The Troy Howard Middle Schooll: Belfast, ME

How To Compost Each school day the waste that is separated from our school lunch is transported in our stainless steel buckets to our school garden, where our students measure it’s volume in gallons. The PAWS students work with the Garden Project students emptying the bucket each day. Then, the scraps are mixed with brown organic material (wood chips, leaves or saw dust) and buried for decomposition. Next, we wait about two months until the compost is ready. The recycled soil is then used by the THMS Compost Company.	Worm Farming When you start your worm farm, it needs to be dampened with fresh water. After the bin stabilizes a bit, it usually stays damp enough. Use shredded paper (most offices's have huge big bags, the easiest bedding) unbleached if possible, leaf mulch and compost to create a nice home from the worms. Add food scrapes, dig way down, moving the castings (ie dirt) they've produced to one side of the bin, put in a large handful of dry paper, replace the dirt (which is where the worms are), then layer on more bedding. You may want to use only veggie scrapes (chopped or shredded) although we have not had any trouble with fruit flies when we chop up the food waste into small pieces and mix well. Earth Worms Digest
COMPOST TEAM 1. Leave class 5 minutes early and put the bucket by the garbage bin. Be first on line for lunch. 2. After lunch, stand by the compost bucket and help everybody put their foodscraps in. We only return to a garden what can grow in a garden, such as vegtables, fruits and grain products. 3. Record the amount of foodscraps on the chart. 4. Bury foodscraps in the trench and cover with soil. 5. Rinse out and return Bucket back in Mr. T ‘s room.
TRENCH TEAM 1. Plan and dig out the trenches. 2. Date finished trenches. 3. Check daily to make sure no foodscraps are showing and that a trench is prepared.
Worm Team 1. Put on gloves and grab a clean trowel. 2. Mix up worm bedding, from the bottom of the bin up. 3. Check for moisture level. 4. Once a week empty the rabbit droppings (include shredded paper) into the worm bin and mix. 5. Dump out worms onto large table after three months or when the castings are abundant. Look for eggs and other life in the worm manure. Use Proscope to view and document findings. 6. Immediately top dress greenhouse/ hoop house plants your new product.