Rob’s DIY Vermipod
Compost, Rehabilitation, Urban Projects, Waste Systems & Recycling, Working Animals — by Rob Avis November 10, 2010
by Rob Avis
For some time now I’ve been anxious to get a worm composting system for our kitchen scraps to turn our “waste” into a valuable resource – soil! Inspired by some pretty neat worm systems that I found on the web, I set out to design something that would work very well, yet could be built with scrap or easily available material.
Red Wiggler Worms are a special species of earthworm native to Europe that are adapted to living in decaying organic material. These thrive in rotting vegetation, compost and even manure.
In true permaculture fashion I started the design process with a Needs and Yields analysis:
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Red Wiggler Needs:
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Red Wiggler Yields:
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I’ve heard that worms contained in a breathable material have better oxygen supply and therefore eat and multiply faster. A breathable material will also reduce the risk that the rotting food goes anaerobic (and stinky) before being digested.
Landscape fabric seemed a good fit to provide breathability, drainage, and a dark space. A few days after having the idea of using some form of landscape fabric, I was shopping for groceries with my reusable grocery bags and as I packed my groceries I noticed that the bag was black and woven – very similar to landscape fabric. The light bulb illuminated!
Here’s what I did:
| Back home I emptied the grocery bag, collected two 5 gallon buckets and a drill. |  |
| Next I drilled numerous 1/2 inch holes into the bottom of one of the buckets. This bucket becomes the Worm Frame. |  |
| The Worm Frame (with holes) is nested into the second bucket. The outer bucket is now the Worm Juice Harvester. |  |
| Here is the black grocery bag, being fitted inside the Worm Frame. The bag will hold the rotting food and worms. |  |
| In goes some straw, shredded paper and food scraps. |  |
| Lastly I drilled a large hole into the side of the bucket to let air flow access the bag from all around but keep light and flies out. |  |
Next I posted a request on our Facebook page to see if anyone had some spare worms and very soon thereafter I had a small cup of worms to place into the new home (Thanks Cathy!).
Now all I needed was a cool name – The Vermipod!
A month later our worms are living a happy, aerobic, dark, moist life and breeding very quickly. We are looking forward to starting our next pod.
Here it is, the Vermipod:
Based on the success of our little Vermipod I’ve got some ideas on how to design a system that could handle larger (i.e. commercial) food scrap streams. Let me know if you are interested — I’d be happy to share my design.
Comments (10)
great idea/great job…..back here in Belgium -believe it or not – a similar design for home composting is sponsored by the government!! In some towns & cities,they even give them away for free…
isn’t that great?
But on the other hand our countrie should embrace pm-design(s) more, we have a serious problem with ‘over-urbanisation’….
Comment by olivier — November 10, 2010 @ 5:04 am
Awesome work Mr. Avis.
Maybe even using 60lt plastic bins might even work.
I’ll give it a go. Thanks mate.
Comment by Nick Huggins — November 10, 2010 @ 8:21 am
very cool rob.
keep up the good work
Comment by kurtis — November 10, 2010 @ 1:20 pm
Nice design, Rob- and a great way to reuse those buckets. I’ve been design hunting online for some ideas for a while now- I may give yours a shot to start out- although I have a much bigger plan in mind, eventually. I’m thinking worm farm
Thanks for sharing,
Tessa
Comment by Tessa — November 10, 2010 @ 4:10 pm
Thanks for sharing. I like this simple design, I am going to try it out. I would also like to know more about your commercial sized system.
Comment by Joseph — November 10, 2010 @ 6:27 pm
What a great way to get started with worm composting. Those 5 gallon buckets are easy to come by. Keep us posted on further “inventions”.
Comment by WC Malone — November 11, 2010 @ 12:06 am
Thanks for all the comments folks. Due to all of the demand for information on the commercial systems, I will put together a blog on commercial worm farming made from elements destined for the landfill that will perform the same function as this miniature system. Stay tuned.
Robo
Comment by Rob Avis — November 11, 2010 @ 5:29 am
This is awesome! You could use the same design for a black soldier fly pod with the addition of a staircase for them to mature into flies.
Comment by Chow — November 16, 2010 @ 1:20 am
This is fantastic! I am very excited to try this. I’ve been wanting to do worm composting for a while, so this is great inspiration. Thanks so much for sharing!
Comment by Amy Cheng — November 19, 2010 @ 2:41 pm
Thanks for the comments guys! You are right this could be used for black soldier flies. To my knowledge they don’t live in our climate, and I don’t know of anyone that has brought them up here.
I am going to make some modifications to the vermipod so watch out for version 2.0.
Rob
Comment by Rob Avis — November 25, 2010 @ 5:34 am
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