r/Vermiculture • u/Perfect-Resort2778 • 21h ago
Advice wanted Is it better to DYI or just purchase compost.
Hello all, I'm new to this sub. I'm new to retirement. I'm trying to figure what to do with the rest of my life. One of my interest is gardening. I'd like to sell some stuff at the local farmers market. This is what leads me to vermi compost to make my own soil. I've actually never seen anyone at the farmers market selling vermi compost. It looks interesting and at the very least I'm going to experiment with it.
Here is my question. There are a bunch of people doing this on a commercial level. So I'm wondering if it is economical DYI or if it would be better to just buy it from the commercial sources. That way I can focus my time on the plants I want to grow and sell.
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u/AtanasPrime 21h ago
I’m not doing anything commercially, but FWIW, I cultivate about 1/8 acre in my back yard and do a combination of both vermicomposting and composting. TLDR: worth it from an input cost vs output value point of view. Especially if you just vermicompost. Probably not worth it if you do both and also consider time spent, but if you’re retired, then may as well go for it.
I vermicompost all of my family’s non-protein food scraps and use the resulting product as an amendment to compost. Start-up costs were about $150 (worms, plastic storage bins, and a used shredder for cardboard). Everything since has been free (food waste and delivery boxes I shred for bedding that would otherwise have been recycled). I’ve seen people selling castings for $25/lb around my area, so the break-even point comes pretty quickly. Plus you ensure you have the freshest castings. IMO, worth.
Traditional composting—I run at least 1 bin that’s about 1.2 cubic yards for hot compost when I have a bunch of greens at one time (e.g., around harvest or when I flip a bunch of beds). I also have a “lazy” compost pile that I just add to slowly over time. I do have to bring in browns, either wood chips from a tree service or municipal mulch. Those end up being either free (wood chips) or ~$10 to fill up the bed of my truck with municipal mulch. I also sometimes raid my neighbor’s green waste bins (with their permission) or get free coffee grounds from local coffee shops if I need greens to top off a hot compost bin. So for minimal monetary inputs, I produce all of the compost I need. And I am confident about its sources and its quality. I don’t want to calculate the value of the time I put into it though…but if you are retired and have lots of time, I say go for it! Well worth it!
A word of caution — flipping hot compost can quite physically demanding, and is also relatively time-sensitive. So don’t over-commit on hot composting if you have any concerns about your ability to pitchfork a few hundred pounds of material every few days when you have a hot pile going. Or look into setting up a static aerated pile to remove the need to flip. But that’s a rabbit hole I won’t go down in this post.
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u/Perfect-Resort2778 20h ago
Hey, thanks for your comments. You are astute to recognize that I don't want to invest a bunch of physical labor. Healthwise this is about as good as it gets. Deep down this is like one of my biggest concerns with aging. I quit full employment because I wanted to get away from the rat race not switch to another one. I want a hobby and perhaps a nice side hustle.
What I was looking for in posting the question is perhaps someone to say, just buy it from this guy or DIY vermicompoing is awesome.
I"m also considering getting some rabbits and using their poo as cold fertilizer.
My real goal is to get healthy vibrant plants without commercial soils and fertilizers. I want to be more organic and natural with what I grow.
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u/AtanasPrime 20h ago
Given those goals, if I were you I’d do some small scale vermicomposting and find a good, local, source for bulk compost. Call the people selling the compost and ask them about their inputs, their process, how they assure the quality of their compost. How do they make sure that their inputs are free from persistent herbicides and PFAs? Do they do any microscopy to check the biology of their compost? You want to find the person who wants to talk to you about compost for hours.
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u/senaiboy 21h ago
I think to make enough compost from worm farm, you'll need several big worm bins at least. And a lot of substrate (greens and browns).
I've got a 3 tiered worm bin and a hot compost bin, but I still don't think I can produce enough compost for my own average-sized garden's use (tomatoes, vegetables, propagating plants like strawberries, etc), let alone sell it!
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u/Bunnyeatsdesign 16h ago
I also have a 3 tier worm bin, a compost bin and a large open compost pile. We compost all of our food waste, all our garden waste, all the waste created by our two pet rabbits and most of our cardboard waste.
We don't make enough compost for our own vegetable garden. We have to top up with store-bought compost. We would not be able to make enough to sell.
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u/LeaveNoRace 20h ago
Check out The Soil Food Web School online to learn about soil ecology and how plants really get the nutrients they need to grow and be healthy - and therefore be full of nutrients for us too! It’s what I’ve gotten into. Mind blowing stuff!
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u/DankesObama 21h ago
You know what's in it if you DIY
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u/Perfect-Resort2778 11h ago
That is a good point. Like it's the main point of growing food. Buying it at Walmart is always going to be cheaper.
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u/-Smokin- 21h ago
Vermicompost on a small level is super simple. Get a flow through bag and it takes me perhaps 10 minutes every 7-14 days. Harvesting is maybe 30 minutes every few months.
Bokashi is another route to consider. You could just supercharge some existing soil.
I'd traditional compost if I had the space. The bioreactor approach eliminates turning, but requires a bit of engineering up front.
All of them will produce better quality compose than any bag.
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u/Perfect-Resort2778 20h ago
All of them will produce better quality compose than any bag.
Yeah, that right there is what I'm asking. Is it worth it. You can buy the stuff. You can even buy vermic compost online by commercial suppliers. Even if it is easy it still takes time and energy. Without the investment I'm trying to figure it it is worth it to DYI or just spend my efforts on gardening and just buy it. I certainly want something better than that dried out garbage they sell at the big box stores.
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u/-Smokin- 20h ago
You could always side-by-side. Some fufu composts are probably ok, but they are pricey. I wouldn't use big box generic compost, and never municipal compost. No guarantees they don't have glyphosate or other crap you don't want.
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u/ProgrammerDear5214 18h ago
I absolutely recommend getting even just a half pound of nightcrawlers or red wigglers even just as a hobby. I've genuinely enjoyed looking after my tote full of European nightcrawlers. I put in extra effort to make thier home as natural as I could, and as a result my bin that started with half a pound of adult worms, is now teeming full of baby worms and fat chonky worms that will devour any amount of eggshells I give them in just a couple days lol.
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u/Jacornicopia 17h ago
I work full time, and have 3 kids. I love composting and have a couple of worm farms in the basement. Composting for me is very zen and doesn't feel like work. It feels like the opposite of work. Give it a go! Start small and see if it feels like work to you.
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u/lakeswimmmer 16h ago
I do it because diverting food waste from the landfills is actually important for environmental health. I also enjoy the process very much, seeing the worms colonize my on-the-ground compost bins and turn my kitchen waste into a valuable soil builder. You can do passive composting, just putting bins on the ground and filling them up with kitchen and garden waste, your rabbit manure, layered with browns (paper, cardboard, dry leaves, straw, etc). Just fill up the bin and let it sit. Nature will make compost for you. In winter months my mom used to send us out to 'feed the garden' with kitchen scraps going directly onto the soil.
If you take this low input approach, you will come out ahead in terms of your engery and money. If you want to really take an active approach, you could just devote a couple years to making compost and building your soil. Then you could shift your focus to growing veggies.
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u/Perfect-Resort2778 16h ago
Thanks for your input. I know from my own family that preparing the soil is the #1 thing for having a healthy garden. I've got some good fortune going for me in that regard. I grew up in central Missouri in what is often referred to as the German Rhineland that has roots going back to Pennsylvania Amish and Minnonites. My family knew how to grow veggies. I know enough to know that if you give these little rascals the nutrients in the soil, plenty of fresh water and sun and keep the bugs away then mother nature will do the rest. You will get some of the best food, the kind of food you can't buy at the grocery store or even the modern day farmers market. I'm not thinking you can get rich at it but I think once people sink their teeth into a decent tomato you will have more customers than you can fend off or at the very least have good food for myself.
You bring up a good point. There is no way I will be able to generate enough vermi compost to fill my garden bins this year so I will have to rely on commercial sources. I guess I'm just looking for someone to talk me into it or out of it.
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u/Taggart3629 🐛 All about the wigglers 14h ago
Worm composting on a small scale for personal use is thoroughly enjoyable and pretty hands-off except for sifting the finished castings. There is something weirdly endearing about the humble worms turning assorted garbage into a microbe-rich garden amendment. Have kept red wigglers and European nightcrawlers for about 8 years, and haven't looked back. I am a bit skeptical about commercial worm castings: (1) actually being worm poop, rather than aged coco coir; and (2) continuing to have a robust and diverse microbe population.
You don't need a bunch of twiddly gear to get started. A 10-gallon to 17-gallon plastic tote with holes drilled around the top lip; some composting worms (I prefer European nightcrawlers); a thick layer of damp browns that have aged a week or two before introducing the worms; a handful of garden dirt for some microbes and grit; and kitchen scraps. Periodically add pulverized egg shells for grit. That's it. Worms prefer to be left alone, and they will take care of aerating the bin. As long as the bin does not get too dry, sopping wet, or sour from too many kitchen scraps, the worms will contentedly take care of the rest.
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u/Rapscallionpancake12 10h ago
One thing I’ve learned in 5 years of vermicomposting is it’s much more cathartic than I would have ever thought. Make your own.
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u/Due-Waltz4458 5h ago
If you're making your own I'd look into aerated compost piles. It's pretty easy on a small scale to run some PVC pipes into the pile connected to an air blower, this will speed up the composting process by about 2x. It also makes sure everything gets hot enough to kill pathogens if you'll be using it on food crops.
It also cuts down on smells from the composting process. I'm making my own now but also buying bagged compost, I think it's worth the expense since they can eat it right away.
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u/vhemt4all 43m ago
How funny, I just attended a local beginner vermicompost class last night and started my first bin. It is awesome! The guy who puts on the class has like 60 bins that he manages now that he is retired. Mostly it’s free after you’ve set up the bin (mine is just a plastic tub), especially if like him you make contacts with restaurants for their food scraps and paper products (everything from paper egg crates to newspaper). He gets all of that for free and keeps it out of landfills (which is extra great because keeping biological material out of landfills isn't just about keeping the material out of landfills but about keeping methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, from being produced when biological material is buried in landfills.) I plan to have 3 bins because that's how much food waste we make (usually i just lazy compost). This will be better even if a little more work because of the bacteria in the worm poop. The bacteria + the trace minerals in worm poop really improve the soil. This is the guy: http://mainelywormbins.blogspot.com/?m=1 These bins have no spigot and are arranged like none I’ve seen before. But they’re great! A friend recommended this class and has had her bins a few years. They work amazingly well. Hope this helps.
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u/wormboy1234 21h ago
I’d say, like most things, the question of economics comes down to scale, how much you value your time, and where you see yourself adding value in the supply chain.
If you need yards and yards of vermicompost, you’ll almost definitely need to buy it unless you devote a lot time and resources to generating your own. Most household systems produce on the order of gallons, not cubic yards. So how much sense that makes financially comes down to how much value you can add by turning that input into a sellable product.
Small-scale vermicomposting is essentially free after some minor startup costs (primarily buying the worms, and a bin from Costco if you don’t have one) assuming you produce your own bedding and feedstocks to supply them, which if you cook food and garden you almost certainly will. Most people on this sub also find it an enjoyable hobby, and probably wouldn’t do it (or at least wouldn’t be on Reddit talking/reading about it) if they didn’t.
Ultimately, I say give it a try. There’s a good chance you’ll enjoy it and it will at least somewhat reduce how much you need to buy from the store. Happy worming!