City Composting in a Worm Hotel.

Vermicompost harvested from the Worm Hotel of Restaurant As.

Compost on the menu.

One year ago we organised a succesfull crowdfunding campaign to start placing worm hotels at restaurants in the city. It had been a wish for us to build worm hotels for restaurants and the money we raised in the crowdfunding made it possible to build and place the first worm hotels at restaurants in the Amsterdam area (The Netherlands). 

Finishing all the worm hotels and the rewards for the backers of the crowdfuding has been a challenge, but now all - but one - are up and running and producing beautiful vermicompost to feed the gardens of the restaurants.

Crowdfunding Film of our succesful campaign.

Chef Rick (Restaurant As) feeds the garden with
self-made compost.

Circular Restaurants and Circular Office Buildings.

One of the proud users of a Le Compostier worm hotel is Rudolf Brands from the restaurant of Circl on the Zuidas. And also the restaurant of the Tropenhotel is composting their green waste to feed the vegetable gardens at the offices of KIT (Royal Institute of the Tropics). 

Its great to see that more and more restaurants and also offices are requesting worm hotels to start composting their own organic waste. 

Worm Hotel at KIT
Oosterpark - Amsterdam.

Worm Hotel at Circl
Zuidas - Amsterdam.

Worm Hotel at restaurant Bret.
Sloterdijk - Amsterdam

Harvesting the Vermicompost.

Last week we assisted the chefs of Restaurant As to harvest their own vermicompost. We harvested three wheelbarrows full of nicely screened compost. It continues to be a miracle to see how much material the worm hotels are digesting and transforming into the black gold vermicompost. The compost was than used by Rick and Cityplot members Helder and Susanne in the garden of Restaurant As. 

Cityplotmembers Helder and Susanne use the
Vermicompost to feed the soil of the garden at
Restaurant As.

Grow food in the City.

Cityplot is taking care of Restaurant As' garden for some years now and the kitchen uses the produce from this garden to make their dishes. The restaurant is using produce from local farmers next to the herbs and veggies that come from their own garden. 

Growing food locally in the city might become more and more important in the near future and to compost locally to feed the soils will help make this possible. 

Organisations like Cityplot organise workshops on how to grow food in the city, in communal gardens, on your balcony or even on your rooftop. 

It is also possible to grow food together in organised structures such as CSA's (Community Supported Agriculture). Amsterdam has now a few running CSA's that you can join to grow and buy your locally grown food. Cityplot runs Pluk! at the FruittuinvanWest. Another nice initiative is the Groente Amsterdammer from Kasper Hoex.

If you want to grow your own food on your balcony or in a community garden it would be great to make your own vermicompost. To do so you can make a Wormbucket, build a wooden DIY Worm Hotel or start a Community Composting project with your neighbours in your street.

Local Wood - Global Wood.

Wood from StadsHout.

The Le Compostier worm hotels are made out of FSC certified wood. But sometimes we get our wood from the city. Trees that are cut due to illness or restructuring of neighbourhoods are given to the foundation StadsHout (CityWood). StadsHout cuts the trees into boards and sells those to designers and manifacturers of furnitures. 

We are very happy to be able to use such a fine material as wood for our composting furnitures, and to be able to inspire lot's of people to start composting and to take care of the soil. But we also need to make sure we continue to grow back our forrests. 

That is why Le Compostier is now supporting Trees For All and will donate two trees for each new worm hotel that we build. One tree will be planted in the Netherlands and the other tree will be given to a treeplanting project in Bolivia. 

Back To Eden Gardening in a Honeycomb Gardenbox.

Community garden Sweetgrass in de Polder (Diemen Zuid)

Paradise in your own backyard.

Last year I made a couple of raised beds in our community garden 'Sweetgrass in de Polder'. To make them more playful I decided to make them in the shape of a Hexagon (read also: Composting Worms in a DIY Honeycomb Gardenbox). 

The gardens became very beautiful and the plants grew well. Some of the gardens were given to children in the neighbourhood and they enjoyed growing their own veggies.

Unwanted plants in the gardenbox.

To prevent roots from the trees and other plants to grow into the garden beds I had covered the bottom and sides with one big piece of anti-root cloth before filling them with soil. But the many seeds that fly and fall into the garden still resulted in having to take out many weeds, or choose to let the gardens turn into hexagon lawns.

I love working in the garden, but I don't like weeding. And in a garden so full of grass and wild flowers there will be many to deal with. Taking out plants with root and all disturbs the soil and this is something I rather would not do. It's much better to leave the plants and let the soil life do its thing. Plants and micro-organisms build a complex network to benefit each other and taking out plants disturbs this process. 

Compost & composting worms
 for the garden

Another issue was the watering of the plants. In the warmer periods the garden boxes still needed to be watered. This also takes a lot of time and energy and the children would often forget to do theirs, resulting in double work for us adults. So what could be a solution? 

Back To Eden Gardening.

Some time ago I came across the concept of Back To Eden Gardening. The technique is fairly simple: keep the soil covered... all the time! (And pray a lot ;) ) You can use different sources for ground cover but the one mostly used is wood chips. At first I was surprised since I was always taught that for veggies to grow well you better dont use wood chips as a mulch. But it seems that people using the Back To Eden Gardening method have  great results and with a lot less work! So today, after taking out the weeds and grass ((hopefully for the last time) from the raised garden beds I decided to give the method a try. 

Weeds and roots removed. Compost added to the soil. 

I had just emptied my own Worm Hotel and had a wheelbarrow full of fresh compost full of composting worms and baby worms. The tubes in the centre of the Hexagon gardens were a bit empty and so I decided to fill those with this fresh vermicompost. The worms would not be happy with the bare top layer of the garden so I had to cover the soil with something. And so the idea for the BTEG-method came back to mind. 

Fresh Vermicompost crawling with worms & baby worms

The wood chips will decompose over time and will add to the structure of the soil in the garden beds. But mostly they will help now to keep the moist in the soil and the weeds out! The worms love to hang out under a layer of wood chips and there they will help improve the soil in the garden beds.

The tube is a nice home for the worms. From time to time some
organic waste can be added. Holes in the tube allow the worms
to move in and out of the tube into the raised garden bed. 

When I will plant my seedlings in the garden all I have to do is move some wood chips to the side and plant directly in the layer under the wood chips. Then the wood chips are moved back around the little plant. 

Cover of wood chips to keep moist in the soil and weeds out
of the raised garden bed. The worms love to live under
the moist decomposing wood chip layer and will add to the
fertility of the soil.

Perennial plants.

Using perennial plants instead of annuals will also help to build a good soil-food-web and keep unwanted plants out. Many of the plants that come unwanted are pioneer plants; plants that come when the soil is disturbed. So weeding and turning the soil will automatically create great opportunity for the weeds to grow. Better to leave the soil unturned and covered. 

Let's get some plants in here! 

Build a DIY Honeycomb Garden box for your own garden.

Building these fun hexagon shaped garden beds is not difficult at all. All you need is some simple hand tools and the proper wood. In this blogpost you can read how to make your DIY Honeycomb Garden box. Good luck! 

And if you enjoyed reading this blogpost, please feel free to leave a comment under here! Thank you. 

More fun DIY blogposts from Le Compostier are found here!

Build your own DIY Honeycomb Garden box

How to make your DIY Wormbin ?

A Wormbin made out of recycled buckets.

A cheap and easy way to make your own Wormenpoep.

In many households it still is not a custom to separate organic waste. Big volumes of organic waste are added to the trash and are burned or end up in landfills. And that is a shame. Especially because this organic waste could be used to feed the soil if it would be composted.

If you would like to start composting at your home there are a few options. When you have limited space available in your garden and would like to start composting vermicomposting can offer a solution for you. If you like to start vermicomposting before investing in one of the many  wormbins that are on the market, you can make one yourself out of recycled plastic buckets. All you need is 2, 3 buckets, a fitting lid and a drill to make holes in the buckets. In many fast food restaurants you can get buckets for free.

Tell us why a healthy soil is important for you!

Film is in Dutch - subtitels in YouTube

Do you find it important that we take better care of the soil and think we could take better care of the few green spaces we still have in our cities?

Then please tell us in your own words by making a short movie in which you state in your wond words why a healthy soil is important & share your film on your Facebook Page or Instagram & mention @compostier in your post. And maybe you will win a luxury dinner for 2 (value E 150,-) at Restaurant As at the Zuidas.

This prize is offered to you by Le Compostier as part of our crowdfunding campagne. The winner will be announced on the 20th of December 2017. It is not possible to object to the results of the competition. 

Restaurant As is one of the participating restaurants to the Compost a la Carte pilot and is currently using a worm hotel to compost their organic waste.

Follow Le Compostier on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram

The wondrous world under our feet

Worm hotels for the Circular Kitchen.

At this moment we are running a crowdfunding campaing to be able to place 10 wormhotels at restaurants in the city of Amsterdam. By offering chefs a tool to make their restaurant kitchens sustainable we can work towards a true circular economy in our cities.

The worm hotels together will transform up to 40.000 L of organic waste in the next year and produce a fine vermicompost for foodproduction in the city.

Help to make this possible & support us via:

www.voorjebuurt.nl/en/wormenhotel

Let's leave the earth a beter place then when we found it! 

Crowdfunding for a Circular Kitchen

Compost a la Carte: Worm Hotels 

for a Circular Kitchen. 

A worm hotel at restaurants is giving Chefs the tool to make their kitchen circular. Le Compostier will place 10 worm hotels at restaurants in town in 2018. To make this possible we are now starting with our crowdfunding campaign. The crowdfunding is now online at www.voorjebuurt.nl/en/wormenhotel

Compost a la Carte - crowdfunding Film

For millions of year worms have worked the top layer of our planet to provide loose an fertile soil. This top layer in which we grow our food has been eroded the last decades and needs our help. By composting organic waste in the city we can add value back to the soil, and in this manner create a circular city. 

Composting worms take a place at the table

Le Compostier will place 10 worm hotels at restaurants in and around Amsterdam in 2018. These worm hotels will process at least 40.000kg of organic waste into rich compost in the next year.  

Pilot Project

We are crowdfunding this pilot in order to give Chefs the chance to 'taste' how a worm hotel works. Your support for this crowdfunding will make it possible for professional chefs to experience a worm hotel as a sustainable solution for the organic waste of restaurants in the city.

Give back to the Soil for a healthy City

You can help to make a healthier city. By making a contribution to the crowdfunding of Le Compostier you wil give us the means to build the worm hotels and show how composting organic waste locally helps build a circular economy in our cities. In return you will get a nice meal, or some compost to feed the soil in your garden. Or would you like to build a Community Composter (see image below) yourself ? With the building plans of Le Compostier you will build a worm hotel for your street and compost together with your neighbours to make your own street green.

For more information on the crowdfunding please visit:  www.voorjebuurt.nl/en/wormenhotel

Le Compostier's Community Composter - 1000 L

Build your own DIY Honeycomb Garden

Easy & Fun! Build your own Honeycomb Container Garden

Square Foot Gardening in a DIY Hexagonal Garden Container

Even with two left hands you can build your own DIY Honeycomb Garden containers. With a saw, the right kind of wood, some screws and a screw gun you can make a hexagon garden container in less than one hour.

A local hardwood is favourable, or pinewood like Douglas Fir (will not last as long as hardwood) is suitable to construct the edge of your container.

For the example below I have used Douglas Fir boards of 250 mm (= 10 in) high and 25 mm (= 1 inch) thick.

 1. Building the edge of the container.

Cutting the wood. Cut the wooden boards into 6 even parts.
The length of the boards should be in between 40 cm and 70 cm (= 15,7 - 27,5 in). Shorter boards will make a smaller container, longer will make it bigger.
I recommend to not make the parts bigger than 70 cm; the container would become to big to reach the center easily. 

Cut both of the end faces of each parts into an angle of 60 °. 
It's most easy to do this with an electric shortcut saw. 
When cutting wood, please be sure to wear safety glasses and gloves and fix the wood well.

Fix the Anti-Root Fabric on the 2 corners of 1 side first. Then
alongside the edge. Repeat with all 6 sides.  

If you don't have any experience to use electric powertools, please ask advice to a professional in your neighbourhood or have the wood cut for you in the size you want by a professional! 

Fixing the boards. Use Stainless steel screws of 5mm by 50 mm for fixing the boards together. Place the ends of the boards in an angle of 120 ° and fix the boards with clamps to the workingbench so they don't move while fixing the boards. 

Before putting in the screws pre-drill holes of 4 mm width alongside both end faces of the boards to prevent splitting of the wood!

 2. Placing the wooden container

A staple gun is a handy tool for fixing the fabric
onto the wooden edge

Location. Choose a good spot in your garden for the container (look at sun exposure and shadow cast by trees and objects in the garden).
Lay the hexagon shape flat on the ground.

Copy the shape on the ground. Use a spade or knife and follow the shape of the inside of the hexagon to draw the hexagon on the ground.

Digg a hole. Remove the wooden edge and digg a hole of approx. 25 cm (= 10 in) deep in the shape of the hexagon. 

Make sure the hole is less wide than the wooden edge, so the edge will rest on the ground and does not fall in the hole!

Anti-Root Fabric helps to keep grass and unwanted plants
 out of the container garden.

Add the old soil first.

3. Cover the inside of the container with Anti-Root Fabric

Anti Root Fabric. Cut a piece of anti-root fabric with a pair of scissors. The fabric helps to protect the wood and keeps unwanted plant roots out of the container.

To get the right measurements you place the wooden edge on top of the fabric and cut around it. Cut the piece bigger than the wooden edge. The fabric will have to be at least 60 cm (= 23 in) wider on all 6 sides than the wooden edge.
Place the wooden container back on top of the hole in the ground.

Fixing the fabric. Fold one edge of the fabric and place it alongside one of the 6 sides of the wooden container.
First fix the 2 corners with staples or nails. Than fix the fabric in between the corners.
Do this with each of the 6 sides.
Folding the fabric so it fits nicely is a bit of a challenge. Try to make sure there are no air pockets inbetween the fabric and the bottom of the hole.

It can help to sit inside the container, or throw some soil on top of the fabric to keep it fixed on the bottom of the pit while fixing the fabric alongside the edges.

Shred cardboard and make a thick layer of it.
Cardboard works well to retain water in the container.

4. Bottom of the Honeycomb Garden

If you made the hexagon-shaped pit in your garden soil, you can reuse the soil to refill your garden container. If you made the pit in sandy ground, please only use (biological) garden soil to fill the container. 

Bottom layer. Fill the bottom of the container with a layer of about 10 cm (= 4 in) thick of (old) soil.

Cardboard. On top of this you make a layer of shredded cardboard. Use uncoloured brown cardboard and remove any plastic labels and tape.
The layer of cardboard can be about 10 cm thick (= 4 in).

Watering the bottom layer with rainwater.

The cardboard helps to store water in the container and adds extra carbon. The composting worms love to hang out in between the pieces of cardboard.

Finishing the bottomlayer. On top of the cardboard you put a layer of the rest of the old soil, or a layer of new soil of approx 15 cm thick (= 6 in).

Water. Wet the cardboard and the soil on the bottom of the container.
If possible use water from a stream or ditch, or collected rainwater. This water is more alive and full of beneficial micro-organisms. 
(Note: Please make sure the water is safe for use on the garden and is not from a polluted source!) 

5. Cut and drill the HDPE Tube

HDPE tube with 10 mm holes.

Get the right kind of tube. Buy some HDPE tube at your local hardware store or online. The tube should be approx. 14 cm in diameter (= 5,5 in).
Make sure if using another material that the tube is made of Food Grade Plastic! 

Cut the tube. Cut the tube with a regular handsaw for wood. Cut a piece of 50 - 60 cm long (= 19 - 23 in).

Drill holes. Use a drill bit fit to drill in metal to make the holes for the composting worms to migrate from the tube to the garden and vice versa. Use a drill bit with gauge BS5 (⁷⁄₁₆ in)  or 10 mm.
Make about 20 holes in the bottom 40 cm (= 15,7 in).
Fix the tube with a clamp on to the workbench while drilling the holes and please use protective clothing and eyewear!

Fill the Honeycomb Garden with organic garden soil
& Vermicompost.

Place the tube. Place the tube in the heart of the container.
If your garden container is the right size you should reach the tube easily by stretching your arm while not leaning on the soil.

Cover the tube. You can close the tube with a cap or piece of wood to prevent rats or mice to enter the tube and eat the organic waste inside.
If you use a tight fitting cap you might want to drill some holes to allow rainwater to enter the tube to keep the composting material inside moist.

6. Filling the Honeycomb Garden with soil & worm castings

Use sticks or rope to make a division.

Soil. Use a healthy organic garden soil to fill your container garden. Fill the container to the edge and build up to the center of the container to create a little hill.
The HDPE tube should still stick out two fingers above the soil. Don't push the soil down, keep it fluffy. 

Compost. Add a layer of compost. If available use a layer of 1 to 2,5 cm (= 1/2 to 1 in) of pure worm castings and mix in with the soil.
If you have some vermicompost available or regular compost you can add up to 8 cm (= 3 in) as a mulch instead of the castings.

By making a little hill you have increase the surface
of the garden.

7. Divide the hexagon & Plan your harvest by using a Sowing Calendar

Clear devision. Use a rope, pieces of wood or sticks to divide the hexagon in 6 triangels.
Each triangle can be used to grow 1 type of plant.

More harvests per year. By using a sowing calendar you can have more than one harvest per triangle. After harvesting one crop a new one can be planted.
For the UK & Europe please see this Sowing Calendar (choose your country on top left).
For the USA please see this Sowing Calendar (choose the state or climate zone where you are living). 

Adding the composting worms to the HDPE tube
in the Honeycomb Garden

8. Composting worms feed the garden 

Small eco-system. Place a handful of composting worms in the HDPE tube at the center of your Honeycomb Garden. The worms will migrate through the garden using the holes in the tube.
The worms are at the base of a healthy garden. Digesting organic matter & helping to build a strong Soil Food Web is what they are good at.

Feed the garden with your organic waste. 
You can add little bits of organic waste (uncooked, unprocessed plant material + egg shells, coffee grounds & tea) to the tube to feed the worms. The worms will digest the material and their worm castings (worm poo) will feed the soil life and the plants in the garden.
Check if the worms are digesting the material you offer before adding more. 

 

9. Plant something Yummy & Beautiful in your garden.

Plant what you eat. Choose herbs, fruits & veggies that you use regularly in the kitchen so you love using what you grow.

Plant for Pollinating insects. Adding flowering plants to your garden makes the garden look great! It also attracts insects that are essential for growing fruit and help reduce pests. 

Visit your garden regularly. If you love to eat what you grow & like to look at the colours of the plants & like to see the little creatures that visit your garden, you will like to go there often. Passing by often will help maintaining the garden with ease. It won't be much work to keep weeds at check and harvest the goodness of your garden.

A playful effect by using different size hexagon garden boxes
 in combination with fruit trees and Hügel cultures in the Community Garden.

Text and images are owned by Rowin Snijder. All images and text are copyrighted. Use of any images or text (or part of the text) is not permitted without written authorisation. 

The Watergarden Wormhotel

Le Compostier designs a new Worm Hotel for small communities

In the last years I have focused mostly on designing wormhotels for Community Composting projects where larger groups of neighbours bring their organic waste together in a wormhotel and share the vermicompost to feed the soil of their own gardens or share the compost with community gardens in the city to grow food. 

The worm hotels of Le Compostier have shown it is possible to compost in the city, even on the sidewalk in busy neighbourhoods like 'De Pijp' in Amsterdam, without causing trouble for the surrounding. The worm hotels bring neighbours together and help to green the city, making it a better and more natural place to live in. 

Over the past two years I have been asked on several occasions to design a worm hotel for smaller groups. This week I have build the first Le Compostier worm hotel for 2 to 4 households.

Watergarden Wormhotel at the Green Living Lab
design: Rowin Snijder
© 2017 Le Compostier

Watergarden Wormhotel

When designing this new worm hotel I was planning to make a shallow garden box on top just like the bigger worm hotels have. But while building the prototype for this new composting furniture at my workplace at the Green Living Lab my partner Aveen Colgan (initiator and manager of the Green Living Lab) told me that a visitor of our educational garden had pointed out that we had so many birds visiting our garden, but we did not have a place where these wonderful creatures could drink. 

Hearing this story the idea for the watergarden worm hotel was born. The shallow garden box was transformed into a small pond with shore plants and the worm hotel now features a drinking place where the birds can com to drink safely. 

On the side of the water I have planted some elegant water plants, that will flower and attract pollinating insects and some flesh eating plants that will do well in holding the fruit flies in the worm hotel at check. 

A water garden is a place to find peace of mind. Adding the element of water to the worm hotel design makes it a place to find tranquillity. 

But the water also has a function. The water will help cool the furniture during the warm season and the overflow of the water garden can be used to grow plants in a vertical garden on the walls of the wormhotel. 

Urban Innovation

Our cities are facing many challenges in the coming years. Feeding all the people with nutritious & healthy food might proof to be one of the most difficult ones. 

Making composting easy and accessible to people in the city will help make it possible to grow food on larger scale in cities. 

When we integrate composting and growing food into public spaces, where living, playing and relaxation go hand in hand, our cities become healthier and more pleasant to live in.  

The proto type of the Le Compostier Watergarden Wormhotel will be shown at the Urban Innovation Festival that SPARKCampus is organising in Den Bosch (The Netherlands). 

Composting Worms in the DIY Honeycomb Container Garden

Raised Container Gardens in the shape of a honeycomb at
Community Garden 'Sweetgrass in de Polder' - Diemen Zuid

Honeycomb Garden Containers

A practical layout for a vegetable garden        

Whenever you are planning to start your own vegetable garden it is wise to consider a few things when designing the layout of your garden beds.

One very important aspect to consider is the sun. Get out your compass and see what are the places in your garden that will get the most sun hours. In that way you will know in what direction to lay your garden beds and where to plant sun loving plants.

Another aspect is to make the garden beds in such a way, that it is easy for you to reach the centre of the beds, without stepping on the soil.
Stepping on the garden beds will compact the soil and harm the plants and soil live (micro-organisms in the soil).
There are several styles of garden design that will help you get good results. For myself, I have been lucky to be able to try out a few styles of gardening in our Community Garden Sweetgrass in de Polder.

At Sweetgrass we have made bigger garden beds with annual crop rotation and we have made several Hügel beds. This spring we have been able to build 11 raised garden containers in the shape op a hexagon.

I have been experimenting for years in the garden and I am still learning every day. So far I have found that the hexagon garden beds work really well for a beginner gardener.

Honeycomb garden design, playful and practical!

A honeycomb garden design consists out of several equilateral hexagons. (See here how to draw a perfect hexagon). Making your garden layout in the shape of a honeycomb has several advantages.
By placing hexagon garden containers in your vegetable garden you will be able to work wit the plants easily, without ever having to stand on the soil.

Placing the containers with minimum space in between gives you an optimal usages of the space in your garden for growing healthy food, while still being able to walk in between the garden beds.

If you place the containers a bit further apart you will be able to walk through your garden with a wheelbarrow.

In any case the hexagon gardens will look great and offer a playful solution for your garden design. And it is very easy to build your own DIY Honeycomb Garden!

Square Foot Gardening, Crop rotation & Nitrogen Fixing Plants

Each of the hexagon garden containers can be divided into 6 even triangles. This allows for a clear devision of your garden beds.
Whether you have a small or big garden, by using one or more honeycomb Square Foot Gardening containers you will create space for diversity in your vegetable garden.

If you rotate the crops annually between different containers, you help keep the soil healthy. Plant diseases will not get a chance to build up into the soil in that way. And using nitrogen fixing plants after a harvest will help get nutrients back into your garden beds.

Healthy Soil and the Soil Food Web

By not walking on the garden beds you are helping to maintain healthy soil for your plants to grow in. Healthy soil means healthy plants!
If the soil becomes to compact it cannot sustain soil life. There will be not enough oxygen in the soil and water is not able to sink in the beds, causing your beds to flood with heavy rains and dry soil when there is not enough rain.
The soil life is a key factor in growing healthy food.
The honeycomb garden containers are an easy design solution for maintaining healthy soil life in your garden beds. (Want to know more about the soil life and the Soil Food Web? Read: 'Teaming with Microbes')

Composting worms feed the soil of your Honeycomb Garden 

Placing a tube made of Food Safe Grade Plastic at the heart of the container garden and drilling some holes in the tube will make a perfect home for Composting Worms. By adding a little home for Composting Worms in your Honeycomb Garden the worms will feed your plants for free.

Add some food scraps from your kitchen to feed the worms. The composting worms will transform the organic waste into a beautiful fertiliser for your garden: vermicompost.

Make your own Honeycomb Garden

Excited about making your own Honeycomb Garden? You can find the instructions on how to make your own DIY Honeycomb Garden box here!

Build your DIY Honeycomb Garden together with your children &
get them excited to grow their own food!

A warm home for Composting Worms in the City

Le Compostier's new CommunityComposter at the Kraaipanstraat
in Amsterdam - the Netherlands

New Worm Hotel for Community Composting in Amsterdam

Construction of the new
CommunityComposter
at the Green Living Lab

Some of the community compost projects that we started over the last years took quite some time before they were realised. The new project in the east of Amsterdam took only one month.

Last week a new worm hotel popped up at a street in the east of Amsterdam. Just a few weeks before I was asked by Riny de Jonge (manager of the dep. of waste collection East) if it would be possible to show a worm hotel of Le Compostier at the opening event of the newly renovated square at the Kraaipanstraat.
Within a week a group of enthusiastic neighbours was found and the worm hotel is now already fully in use.

Amsterdam Circular Economy

More and more people are hearing about the community compost projects and are happy to start using their own organic waste. Using the organic waste to make beautiful and rich worm compost to feed their own gardens. Turning waste into value for our local, circular economy.

At the moment we are building worm hotel number 12! And more requests for new community compost projects have been filed with the counsil of Amsterdam for next year.
The city of Diemen has given the green light for a first streetcomposting pilot and also the city of Amstelveen has shown interest to try out a worm hotel for an appartment building.
It's so encouraging to see the growing interest in community composting.

After the first worm hotel that was designed by Le Compostier for the Franshalsstraat in De Pijp - Amsterdam, each new worm hotel has been upgrated and improved. For this last worm hotel we got the chance from Riny de Jonge to try out some new ideas.

A warm home for Composting Worms in the City

Woodchips to keep the
Worm Hotel warm in winter

For some time I had been walking around with the idea to include the concept of a biomeiler in the design for a worm hotel.

In the cold period of the year the composting process slows down, or comes to a still. When temperatures stay above 15 degrees Celsius the composting worms remain active, below that they process much less material. When it freezes outside, the worms could even die!

Last winter the wormhotels for streetcomposting made by Le Compostier have shown that they offer a good protection from the cold, but to keep the composting going some more warmth is wanted. For that reason this new wormhotel has a room to store woodchips during winter. When made moist the woodchips will decompose and create warmth. The warm air will spread inside the wormhotel, keeping the rest of it at a pleasent temperature for the composting worms. Even when it freezes outside!

In spring time the (partly) decomposed woodchips can be added to the garden on top of the worm hotel as mulch, or added to the nitrogen-rich organic waste to improve nitrogen-carbon ratio inside the wormhotel.

Curing of the Vermicompost in the new
CommunityComposter of Le compostier

Curing the Worm Compost

The vermicompost made in the worm hotels on the street is of a good quality. Some months ago we tested the compost on request of the city of Amsterdam. The tests were done by René Jochems from the company Groeibalans. The tests showed the streetcompost had a good quality, but giving more time and air after harvesting the compost would improve the quality even more. 

Most participants in the city won't have a dark and dry space at home to store the compost in a way to do this correctly. Therefor the new communityComposter holds two crates to store the harvested worm compost for curing. Giving it more oxygen and time to finish and be ready for use! 

When the woodchips have been removed from the worm hotel in springtime, the harvested vermicompost can be cured in these crates. Storing the compost in the crates also helps to remove any remaining composting worms from the compost. They simply move themselves back into the other rooms inside the worm hotel! 

StadsOogst Compost for the garden

Chris Mueller of StadsOogst is
filling the garden with Urban Compost

For the first time we could fill the garden on top of our worm hotel with some soil we actually had made ourselves!

The soil was made with our Urban Compost that we produce in our coöp StadsOogst Compost Coöperatie.

The substrate from the mushroom farm of Wouter & Marijke is composted en it was a great feeling to use it for this project.

Usefull plants and herbs are planted
on top op the worm hotel

An Edible Worm Hotel 

As an extra feature we added a vertical garden to this design. As experiment part of the hollow space in the backwall of the worm hotel was filled with mushroom-inoculated straw that we got from Mycophilia. 

The Oyster mushrooms could be very happy under the hanging leaves of the strawberry plants and other hanging plants.

The layer of soil inside the vertical garden adds to the insulation of the worm hotel. This helps to keep the temperature high enough in cold times, and cool enough in summer.

When the leaves grow they will offer shade to the backwall, helping to retain moist inside the wormhotel when it is hot in summer.

The plants used in the worm hotel each have a function. Some are helpfull for the composting process, such as Comfrey.

Others are edible. We planted Strawberry, Blackberry and even some Saffron.

Some Lavender was planted since it is said that fruitflies dont like the smell of it.

Some ground covering plants were added to protect the soil and give less space to weeds.

We are looking forward to see the fully green Worm Hotel in Springtime! 

Making a Greener City for Healthy Urban Living

The Community Compost School

The Community Compost School is the latest educational programme of The Green Living Lab that is focussing on turning organic waste in the city into a valuable resource for local foodproduction.

People are inspired to start composting their organic waste in wormhotels that are placed on streetcorners. Neighbours join to make compost and build stronger communities. 

When using the compost in their own gardens or by donating the compost to urban farms these community compost projects help to make the city a greener place. 

Green the City!

This weeks episode of the Community Compost School is all about making a greener and more healthy city to live in. There are many ways that we can participate in making the city a better place for us to live in. 

During the fifth workshop day we will learn & brainstorm together how to make this happen.

If you want to take part to the workshop please send an email to The Green Living Lab.