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I need to point out that the coffee compost we made hadn ' t been turned regularly so the compost wasn ' t processed uniformly and this may have been the cause of the allelopathic chemical persisting. The vermicompost produced from feedstock that included UCG hasn ' t caused any problems when used in veggie gardens.
Collecting around 150kg of UCG per week from six cafes proved to be unsustainable for me so I happily now only collect UCG from one cafe. As for the lofty aim of diverting 90 % Lorne ' s cafe organics for landfill... I ' ve let that one drop!
I had a bit of a look at marketing my vermicompost and decided that waste minimisation and worm husbandry were my strengths so I donate most of the vermicompost I produce to an organisation called FareShare which prepares 25 000 meals per week for the needy- mainly from rescued supermarket food but also from a couple of market gardens.
Worm’ ag: What ' s the main reason you ' ve kept doing it until now?
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Colin: I ' ve diverted around 20 t of organics that otherwise would be producing greenhouse gases in the Anglesea landfill and I ' ve turned it into a garden ameliorant that ' s supporting an organic garden. That ' s pretty satisfying... but then there ' s the love of worm husbandry!
Worm’ ag: Do you have a cool anecdotal story to share with us?
Colin: I collect clean salad scraps from an up-market hamburger cafe and one of the chefs from the classy restaurant next door couldn ' t believe that all of those cos lettuce hearts were going to my worms: that ' s the best part of the lettuce he claimed!
Worm’ ag: I sometimes see photos of worms eating better food than us lol. Why did you join the WFA?
Colin: I had gotten a lot of benefit from Red Worm Composting and felt that WFA would help me with handling commercial quantities. Initially, I was quite disappointed because the promised eBook wasn ' t really a book at all and it was about breeding worms which
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I wasn ' t drawn to. Additionally the Forum was moribund and painful to research. But the breakthrough came with the secret WFA Facebook group which has become a wonderful source of indepth information about worm farming and the use of vermicompost. And it ' s really entertaining and I feel part of a secret society which I ' ve always longed for( that ' s a joke!). There are many extremely knowledgeable contributors who are passionate and at times humorous. It ' s gold! |