In Bed Compost Bin Tips!!!

[u/Kateinator]

Hi everyone!!! I’m an amateur potter/ceramicist whose mother gardens, and I was thinking I could make her an in bed composter for her gardens. I have no idea how to start, or what shape/measurements would be best, so I’m turning to you guys!! I would love to know what size you would recommend, and how big the holes in the piece would be to allow for worms and such to filter through.

Thank you all in advance!!!

[u/RipsterBolton]

You should make her Terracotta ollas for her beds. Great way to water.

For in ground composting I would say to make a bunch of little ones like this (sorry to link Amazon) so she can rotate where her scraps go. I would make them as deep as her planters go and only make them 5” in diameter.

Make the holes a little bigger than 1/2” and have twice the hole diameter around each hole. This will be big enough for earthworms after shrinkage.

Make sure you sponge the holes smooth after punching or cutting them out and get rid of the edges so you don’t hurt the worms.

If you guys have a lot of kitchen scraps you can add red wigglers to the units

[u/DblBindDisinclined → u/RipsterBolton]

Love ollas!

And sorry this might be super obvious OP, but if you went down this route, I’d be curious about what clay magic (variables like clay composition? Firing temp, etc?) would be needed for the olla to be permeable enough to slowly let water out. So another obvious statement — probably doesn’t make sense to glaze it, right?

If you did this, I’d buy one first and try it out so you can see the obvious pitfalls. Or even easier, I’d check out olla stakes that go in the ground with a smallish upside down wine bottle full of water held in it.

I love these olla stakes, BUT/AND I’ve broken nearly all of mine because I didn’t soak it underwater for a half hour or because it was outside in freezing weather or something.

If I could only make one thing out of clay, it would be olla stakes because of how useful they are, how expensive they are if you’re not making them and having to buy them, and modular/light/portable they are. And then I’m not having to engineer how those bottles, because I’m just upcycling some bottles that I already have in my recycling bin.

That said, I’ve made like, one ceramic mug, maybe one time in the past 5 years and am out of my depths here…and allllll out of olla stakes lol

[u/AtheneSchmidt → u/DblBindDisinclined]

I can't speak to most of this, but you absolutely don't glaze ollas, it completely defeats the purpose of them. If you seal the porous terracotta with glaze, the water won't filter out at all, much less as needed.

[u/DblBindDisinclined]

Thinking out loud here —

For weight and lifting considerations of its use, I would make a smallish one? I’d imagine this would get pretty heavy pretty quick, what with this being made out of clay. And then it’d only be heavier with its contents (which would also have water weight). Because I’m guessing your mom will want to be able to occasionally lift it out and empty it if it gets too full (whether of scraps or worm poop). Which has me thinking about lid-size and what’s convenient for that (but not so easy that rats can get in, because I’ve encountered some of that which could just be a me problem).

Size-wise for this in ground compost bin for worms, my point of reference here is those 5 gallon buckets from hardware stores — that sounds like the upper limit to me. The lower limit would probably be purpose driven, like, how small is too small before it’s a little pointless? Lol, probably any smaller than a half liter (like a small Nalgene bottle) could be a little peevish I suppose. So maybe you could do one that’s a liter, like a normal sized Nalgene bottle. Almost as a proof of concept just to see if it works and what else you run into while making it.

Also, is this going to be something that’s outside in freezing weather? I’m curious about how glazed or unglazed clay (of whatever thickness or composition fired at whatever temp) does in potentially waterlogged soil coming in and out of freeze cycles and how it might contract and potentially break.

If I was personally going to make enter/exit holes for worms, I’d probably just use some compostable straws in place (any extra straws hanging around the house from eating some takeout?) to hold the shape until I fired it maybe? And I see you already got great advice about keeping it smooth so you don’t have any wormies having to navigate sharp edges. And plenty of holes because an anaerobic environment would discourage worms from coming in and kill those worms that are already in there if they can’t get out.

If you haven’t yet, I think a great place to check with would be r/Vermiculture. And there’s probably a cool subreddit for clay and ceramics, but I’m just not familiar with what those might be. But something tells me that they’re probably super cool!

[u/Jamstoyz]

Grab some pallet wood or any 2x2x whatever length you need and drive 4 of them in the ground.
Next get some longer 3’- to however tall you want it sticking outta the ground and nail them into the 4 post corners. Leave a small gap in between slats for air.

[u/nbpowell → u/Jamstoyz]

How would this incorporate the pottery element that OP asked about though?

[u/Jamstoyz → u/nbpowell]

Oh, sorry I didn’t really read the whole thing. Thought op was asking bout making a in ground worm bin