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Two stops on Rossland's chicken and compost crawl

A look at two of the stops on Rossland Real Foods' Chicken and Compost Crawl that offered bear-proof composting options.
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Jess King of Rossland uses a worm bin to compost materials indoors. Her house was one of the stops on this year’s Earth Day Chicken and Compost Crawl.

Red worms wriggled up from the soil as Jess King stirred the material in her worm bin.

King’s house was one of the stops on this year’s Rossland Real Food Chicken and Compost Crawl, and one of two stops to offer a solution to composting in bear country. King’s worm bin is set up indoors, so bears aren’t a concern, while the Lindseys whose house was also a stop on the Earth Day tour use a bear-proof outdoor compost bin.

King first got her worms a year ago and so far it has been a learning experience.

The red wigglers eat what King puts in the bin and turn it into nutrient-packed compost, but part of learning to care for the worms has included figuring out what they do and don’t like to eat. King says her worms like ground up egg shells, but don’t like onions, garlic, ginger or citrus rinds.

“When you feed them, it’s good to just look at what foods they’re avoiding in your bin and what foods they’re going to. What foods are left over after a couple of weeks,” she said. “They get through it pretty fast, so if there’s something left then they’re not eating it and they don’t like it.”

A pound of worms can eat a half-pound of food a day.

To set up the composter, King first needed the bins, which she got from a friend. Commercial bins are available online, starting at about $118 on amazon.ca, but they can also be made using plain plastic bins. King put a layer of cardboard, paper and sand on the bottom, then added soil and gravel before putting in the red wigglers, which she also got from a friend.

“And then I left the worms to sit for a week or two, just to get used to their environment and get comfortable. They don’t like being moved around so they need some time to settle in and then you can start feeding them,” explained King.

She’s found a spot in her house where the worms are mostly undisturbed and where they aren’t subjected to big temperature fluctuations.

Once the worms have created some compost, King can remove it to use in her garden, but she has to be careful to make sure none of the red wigglers go out with the compost, as they are not a native species to this area.

Bears, on the other hand, are a native species, and the worm bin allows King to compost indoors, so she doesn’t need to worry about her composter attracting them.

Crystal and Gord Lindsey have taken a different approach.

Their composter is outdoors and scratch marks on the metal lid show bears have tried to get into it, but as their composter is made of concrete, stone and metal, the bears haven’t had any success.

The attractive and practical additions to the Lindsey’s garden took them about three days to build once they had selected the stones, built the forms and gathered the supplies. Gord Lindsey estimated that in total they spent less than $100, having gathered the stones rather than bought them, but it was labour intensive.

The couple built the composter seven years ago, and Crystal said she puts in all kinds of compostable materials to make a rich compost for her garden.

For more information about this type of composter, visit critterproofcomposting.com.