Damaeus wrote:

First of all, this is my first year doing any type of serious gardening.
That said:

I was cutting the tops off strawberries this morning while thinking about
something I heard on a gardening show that plays on the radio here. A
lady called in, said she cut up banana peels into dime-sized pieces,
worked them into the soil around her roses, and the rose bushes took off
and made roses like crazy. So my question is: why can't I just take the
fresh strawberry scraps, chop them up a bit, then sprinkle them around the
tomatoes, the bell peppers, corn, and whatever else I have growing out
there? I'm not trying to re-invent the wheel here. I know why people
compost in a pile, but it seems like a lot of the nutrients from
composting would also wash directly into the soil where the compost pile
is located. Why not put a few things directly in the garden so the
growing plants get more of the nutrients?


it is better to compost them in a bin with worms
or to use a heap or trench. i've been worm composting
(using both the red wrigglers and other species of
worms) for several years now. very fun, educational
and makes people laugh. see my other posts on the
topic (for more verbiage ).

some people don't want strawberry plants sprouting in
their rosegarden beds.

they can attract bugs/pests or increase populations
of bugs/pests already around.

consider the case where you have the innards of a squash
or melon. there are a lot of seeds in there. most of them
will sprout if not composted in a hot pile. worm composting
only consumes some of them and takes quite some time (so
far i have seeds viable in the worm bins even after a year
and a half).

banana peels are great, worms love 'em. same with
melon peels, no pretreatment needed for them.

for potato peels, carrots, beets, lettuce, celery,
brocolli, and other hard vegetables or stalks it
helps to chop and dry them first before adding them
to the bins. this helps soften/destroy the cell
structure and then when added back to something moist
they plump back up and it is much softer and the worms
go through them quickly (as compared to months and
months -- i have bins now that still contain beet tops
from last fall's processing that i didn't bother to
chop and dry as a comparison test case).

oops, actually, i don't have bins witd these any
longer as i put them all out in the gardens a few
days ago...

dehydrating also gives you more control over
moisture levels in the bins. the worms don't mind
it if it gets pretty wet, but the bins may go
into fermentation if you put too much wet soggy
stuff in all at once. which is why i like to
spread the melon rinds and innards out over a
few bins.

i avoid putting in a lot of raw onions, garlic or
citrus peels in all at once, if i have a lot of these i
bury them outside where they won't be disturbed. too
smelly or the worms don't seem to like them. we don't
eat a ton of citrus here so i haven't yet experimented
with drying and crumbling them gradually into the bins.
probably would make some difference. next time i have
enough to make a good experiment of it i will give it
a run...

your comment about the juices and good stuff leaching
out of a pile are fair. that is why i use bins/buckets
and worms, then all the nutrients are consumed or
retained until i put the worms/worm poo out in the
gardens and i put them down in the ground where the
roots are, not up on the surface. buried deeply enough
this will also help keep any seeds from sprouting and
also give the worms a cooler environment.

i do not separate the worms out from the poo as
once you get enough bins going you'll have plenty
of worms to use to start a new bin when you need
one. a few scoops and a bin is up and running. when
i put worms out in the gardens i take about 1/5-1/4
of a bin of soil from the garden to refurbish. this
is for the bins that have regular earthworms and not
all composting worms. this way i'm building up my
population of worms in all layers of the soil and
not just the composters of organic stuff near the
surface.


songbird