NIMBY

Not In My Bucket—Yecch!

or

Worms Grubs eat my your garbage

Bokashi bucketing is supposed to cut down on the time it takes to produce finished compost (plus, with planter finishing and bokashi juice, my plants can get some benefit even before I have compost to give them). But I was wondering if there might be faster alternatives yet, and went searching. The NatureMill is pretty quick, all things considered, though I can’t see spending that much money. Some of the tumblers-with-activator have a nice turnaround (pun not intended). There are techniques to speed traditional composting, though I find them too labor-intensive, lazy composter than I am. Worms? Not too slow, but not nearly the quickest biological composters out there! For composters with strong stomachs, anyway.

I have no problem with vermicomposting—it’s not for everyone, and I’ve had one memorable failure at it, but generally I think it’s cool. (Even planning on trying again one of these days, as it’s a viable post-bucket composting method for cured bokashi.) While there are people who get shivers at the thought of wrigglies in their home, or even in boxes in the garage or wherever, I am not one of them.

This is another thing altogether. The BioPod Food Composter “can dispose of your scraps in 24-36 hours.” Which is nice, I guess, except for the mechanism: Soldier Fly grubs. And here’s some mathematics to warm your heart—or chill your blood:

For every 100 lbs of kitchen scraps you put in, 5 lbs of friable compost are
produced, plus a few quarts of compost tea, and approximately 20 lbs of
Grubs.

I admit that there are some intriguing possible benefits here. Non-pesticide insect repellant sounds great! And if I had a pet lizard or six, this might well be a perfect solution, turning kitchen waste into pet food for non-vegetarian pets and all. But I can’t embrace the idea. I don’t think I could even use the compost tea produced via this method on my plants. Don’t talk to me about how it’s natural, they’re not all that different from the sow bugs and worms that chow down on my compost, etc. Worms don’t bother me, nor do sow bugs, but grubs are different. These things look like mud-hued maggots to me, and I’d freak if I saw one of them in my worm bin (which happens sometimes in outdoor wormeries), let alone whole masses of them indoors.

And then there’s that “reassuring” text on the catalogue page...the copywriter did his best, I’m sure, but it still read to me as

Hey, don’t worry if they get loose, they’re natural! And it’s not like they can bite, they don’t have mouths.

Um, yeah. They also do not have an invitation into my home. I don’t care how useful they are. Your mileage, of course, may vary, and if this is what works for you, what keeps you from tossing your food scraps into the trash, I wish you all the luck in the world, and many successful grub-harvests, even.

Just...don’t ever invite me to your place, okay?

Shudderingly,

DSF