As part of our continuing efforts to “go green”, Lutherville students will begin composting in the fall of 2016. Composting is simply a way of letting nature break down food waste and yard clippings into new soil. We are using composting as a way to recycle fruits and vegetables that would be thrown away in the cafeteria. We will have some special helpers in our endeavor – over 100 red wiggler worms!
We will use vermiculture, or raising and feeding food waste to worms, as our composting strategy. Members of the Environmental Club will be leading this effort, and have been meeting with local master gardeners this spring to learn about how to set up a vermiculture tower. The photos below show what we have learned.
Master gardener, Pam Moss, visited our Environmental Club to teach us about vermiculture. She brought her own composting tower to show us how the worms break down food and other organic material into new soil.
Ms. Moss let us keep her tower for several week so that we could observe the worms.
Last week, Ms. Moss returned for a lunchtime meeting in the learning garden where she showed us how to harvest the new, rich soil and move the worms back to the composting tower.
We can’t wait to make a difference in our school garden with our composting program in the fall!