Composting means breaking down organic material. There are three kinds: aerobic, anaerobic, and vermicomposting. Each has its pros and cons. Households, farms, restaurants, schools, offices and places of business produce compostable materials. For example, food scraps, grass clippings, leaves, animal manure, and coffee grounds are all compostable. Composting is useful for making inexpensive fertilizer for lawns, gardens and farms. Here is a run-down of each type.
Aerobic Composting
With aerobic composting, air is introduced to help break down materials quickly. The compost needs to be turned every few days. This is where a “tumble” style of composter can save a lot of time and effort. Add scraps, then turn the handle or spin the composter to keep it aerated. You will probably want to add plenty of green matter that contains lots of nitrogen, such as grass clippings. As the bacteria break down the high-nitrogen-content scraps, the temperature of the compost will get higher. This speeds the process. Also, moisture may need to be added from a hose or watering can. The odors from aerobic composting will be bad if you don’t keep it moist and forget to turn it frequently. Also, you need to leave lots of air space in the composter.
Anaerobic Composting
You can tell, just by looking at the word, that anaerobic is the opposite of aerobic. Anaerobic composting takes almost no effort at all. Just chuck scraps into a compost pile or composter, and don’t fuss with it for a year or more.
However, hold your nose! Anaerobic composting stinks to high heaven. Without oxygen, some pretty nasty bacteria take over. This is what happens in a landfill, and it’s not healthy. Landfills produce so much methane, they can actually have explosions! Methane is a greenhouse gas that is bad for the environment. Many a garden party has been spoilt by a stinking, neglected anaerobic composter!
Vermicomposting
Vermicomposting uses worms, oxygen and moisture to safely break down organic material with few odors. Basically, worms do most of the heavy lifting, and bacteria also helps. Red worms are favorites for this type of composting. Vermicomposting is preferable to the other two methods, for these reasons:
- Very little odor (it should smell “earthy”)
- Very little, if any, dangerous anaerobic bacteria and methane
- No need to “turn” frequently
- Can be done indoors or outdoors
- Easy to harvest the fertilizer, especially with a tray-based composter
- Kids love taking care of the worms
- Takes minutes a week
- Worms become part of the household and work for you
- If you like to go fishing, you get an endless supply of bait
Composting worms love to eat non-acidic vegetable and fruit scraps from your kitchen and garden. They enjoy grains like rice, oatmeal, pasta and bread. Just make sure you don’t include oily foods, meat or dairy products. You can use aged manure from herbivores, such as cows, horses and rabbits. Make sure the manure has aged at least a few days or longer. A few clean, crushed eggshells provide grit and help balance the bin’s PH. Fallen leaves and grass clippings, in smaller quantities, are great.
Starting vermicomposting involves selecting a type of composter, and then ordering composting worms.
- Uncle Jim’s Worm Farm offers a videos about making your own composter, as well as a selection of convenient composters you can order online. We also have information on building your own composter. Some people want to compost outdoors when the weather is warm, and indoors in the colder months; our Worm Factory 360 and Can-O-Worms composters are perfect for this.
- To get you started with vermicomposting, order a bag of our champion composting worm, the Red Composting Worm Mix. We carefully package and ship the worms so they arrive alive. We also offer Super Reds, which are larger and better suited to be released into the garden.
So, given the choice, steer away from anaerobic composting unless you have no sense of smell. Aerobic composting with a tumbler or pitchfork works, but it’s for outdoors only and requires a bit of work to maintain. Vermicomposting with worms is the best of both worlds: you can compost indoors or out, and the worms become your partners in reducing waste.
32 comments on “What Are the Different Kinds of Composting?”
Very nice article. I love to get helpful hints.
Thanks
What is the shelf life of a vermicompost after packaging in 25jg and 50kg bags?
What about doing an article on Bokashi composting. – Anaerobic but not stinky.
Should the rice, oatmeal, and pasta be cooked ? I’m using coffee and tea after they the beverage has been made, correct ?
Dry grains. Put them through a blender while dry & sprinkle into bedding. If you give them cooked wet grains, be sure they have no butter or oil on them.
This is really helpful for my sciencefair project.
I left a comment and needed a reply.
How do I find it?
Can I put loaf bread that you get from the store and uncooked rice and what kind of grains and can i get it from the store what can I use if I don’t have it
This Article was Cash Carti bruh
GREAT WEBSITE JIM AND THANK YOU AGAIN. GOOD DAY TO ALL UNCLE JIMS WORM FARM. PS: Could You By Chance Send Me Some Information On Trench Composting If You Could Please And Please Include Your Opion On Trench Composting.
Hello Charles & Pamela;
We do not have any information on Trench Composting as we specialize in Vermicomposting here at the farm. You can certainly add worms to that but they will probably burrow off into the sunset somewhere in the garden through time, which is not a bad thing! Trench composting is a great method for any gardener though and is highly recommended if you just want to fertilize and recycle waste.
Uncle Jim’s Worm Farm.
what is local compost
how about local compost
I have lots of dead leaves from an ivy. Can I put these with worms? Thank you!
what is the best way to compost
Short notes
Mixed small pieces of stick, leavers and sand.
Then let the pipes with holes stand vertical.
Pour water into pipes and monitor.
Do you have worms that you can directly put into flowerbeds
Hello Tim;
You can add both the European Night Crawlers or even the Red Worms to the flower beds. The nightcrawlers will burrow deeper and the Red Worms are surface dwelling (top 8 inches of soil). Either species will improve the soil conditions over time.
Uncle Jim’s Worm Farm
Thank you for sharing this blog post! I learned a lot while reading it.
I like worms
was doing a project on composting in science class and found this. cool right? thanks!
me too
I bought the 2000 worms bundle and one of the worms ate my dog and proceeded to become mahoosive. From that point onwards the worm army grew and my house swiftly was destroyed and i stood no chance against them. I am now the only one left in my bloodline. Thanks Jim.
Thank you very much for all of your articles and information. I would like to see you answer all of the comments. Thank you
i do a lot of canning – can i use the skins from the apples and tomatoes in my worm composting?
Hi Gloria,
Yes, these would be two great additions to your worm bin.
Happy Composting,
Uncle Jim’s Worm Farm
Greetings uncle Jim’s,this is interesting, ghank your fir the very informative article.
I am also doing Vermitechnology, using Red wigglers. I need to learn more from you.
Currently I don’t have a market to supply Worm and Vermicompost, us it possible to assist me on that.
I did introduce Vermitechnology to farmers but it seems they don’t understand it.
Hello Londiwe;
Unfortunately, we do not act as business consultants. We are simply a farm and suppliers of the best worms and vermicomposting supplies around for the more than 40 years! We can answer specific questions that you may have as you learn, we are very happy to do so. All you need to do is email your questions to us and we will be happy to answer what we can about raising worms and keeping a healthy bin. Our Sales Email is sales@unclejimswormfarm.com
Uncle Jim’s Worm Farm
This is very helpful thank you!
30 Composting Methods