DIY Worm Bin

Since reading Men of the Tundra, I have been a big fan of many of Major Marvin Muktuk Marston’s ideas.  Aside from being a strong proponent for Native Alaska Civil Rights, he was also a big supporter of agriculture in the villages of Alaska.  He of course made a push for reestablishing reindeer herds, but on top of that felt that educating village populations in basic agricultural processes would enable them to continue their self-sufficiency into the future.

            By the 1940s, the writing was on the wall with rural populations establishing year-round communities and getting away from the migratory tendencies of fishing, hunting, and gathering.  Marston established his own little homestead in Unalakleet as a way to demonstrate the feasibility of small local operations in the production of food.  What everyone in Unalakleet knows as the potato field/farm was Marston’s little experiment.  He did not see how it would be possible for rural populations to continually import everything, and looking at the old pictures of Unalakleet green with gardens, we must have agreed with him.

            Here we are almost 40 years after Marston’s death still importing so much of what we use, and the number of local gardens can be counted without taking my shoes off.  So, my family is starting to see what we can do to return to some of Marston’s ideas by growing some of our own produce.  That being said, good garden soil is not an easy thing to get around here.  We have purchased bags of soil and composted manure through Amazon… that is expensive and does not seem to make sense when trying to get away from importing everything.

            So… vermicompost.  Vermicomposting is the use of worms to aid in the compost process.  It takes a while, but is pretty cool in that it squeezes every last drop of usefulness out of the stuff that we are importing into Unalakleet.  Egg cartons?  They get figured into the price of eggs and might as well be used.  Worms will eat those.  Apple cores, egg shells, cardboard, leaves, grass, used coffee grounds, stale bread, wilted lettuce, all things that would go to waste by being carted up to the landfill can be made into nice, dark, rich soil.

            Commercial worm towers can be purchased off of the internet, but again, why not use something we already have here?  So, I gathered together some stuff…

18 gallon Rubbermade tote

Brew bucket spicket

Peanut butter jar

7/8” spade bit

11/64” drill bit

18 Volt cordless drill

Red Wiggler Worms

            We have collected a number of 18-gallon rubber made totes over the years since we basically use them as luggage.  That would be an explanation for another story.  I basically found a grungy one in our storage that I knew we wouldn’t miss.  I cleaned it out with soapy water and then rinsed it out well since I was going to be putting creatures in it that absorb so much through their skin.

18 gallon Rubbermade Tote- Alaskan Luggage

            I drilled a hole near the bottom of one side with a 7/8” spade bit to install a used spigot that I had left over from a scratched-up brew bucket.  If I didn’t have one, I don’t know if I would have purchased one just for this job, but can say that I am looking forward to an easy way to remove liquid from the bin.  My first worm bin had no way to drain, and became heavy with water making it a pain to harvest castings (worm poop) from for use in my garden.  I am not sure if they are made to a universal size, but just checked it against my spade bit to assure it would work with the hole.

A 7/8" Spade Bit easily cuts through the tote

The spigot is threaded and has a nut that holds it in place as well as two rubber washer/gaskets

This will make it much easier to drain off the excess moisture

            Another option to create a draining tote is to drill small holes in the bottom of the tote and then place it over a drip pan.  I will be putting this bin in my office during the cold winter months, and did not want the chance for a mess on my carpet.  Part of the point is to have it someplace where students can come and see what is going on: again, Marston’s belief of educating rural Alaskans on agricultural techniques.  So, the drip pan was not an option for me.

            This is my first time using a spigot in a worm bin, but I figure if I just left the opening uncovered inside that the castings would quickly clog it.  I drilled 11/64” holes through multiple places in a plastic peanut bar jar and then loosely placed the opening of the jar over the opening of the spigot.  My hypothesis is that the water will “filter” through the jar and into the spigot and will keep the spigot opening clear.

            I used the same 11/64” bit to drill a number of holes in the lid of the tote.  I basically used that size because since moving I either don’t have my tools or can’t find them where they have been strategically stored.  This bit just happened to be in the case with the drill.  I wanted to use a small bit that will allow air in but not a lot of light.  Worms are photosensitive and them escaping the tote is not a real concern as they don’t want to be in the light of the room.  If they are stored someplace dark, I guess this would be more of an issue.

            Before adding the worms, I put in some organic material for them to get under and in between.  When I put a bin together in Galena, I used fall leaves as we had them in abundance.  Not so in Unalakleet, and so I am hoping that the grass I pulled up and cut will do the trick.  I threw in some torn up egg carton, coffee grounds in the filter, and a couple of crushed up egg shells for the worms to get started in.

Food for worms

            With the organic material in the bin, I dumped in the worms.  My first batch of worms for my first bin were ordered from Amazon and shipped dried up but still alive.  This is a viable way to start with a large number of worms.  It is kind of expensive though, and so I picked up a container of 30 red wigglers for a little over $3 from the Fairbanks Walmart when I was passing through.  Still Alaskan prices (the worms traveled all the way from Michigan according to the packaging), but cheaper than ordering them on Amazon.

Be fruitful and multiply.  We're starting with 30 and hoping for more.

            I don’t see why night crawlers couldn’t be used instead, and I would like to set up another bin to see which worm is the more efficient  composter, but at this point, I decided to go with the same kind of worm I had used before since I know they work.

            Once the worms are established, it is just a matter of keeping them fed.  No extra water is really needed as the food that is added to the bin supplies enough moisture.  If a bin would be set up in an extremely dry environment, it might make sense to add some water on occasion, but I have found that simply adding green organic material is enough to keep the environment damp enough for the worms.

Things I’ll be adding to my worm bin	Things I won’t be adding to my worm bin
Leaves	Citrus
Grass	Meat
Egg Cartons (shredded)	Fish
Vegetable scraps	White paper
Cardboard (shredded)	Water
Stale Bread and Spent Grains
Coffee Grounds

            Pretty much anything that would go into an outdoor compost pile can go into a worm bin.  The worms will let me know if they don’t like something I put in.  I put in a piece of scrap white copier paper once to try to soak up some extra moisture and created an exodus of worms heading for the exits.

            Though I would add fish to an outdoor pile, fish rotting in a tote in my office is not an appealing idea and would attract flies and other pests.  Same thing with meat.  Citrus, though pleasant smelling, is acidic and not something worms get excited about.  In small amounts, it might be okay.

            If I was worried about how long it took for the worms to finish the compost, I could grind up whatever I was putting in the bin in a blender, but since I am more concerned with ease… I just tear the stuff up by hand or put it in the bin full sized.

            My little worm bin will never make enough vermicompost for me to plant all of my garden in, but it will reduce my dependence upon store bought soil, and if I do use local soil will add a lot of good organic material and nutrients to the garden.  It will also reduce the amount of “good” stuff I send up to the landfill.

            If other people are doing cool stuff to make their own soil or help their gardens grow healthily, I’d love to hear from them. 

Can I Visit?

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"Can I 'bisit?'" The next generation of visitors.

“Can I ‘bisit?’” came a small voice on the other side of the door. 

Upon opening it, I found Karter, my young nephew, but I would have been no more surprised had I found some other completely random kid as the source of the voice.  He was there to visit his young cousin, Ellen, but she was out playing with some friends.  Karter came in and took off his rubber boots anyway.

Even before having children of our own, it was a pretty common occurrence to have kids just show up at our door asking to visit.  If we had energy and time, they were welcomed in, sat down, had snacks, some water, and we would talk, play a game, or watch a movie.  We had our regulars who would show up at the same time pretty much every Friday: three brothers who were in high school.

These kids weren’t family, but kind of adopted us.  As a result, so did their parents, and nobody thought any different of it.

Bush Alaska is as close to old, small town America as a person can get anymore.  Granted, we have been careful in the raising of our two daughters, and there are houses that have been off limits, families that it was not okay to visit.  However, there are so many houses still that our young daughter walks to with families that take her in as their own.  There is the family with a two-year-old that is her good friend and whose mom works at the school with me.  A new family has taken her in whose mom works at the district office and whose dad routinely subs at the school.  They have three kids who are all older than her, but they have adopted her as a little sister and if she is not going to their house to visit them, they come to our house in search of her.  And of course, there are the cousins.

Visiting is a tradition up here that comes from long winter nights when there was little else to do in a time before television, internet, and telephones.  People, adults and kids, would venture out to see their neighbors, walk into the house without knocking, and stand in the door.  If the occupant of the house was open to visitors, he or she would offer tea, water, something to eat.  If the time was right, a table would be set, and adults would sit and “talk story” while kids played quietly in the room or sat listening to the adults.  If the circumstances for visiting were not right, after a time of waiting without the offer of refreshment, the visitor would quietly leave unoffended with no words being said.  

We “talk story” here.  History and tradition are passed down, lessons taught, points made by telling of tales that are true, or mostly true, or should be true. 

“It was a long week,” I yell at my mother-in-law.

She is ninety and remembers dogsleds, skin boats, and igloos.

“My daddy was stuck on an ice flow once.  He was so hungry that he survived by eating the Oogruck skin sole of his mukluk…” she continues on with her story that I have heard many times before, but her point has been made, and I have gained new perspective.

Our elders still approach visiting in this way.  My mother-in-law, who couldn’t hear a knock anyway, simply expects people to walk in the house.  She is sad that more people don’t.

“People just don’t visit like they used to,” she says to me.  “I wish more people would come to see me.”

And she is right.  Even here, we don’t visit like we used to.  Texting, messaging, tweeting, have all taken their toll on a good old-fashioned sit down over coffee or tea, but I am happy to say that many friends still just drop by whether we are their destination or just a stop on the way.

We have to be purposeful about it now.  If we don’t set aside time to go and see our neighbors, we won’t.  There is work, raising a young child, activities, chores, hobbies, excuses (haven’t these always existed?).  Myra and I, two very goal-oriented people, have set visiting as one of our goals.  You may hear a knock and our voice on the other side of the door.  And our challenge to our friends… go visit each other, build real relationships, speak to real people using real spoken words.  Come visit, knock… or don’t… just come and see us, there is no need to call ahead, no need to have an agenda, ours is an old Eskimo home, and more than likely, we’ll put a pot of tea on, pull out some pilot bread and talk story.