The Composta - Worm Farm & Garden in One

Following on from my post on worm farms and vermicomposting, I wanted to share today an interesting ‘hybrid’ worm farm option which some of you guys might love! The beautiful worm farm & garden in one that I’m introducing today is called the Composta, which is an innovative Aussie design by a couple, Brad and Julie.

WHAT IS THE COMPOSTA?

The Composta is a worm farm and garden in one and is kind of like a mini worm tower that is built into a flower pot (instead of a raised garden bed). With the Composta, you simply add your worms into the worm tower in the centre canister and then feed them with kitchen scraps (reminder about no onions and citrus!). There are holes in the worm tower allowing the worms to travel in and out of the tower and dispose its castings and worm tea straight into your planter pot.

HOW TO SET UP

Setting up the Composta is easy. It comes unassembled but there are only a few parts to it.. Along with the product, you will also need a bag of compost worms (500 is recommended) though I used 1000 (for no particular reason, other than I read the instructions wrong!), 1 bag of potting mix and up to 15 seedlings.

Step 1: Assemble the Composta according to instructions

Step 2: Fill the planter area with a bag of potting mix

Step 3: Plant seedlings in the planter (I planted some lemon thyme, edible flowers, rainbow beetroot and salad greens, all purchased from Bunnings)

Step 4: Add live worms into the centre canister

Step 5: Water everything down and you’re ready to start feeding your worms (do remember as per my other post, worms don’t like citrus, onions and garlic, so don’t feed those please!)

I set up the Composta indoors as the weather wasn’t great outside but I definitely recommend setting up outside as it can get messy with all that soil. Our Composta now lives on our balcony making it a really convenient place to deposit food scraps straight from the kitchen.

HOW TO DECIDE IF THE COMPOSTA IS RIGHT FOR YOU?

I think a Composta is a really great introduction to worm farming and is especially great for those who live in apartments with balconies, or those who live with small gardens, or for people who don’t produce that much food waste to warrant a traditional worm farm (eg urban dwellers who eat a lot of takeaway, but cook sometimes and need somewhere to process the waste) or even people with large gardens but want a small worm farm option on the side.

They are a really good compact option for keeping on the balcony to not only compost your food waste but also allow you to grow food at the same time. I love the Composta for planting herbs and salad greens - any of those cut-and-come-again crops that you want to be harvesting on a regular basis, or things you like to garnish with but can’t be bothered heading down to the garden to collect. Our one now sits on our balcony and is perfect for salad greens and herbs! I’m also thinking they would be great for strawberries as the berries can dangle over the edge as they grow.

However of course, the Composta is a smaller worm farm system, so if you do produce lots of food waste, you’d definitely be using this alongside your other composting systems (say a bokashi bin, compost bin or traditional larger sized worm farm).

I hope you find this post helpful! I was excited to discover the Composta as it’s a unique and innovative design that I hadn’t known about until a few months ago whilst browsing Bunnings so I am glad to be introduced and be able to now add it to our composting system.

Happy vermicomposting everyone, may we encourage each other to prevent food scraps from heading to landfill!