Feed kitchen scraps to worms? Stanislaus libraries will show how to enrich garden soil
The Stanislaus County Library will impart some especially rich knowledge: using worms to compost kitchen scraps.
The public can attend free classes in June at the main library in Modesto and seven of the branches.
Experts will demonstrate small bins where worms eat fruit, vegetables, grass clippings and other plant-based matter. After a few months, their droppings can be spread on gardens.
Attendees who get hooked can later purchase their own worms, bins and other equipment. Red wigglers are the preferred species, not the common earthworm.
The classes will be led by the Master Gardeners program of the University of California Cooperative Extension.
“It’s a great fertilizer,” instructor Dennis Lee said at a 2019 demonstration at the county Agricultural Center. “It’s very inexpensive for you to produce. You can do it indoors. There’s very little odor — actually, no odor.”
Home gardeners long have made compost by layering plant waste with soil and turning the pile every so often. Worms supercharge it in a process known as vermicomposting.
The classes will happen amid the county’s effort to comply with a state mandate to reduce organic waste in landfills. It emits climate-harming methane if buried in the absence of oxygen. Composting mixes in this vital element.
Worms even have consumed some of the region’s abundant dairy manure, demonstrated at a Hilmar-area farm by several partners.
The library class schedule:
Empire: Saturday, June 3, 2 p.m., 98 I St., 209-524-5505
Salida: Tuesday, June 6, 6 p.m., 4835 Sisk Road, 209-543-7315
Patterson: Thursday, June 8, 1 p.m., 46 N. Salado Ave., 209-892-6473
Riverbank: Saturday, June 10, 2 p.m., Santa Fe St., 209-869-7008
Ceres: Monday, June 12, 6 p.m., 2250 Magnolia St., 209-537-8938
Oakdale: Tuesday, June 13, 6 p.m., 151 S. First Ave., 209-847-4204
Modesto: Monday, June 26, 5:30 p.m., 1500 I St., 209-558-7814
Turlock: Wednesday, June 28, 6 p.m., 550 Minaret Ave., 209-664-8100
Details on other library activities can be found under the Events and Classes tab at www.stanlibrary.org.
