost on pot plants or round trees and shrubs.
· * Wormery compost is a great improver to shop-bought compost; you can buy the cheapest of composts but turn it into black gold with the addition of your vermicompost.
* Learning fascinating facts about these tiny eco-heroes is sure to turn children into composters of the future. Worms are essential to human life; their tunnelling actions aerate the soil. Without them the Earth would be a cold, hard, sterile planet.
What's useful to know?
* Wormeries require a sheltered spot - they can be kept indoors or in a garage. If a wormery is kept in a shed, pay attention to fluctuations in temperature.
· * Worms will digest many kinds of foods cut up into small pieces and other kitchen waste such as shredded paper, egg cartons, scrunched up newspaper.
· * Food scraps are placed on the top section of the wormery, worm casts fall to the bottom.
T TOP TIP: If you need your worms to move out of way as you harvest casts, add melon or banana – worms love these and will obligingly wriggle over to them.
If you haven’t got a wormery but would like to find out how worm castings can boost your garden’s health, try Wormganix Peat-Free Worm Castings fertiliser.
These castings can be used in small amounts mixed with soil or compost, to improve soil health, feed plants naturally and help protect against disease.
Stylish: Urbalive worm farm - read more.
Compact: Maze worm farm - read more.
Simple: Plastia in-ground wormery - read more. Read more about all our wormeries here.
Bokashi bins
What are bokashi bins?
Bokashi bins are compact food waste containers that can sit on a kitchen worktop or under a sink. They accept all chopped-up food waste.
· How do bokashi bins work?
T * The addition of beneficial bacteria in a bokashi bran or spray ferments the waste.
· * When full, the bin is left sealed for two weeks for fermentation to take place anaerobically (without air).
· * After this time, the fermented waste is a pre-compost mixture that can be added to a composter or wormery, where it will accelerate the breakdown process. It can also be buried in soil or large planters to break down into nutrient-rich compost.
If * If you don't have a garden, ask a friend, neighbour or allotmenteer if they could use the pre-compost. Some of our customers have set up such an arrangement. Bokashi waste is a fantastic 'super green' that speeds up compost breakdown.
What's useful to know?
* Nutritious liquid is regularly drained from a tap at the bottom of the bin and can be used diluted as plant fertiliser or concentrated as organic drain cleaner.
* Bokashi comes from the Japanese term for ‘fermented organic matter’.
· * The fermented contents of the bin will still be recognisable; some people expect to see compost.
TOP TIP: It’s helpful to keep two bins going, so that while one bin is left to ferment, the second bin can be used for daily food waste.
Above: Twin power - Blackwall twin-pack Bokashi bins - read more.
Above: Smart -Organko bokashi bin - read more.
Above: Compact -Maze bokashi bin - read more.
Learn more about all our bokashi bins here.