This is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com.
I have another exciting episode for you.
Today we're here in Las Vegas, Nevada, actually at a viewer's house that I have visited before.
He's pretty much an expert grower.
He's been doing it a long time.
He's been trialing different things, growing inside, growing outside, but more importantly
than all that stuff is he's making his own compost.
So, what we're going to do today is show you guys like the compost he makes himself here
on site, and some of the stuff he bought, and the purpose of this episode is to encourage
you guys to make your on compost.
It's as simple as throwing your food scraps into a little compost bin.
So, let's go inside and check it out.
Now we're in Jason's backyard and we're looking at his turning compost bin.
Now, he says he doesn't recommend this style because the way this works is it's actually
sitting on top of these wheels and when the bin gets really full it's really hard to spin
around.
That being said, he just dumps stuff in here, and guess what?
Compost happens, and if you don't remember anything else from when compost happens, whatever
you put in there, whether you have the right mixture of greens to browns, that's your carbon
to nitrogen ratio, it'll happen.
Sometimes it happens slower, sometimes it happens faster, and of course if you get dialed
in, you could be making your compost really quickly.
Let's go ahead and open this guy up, and check it out.
This compost looks amazing.
Wow, I could feel the heat coming off this stuff, but if we go in here, like this is
nice, dark, rich compost.
This is what you should aspire to be growing in.
Stuff that looks just like that.
Now, one of the things was that he can't produce as much compost as he needs and, you know,
if I needed to produce as much compost as I need, I'd need like a big area to dedicate
to that.
So, he doesn't want to do that but he does make some compost.
So, he has to buy some compost to fill in his raised beds, and that's in this bucket
right here, and check this out.
We're going to compare these 2 side by side.
I mean, I could dig in this compost here, and I mean there's a lot of pine needles and
woodchips and it's not quite broken down, and I know the camera can pick up the color
difference.
Look at that, this stuff is nice, dark, and rich deep color, and this stuff is all loose
and not sticking together.
I mean, this is almost like compost sand, and you definitely want to grow in nice compost
that has some structure, like the stuff he made.
I'm lucky enough often enough to have a nice compost company nearby where I can get something
like Sonoma compost that make a high quality compost, but you want to remember, you know,
the compost quality could vary widely depending on where you live and for a lot of companies,
they're just blasting out compost and trying to make a buck, you know, and they're not
necessarily making the best stuff, but when you make it at home, you can make the best
compost ever.
Another way Jason is composting besides his turning bin is actually with worms, and, you
know, worm composting in many cases is actually a lot easier because literally the worms do
all the work.
All you got to do is remember to feed them and keep them the right level of moisture
in there.
They don't like it too moist, but they don't like to too dry either.
Right here, Jason is using the worm factory 360, and this is his first worm bin he got,
and we can open this up and see in here he's actually got some nice compost happening,
and here are some words in there, and they're moving around and he's feeding them, but,
you know, the work factory worked really well for him, but Jason is kind of like myself,
you know.
He'll research things and try to find the best device or the best tool for the job,
and instead of using the worm factory he's using what's called a worm inn, and actually
he's telling me that's actually works twice as fast as a worm factory 360, so let's check
that one out next.
Now we're looking t the worm inn, and this is Jason's improved composter, and once again,
he said this works about twice as fast, and let me go ahead and explain how this works.
Basically, you buy it, and you buy the PVC.
It come's with actually this big bag itself and the corner pieces so that you can make
your own frame to hold it up.
Basically, this is life a big bag, and on the bottom it has a drawstring that opens
up the bottom and it let's all the finished worm casting or worm compost come out, and
in most cases, I actually like worm casting more than just standard compost because the
worms when the worms poop they put some enzymes and everything and it's really rich and good
for your garden.
How this works is you basically fill it up, you put some bedding material in there to
get them started, and you get the food scraps, put them in there, and then you put the worms
in, and what happens is the worms will eat all the food, and then you add more food,
and then the worms migrate up.
Hey always like to go up.
What happens is, as they go up, they're leaving their castings on the bottom.
You're then going to open this up and the casting will fall out, and then the worms
are up at the top so you're not going to get too many worms when you harvest the castings.
This is called the continuous flow or flow through system because it just, the stuff
just literally flows through, and I think I actually like this better and I'm going
to have to pick one of these up and I want to thank Jason for being a guinea pig for
letting me know this actually works.
On the top here is made out of a mesh fabric, and this mesh is supposed to keep the bugs
out, and also you can pour water through there.
Keeping worms is really easy.
Worms eat their weight in food a day.
So, say you have a pound of worms, they can eat 1 pound of, you know, vegetable matter.
Especially if you're a juicer, juice pulp is probably one of worms' favorite things
to eat because it's already pre-broken down.
What better thing to do with your juice pulp than to make worm casting and enrich your
garden.
I'm quite happy I was able to share with you the way that Jason is composting.
Once again, I want to encourage everybody out there to make your won compost, whether
you just have a pile, whether you just pile up stuff, whether you dig a big hole and put
it in there, there's many different ways to compost, you get a bin or make your own been
out of pallets, you can get, you know, a worm factory, a worm inn, or even just a rubber
made tote, and you could line that and have it underneath your sink with the worms in
there to eat your food scraps, and you could make your own compost at home.
It's definitely by far, the best growing medium to grow in.
So, hopefully you guys enjoyed this episode.
Once again, my name is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com.
We'll see you next time, and keep on composting.