Hello everyone. My first month of my fellowship has wrapped up. I thought I would make a short video to share what I saw. My big takeaway from seeing the worm hotels in the Netherlands was that public composting CAN take place in central spaces without disturbing daily urban life. It also reinforced the importance of municipally funded solutions. Without the support of local officials, the worm hotels would not be allowed to exist in public spaces and would have been rolled out at their current scale. And since most of the worm hotels have a wait list, it reinforced that many people want to compost locally. 

Hello Worm Lovers <3 The fellowship has commenced! This month I am visiting the Netherlands to learn more about their worm hotels. What drew me to this compost solution was the decentralized nature of the worm hotels, each hotel serves about 20 households, and how they are able to easily blend into the urban setting of Amsterdam (and surrounding cities). I think there is a common misconception that compost is only for those in rural settings, or at least large yards. I initially fell in love with worm composting because it was the only composting method available to me in my small apartment. These worm hotels or wormeries, serve as a great example of how composting can take place in cities. (Many times these worm hotels are placed directly on the sidewalk!)

Want to know more? Here are some quick observations from me.
Do they smell? There is a slightly earthy, food-waste smell when you are standing directly next to it, but from about a yard away, I couldn't detect any smell.
Are there flies? I did notice some fruit flies hanging out on the top of one of the models, but nothing major. 
How big are they? I don't have exact dimensions, but they seemed to range from 4x4ft (compact),  3x6ft (taller), 4x6ft (wider). 
How are they harvested? Most have some sort of panel at the bottom that allows for collection.
What material are they made of? Mostly wood with plastic fittings. 
What about in the winter? I talked with a worm hotel designer that said due to the relatively mild winters and heat given off by the food waste, the cold hasn't been an issue. 

I still have lots of questions about how these worm hotels can be built to best suit the worms and users needs, which I hope to answer before I leave. Overall, it's been inspiring to check out all the different worm hotels design and it has become like a scavenger hunt for me.   

On the home front, I am very grateful to my family and my partner for looking after B2TD's operations. Though we are still adjusting to the trade off, I appreciate their dedication to keeping the business moving along. Admittedly, July brought its fair share of hiccups. Despite my best efforts, I was unable to make our DIY rotary composter work sufficiently before I had to depart. Currently, it is not fully rotating the waste. The rotation increases aeration and agitation, which is the key benefit of a rotary composter. As a result, I'm not getting the speedy break down the machine was built to produce. 

As a result, I've had to asked for help. Paul at Valley View in Milford generously came to our aid. For the meantime, the majority of the food waste we receive will be going to Valley View and the compost will be used to improve the soil of the farm on-site. (Don't worry—we will still be holding back some food to feed our worm friends). This will, however, disrupt our worm casting production and worm give-back. This was sad to accept because when I set out with the business, my hope was to serve as a source of high quality worm castings for the region and to provide members with a tangible reward for their composting. 

In every setback, there is an opportunity--at least that is what the optimist in me tells myself. My hope is to use this disruption to 1) Find a more permanent home for B2TD  (not in a backyard) that will be less disturbing to its neighbors. 2) Find better ways of processing community scale amounts of food waste. I know how to do it on a small scale and I've seen large scale operation, but I hope to learn more about how people in the in-between operate successfully. 

We've composted over 11 tons of food waste since we started tracking. This is about the weight of an anchor on a cruise ship. Though most of the weight in food waste is water, it's fun to see how far we've gotten with just some worms living in your typical basement and later backyard.

Tot ziens!

Fun fact: The Netherlands is the second largest agricultural exporter worldwide and are known for their exports of flowers, cheese, tomatoes, and more! 

Hi Everyone:) I hope all is well. This past week, Cincinnati was bathed in smog from the Canadian Wildfires. After years of associating the foggy, grey haze with wildfires in the Western US or densely population cities like Beijing, it was surprising to see the smokey air in my own backyard. Though dawning a mask to work outside safely felt slightly apocalyptic, we were lucky to only be affected for a few days. The reminder of how connected we and our environments are did not escape me.

In June, we composted 1491 lbs.

Besides taking off a few days due to the air pollution, June has felt like nonstop work. It's been a huge push month as I've tried to get the new system up and running (without my neighbors hating me too much). This includes building a rotary composter, which will hot compost and turn the the food scraps..at least when I get it working...the "automated" part still has a ways to go. Though I wanted so desperately to finish it by June, I've learned that setbacks are unavoidable. For now, I've added food waste and have been turning it by hand. It makes fixing the composter more difficult, but the food scraps keep coming in and they have to go somewhere.

I've also been constructing what I've nicknamed "Worm Towers" out of the excess culvert pipe. (Let me know if you can think of a better name). They also need some tweaking, but are almost finished. Pre-composted food is shoveled into the top and, although, it is hard to tell from the pictures, there is a grated bottom that the worm castings can fall through. 

My hope is to have everything in working order by the end of July, in time for my fellowship. Though the likelihood of that is questionable, the best I can do is try. Wish me luck!

Fun Fact: Earthworms have about 100-150 segments made of muscles and bristles. The earthworm use segments to either contract or relax independently to cause the body to lengthen in one area or contract in other areas.

Hi all! As the weather heats up, I've been kicking into full gear to finish the outdoor vermicompost set-up. If you've read my previous post, I've been working on moving parts of the worm bed out of the basement and building a hot composter to pre-compost the waste before it goes into the worm beds. The IBC hot composter that I previously built is doing an effective job hot composting the food waste, unfortunately it is not big enough to hold all the food waste I get. To tackle this, I'm building a rotary composter that will hot compost more food waste than the IBC. It works similarly to the backyard tumbler compost systems, just bigger. I've finished the base (see image below) and hope to finish the rest in June. Wish me luck!

Thanks to the hot composting efforts, I have finally been harvesting worm castings again after such a long hiatus! It feels good to finally see beautiful black humus, falling from the worm beds again. In May, we composted 1811 lbs of food waste. I can tell as we enter into produce season that buckets are definitely getting heavier.

Though Bokashi did not prove an effective enough precompost method for me. It was great at reducing food waste odor and slowing down putrefaction. Therefore, I've been piloting lactoflakes with my worm hotel drop off members and I've opened a pilot monthly pickup program. My hope is that such efforts will allow me to pickup fuller buckets and run less pickups, which will allow me to spend less on hauling food scraps, creating savings I can pass along to members--a nut I've been trying to crack.

I also have exciting news. I accepted a Fellowship to study compost models abroad! My hope is that by meeting with and studying many different community compost programs I can bring home lessons to improve Back2TheDirt's compost efforts. That said, Back2TheDirt will still keep chugging along. In my absence, my brother (current Compost Cabbie) and my partner, Ernesto (you'll learn more about him soon), will be helping me oversee the operation. I'll still be available through email and text though, for the majority of the trip. But the pressure is on to get everything in order. Wish me luck! And, I wish you luck on all your summer adventures too!

Fun Fact: Worm poop boosts the nutrients available to plants, helping seeds to germinate more quickly, grow faster, develop better root systems and produce higher yields.

Hello Everyone! As a familiar and thick humidity settles into the Ohio River Valley, I wanted to write a quick update of our progress in April, before Spring is too far behind us. This month we composted a 1,433 lbs, right on target with our normal collection. As I mentioned in my previous post, my current focus is on improving and scaling up the composting operation here at the house.

Last month, I built a in-vessel, hot composter out of an IBC tote to predigest the food waste. The food and wood shavings I put inside easily reached my target temperatures of over 120 °F. Plus it is automated and compact...maybe a little too compact. It turns out it only holds about a weeks worth of food scraps, and the food scraps have to sit in it for at least a month to pre-compost. Thus my next plan is to build a larger version that will fit at least a month's worth of food scraps..

My mom commented that I should have taken engineering courses in college, and I couldn't disagree. Lately, this job has involved a lot of design and construction (and redesigning and reconstructing). Thankfully, my dad has been helping to fill in the gaps and, like Mary Poppins, he always seems to have the right tool--which is "Practically perfect in every way."

In other news, my worm hotel at 12 Sisters Farm is finally open and active! Again, it is a different model than my other drop offs or pickups. Members drop the food off directly to the worms. I'm excited to see how it goes and what improvements can be made. If it works well for both members and site owners, it could be a great model for expanding compost services when I outgrow my backyard.

Fun Fact: It is generally agreed that Eisenia earthworms cannot survive temperatures over 95°F. For reference, hot compost piles reach temperatures of at least 130°F. In other words, if you plan on adding worms to your compost bin or pile, wait until it has cooled down.

 Hello Sunshine! Sorry for being so late on this blog post. March whizzed past me. I hope this Spring find you all well. I'm feeling re-energized by the balmy weather. This is when having an outdoor job becomes a joy (remind me again, when I'm freezing next January). Each sign of spring, from the violets dotting my yard, to my peas stretching their way up their trellis, to the blossoms on my peach tree gives me a little jolt of giddiness :)

This month we composted 1544 lbs--and with that I have to say a big thanks to all my compost members, who give me their food waste. Not only do you keep the worms fed, but you provide us with an essential ingredient for our in-progress compost recipe.

March continued to be a month of experimentation, as I learn how to adapt what I learned inside to an outdoor system.

I've realized my worm beds are far too wet and may need a better roof. When I tried to harvest worm castings, almost nothing went through the harvester...aargh! Overall Takeaway: In ground worm bins work in our Ohio climate. They are a pain to harvest though *at least on a large scale* and seem better suited for in the garden systems where the worm castings are leached into the surrounding soil/dispersed by the worms.

The fruit flies also persist, despite the temperature fluctuation and burying the food deeper. My initial solution of bokashi-ing...can that be a verb?...the food waste may have killed fly larvae in the bokashi bucket, but the flies seemed to love it, as much as the worms, when it was dumped into the bed. That said, it is great for odor. Lactobacillius for the deodorizing win!

I realized I may need to go the hot composting route as a pre-treatment method. I've avoided this until now because of the amount of physical labor (or machinery) required in hot composting. The beauty of worms is that they turn your compost for you as they eat, burrow, poop, and repeat. No machinery and no pitchfork required. Unfortunately, it seems fruit flies really do love raw food and temperate conditions as much as the worms. Worms will eat compost produced by hot composting (really, they will eat about anything) and its a common method to produce castings. So, hello hot composting, it's nice to make your acquaintance ;) Maybe by the end of this journey, I'll have tried every compost method out there.

My other big project of the month was building a worm bed à la Amsterdam Worm Hotels. I learned of these while researching vermicompost abroad. Check them out dutchreview.com/culture/worm-hotels/. I would love to see a decentralized, city wide model like this in Cincinnati. Inspired, I thought I would pilot one for a drop off. Pam of 12 Sisters Farm in Anderson, graciously agreed to host it. Unlike our other drop offs, members will feed their food directly to the worms. Hopefully, this will allow us to make our process more affordable and sustainable. Plus, I love the idea of food plants, food waste, and compost cycling through the same space. If the drop off interests you, let me know. I'm planning to have it up and running in the next few weeks.

Until Next Time,
Katie & The Worms

Fun Fact: Worms love good weather too! Worms prefer bedding temperatures between 60-80 °F.

Thought I would try a vlog this time, so you all could see the beds. I hope you all are doing well, and are enjoying the good weather days as they come!

Happy New Year! I don't have any resolutions this year, but I look forward to the lessons 2023 will bring. This month we composted 1247 lbs. I've still been working on the outdoor beds, which are about 50% done. The only issue thus far has been a visit from a poor shrew, who I found dead shortly after sighting him (not sure if his death had to do with the food waste or not?). Since shrews love to eat worms though, I've been laying hardware mesh at the bottom of the beds to prevent further visits from burrowing rodents.

As I mentioned in my last post, December (and the start of January) were a very ill period for me. Thankfully, I've been feeling better these past few weeks. I was able to paint the side of the trailer, so now we can pick up compost in style ;). And inspired by the increasing sunshine, I started to build new raised beds for the spring. To fill the beds, I used a layer of food waste and then covered it with at least six inches of a coco coir and soil mix. I've read that this is a good way to fill raised beds cheaply. Since I have plenty of food waste on hand, I thought I would give it a try.

Fun Fact: Worms are 80% water...for comparison, humans are 60%. This water can easily be lost through their skin, so worm need moist condition to maintain homeostasis.

I thought I would share a quick update on how the worms and I have fared this holiday season. In December we composted 1,368 lbs, a little bit of a drop, but natural as dishes of the season often become meatier and milkier.

The outdoor worm bed is looks promising thus far. When I heard the temperature would be dropping to the single digits with one day having a "real-feel" of -30°F (I mean come on, seriously??), I nervously waited to see how the beds would fare. I'm still in the process of building so I laid on a thick layer of food waste and tried to minimize any gaps that could cause drafts. I was iced-in at my parents' house for a few days and returned to find the bed under a layer of snow. When I pulled back the lid I was amazed to see worms at the top of the pile and the thermometer reading 40 °F, which is still a little chilly for the worms, but by no means is insurmountable.

I have yet to experiment with meat and dairy with the bokashi, though I did ferment my first batch of EM (effective microorganism, a mix of helpful bacteria). 

Unfortunately, December hit me hard. Though, I decided to mask for the winter season, I've still been around more people than I have been in years...ah, covid... and my immune system seems to be making up for lost time. I had two upper respiratory infections and the stomach bug, which left me barely able to complete the basics of running the business. It reminded me of my limitations as one person, which is always a source of frustration for me. I have so many things I want to get done, but so little time and manpower. I have to accept the slow for now, however, and let my body rest up. 

I've also decided to be a little less "one-woman" show and have officially hired my brother, Zach, on as a compost cabbie. If you see him and the Prius picking up compost, give him a wave!

Happy Holidays from all of us at Back2TheDirt! We are excited to see what's in store for 2023.
Katie & The Worms

Fun Fact: Worms are cold blooded creatures and cannot survive below freezing temperatures. So how do worms survive the winter? Some species burrow below the frost line to avoid the cold. While others lay eggs which can survive freezing temperatures. Though theses worms die off in the winter, their babies emerge in the spring.

In the month of November, we composted 1,675 lbs. With a steady supply of food and the recent issues with the current worm bed. I am making a major pivot. With the fly problem coming to a head, I've decided to design a new bed system. This time outdoors. For people new to vermicomposting, starting a bed outdoors in the winter time might seem like a daunting task. Worms do not like temperatures to get below 60 degrees Fahrenheit and they cannot survive in below freezing conditions. However, with the volume of food waste I receive, I've realized it is easier to heat up a bed than to cool it down, since decomposing food releases heat. Therefore, with the cold weather and freezing nights moving in, I'm excited to begin.

The plan is to make a "Worm Pit" out of cinderblocks with  insulated roof panels as the top coverings. I plan to make 3-5 separate pits, totaling around 250 square feet. With previous experience as my guide, I'm sure this plan will change and develop as I build and observe the pros and cons.

I've also started experimenting with Bokashi as a pretreatment method for the food waste. Bokashi is the technique of fermenting food scraps using lactobacillus (the same bacteria used in preparing yogurt) before burying them and letting them decompose fully. The fermentation occurs under anaerobic conditions and creates an acidic environment, which kills weed seeds and fly larvae. It also leads to the food waste being colonized by beneficial bacteria. After the food waste ferments for two weeks, it can be buried in trenches or placed in soil factory (in my case, the worm pit) where it can fully breakdown. Due to the bacteria already present on the food, the food waste breaks down faster, is easier for the worms to digest, produces less heat while decomposing, and is less attractive to animals. 

However, like worms, bacteria are living creatures. I will need to have a consistent supply of lactobacillus or EM-1 (a commercially sold mix of lactobacillus, yeast, and phototrophic bacteria for Bokashi systems) ready for processing food and incorporate the food fermentation into my waste processing flow. Still a big learning curve ahead, we'll see where it leads! If it works, though, I can finally start receiving meat and dairy which would be a big plus for my non-vegan members.