Worm Composing or Vemicomposing, in my basement, Kerosene Pump, Toledo Ohio

Oh Bert, your garden is going to be so happy with you next year.  Your tomatoes are going to be ten feet high.. ha ha

Bert-I'm going to send a link to my daughter who has had a vermiculture "colony" going for a couple of years.  She can weigh in on how she uses her system and the results.

Hi Bert, it's best to dilute the tea with water in a 10:1 (water:tea) ratio, though there's no need to measure it out; you can just eyeball it. You can use your diluted tea to water your outdoor plants. I wouldn't recommend it for indoor plants because a certain amount of that tea is just the juices from the rotting vegetable matter and this could potentially stink up your house. As for separating your worms out there are two ways to do this. One way is the create a layered bin by nesting another bin on top of your existing one. Drill holes in the bottom of the top bin so the worms can wriggle their way up into it. You have to lay the upper bin directly on to of the waste of the old one otherwise the worms can't make it in. Then just put their food in the top bin and eventually they'll all crawl up into the new bin and you can take the old bin out and gather the compost. The second way is more low-tech: just start feeding your worms only on one side of your bin and most of them will crawl over to that side so you can scoop out the compost on the opposite side. Either way you'll probably end up with some non-compliant worms that are mixed in with your compost. You don't have to worry about picking them out since, contrary to what I've read, my red wrigglers are quite happy living in my raised veggie beds. You might also try to use a plastic mesh screen (like a window screen material) instead of cardboard in your tea collecting set-up. I hope my explanations make sense! :-)

Kara (aka Cindy Jones's daughter)