Cows at Work in India

I dug into the worm depository/compost hill where worms stay for the winter, to take some worms and compost to fill the worm condo. As I dug deeper I saw a lot of wiggling worms. The made it through the winter and are alive. I put some of the worms and compost into the worm box to make castings. The vermicomposting cycle begins again.

While on the Pilgrimage of Peace in India I noticed that the sustainable rural developers there make worm enriched soil directly from cow dung. This goes against the local wisdom that compost should be 75% carbon (wood chips, newspaper etc) and 25% nitrogen (cow dung, coffee grounds etc.).

But this direct method of cow dung-to-castings was working for them. So today I wrote some of the places and people I met at the rural centers nine questions about this process and how it works. If I can learn more I hope to try out this process on my son and his family’s land in rural Wisconsin. There is a dairy farm, with plenty of cow dung, just across the road.

If it happens I will, as with the AIR project, keep you informed via this web site.

So after a tough winter the worms outside are alive and well but there is no cow dung or BS yet for them to feed on.

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