A Lens on Composting for the Urban Dweller

In a comment to my Joy of Composting repost, Jeff McIntire-Strasburg of the invaluable Sustainablog pointed me to his Squidoo Lens on Vermicomposting, or composting with ...worms! Eeeyuu yuck, you may be saying, given the topic of worms. But you really shouldn't - worms are some of our best friends. I pick them up from the sidewalks after a rainand throw them into my regular compost bin, I talk to them fondly when I find them in my gardens. One big difference between dead soil and rich living soil is the presence of worms; they turn the earth over, they deposit their castings as fertilizer - they truly are a gardener's dear friends. They also attract birds, which then, in their voracious fashion, eat all kinds of other less-friendly buggy and crawly things, in addition to the poor worms.

So, anyway - what is a Squidoo Lens? I asked myself, and went exploring. It seems to be yet another way to spend hours on the Internet, basically. It's a place to build sort of a little webjpage that focuses (thus, I think, "lens") on just one topic. Here is the introduction to Jeff's worm composting site:

Worms -- gross! I've often gotten that response to my basement worm bin, in which I put nearly all of our compostable kitchen scraps (fruit and vegtable peels, coffee grounds, tea bags). Yet, after a few months, that bin full of worms produces lots of worm poop (or, worm castings, if you'd rather) that serves as a great natural fertilizer for indoor and outdoor plants. Worm composting (or "vermicomposting") is great for us urban dwellers, as it takes up little space and doesn't smell (well, not usually...)

If you are an apartment dweller, or don't have a yard big enough for an outdoor compost bin, or if - like my sister in D.C. - you share your urban environment with rats, and don't therefore wish to encourage their presence in your life - this is the answer for you. Jeff's lens has every bit of information you could possibly need: websites, books, articles, building plans, every worm resource out there.

Now I'm trying to think what I'd like to build a lens about. Right now I'm thinking Xeriscape. Gotta go find out if there already is one about that subject.

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