Science Alive! Episode 9: Soil Science
It surrounds us, and sustains us. It is probably Canada’s biggest natural resource - and yet the one that we ignore the most. On this episode of Science Alive, ‘dig in’ to soil science with the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum! In the video - learn how you can build an automatic green bin. It sits right inside your house or apartment - and makes soil… The secret? Worms.
Transcript
00:15
wouldn't it be great if somebody built
00:17
an automatic green bin just toss in
00:19
scraps and it turns into soil playing
00:22
with worms on this edition of science
00:24
alive and we're with Renee cloud Goulet
00:26
here at the canada agriculture and food
00:28
museum what's in this bar and if box we
00:30
have some word beautiful worms how many
00:32
worms you think are in there I'll
00:33
probably thousands easily okay and what
00:37
are the worms eating the worms are
00:38
eating some rotten food they're eating
00:40
some vegetable and fruit peels some
00:42
stems some seeds all kinds of things
00:45
from the table scraps right so the idea
00:47
is you would take a box like this put it
00:50
somewhere in your home mm-hmm fill it
00:52
with worm that's right and where do you
00:54
the worms from well I got the worms off
00:56
the internet off of kijiji but you can
00:59
get them in your garden now what you're
01:00
looking for is actually some tiny tiny
01:03
worms like this I don't know if you can
01:05
see it here it's on the edge we're
01:07
looking for red rigler worms right not
01:09
the big big chunky worms like the
01:13
fishing worms were used to seeing and
01:15
you can put this box anywhere in your
01:17
home that's right usually you want to
01:19
keep it in the dark and the worms don't
01:22
like the light so they'll hide away you
01:24
want to put this in the cabinet or a
01:25
cupboard under the sink and feed it
01:27
every time every week about whenever
01:29
there's no more food for them to eat
01:31
when they've eaten everything out right
01:32
add some more so you'll be able to go
01:34
and just take open take the lid off the
01:36
box and look in and realize all that
01:38
food you put in there is gone exactly
01:40
and turn into this rich compost here you
01:43
see this this you can put them your
01:44
garden it'll feed your plants this is
01:47
compost tea this is the juices that leak
01:49
out of the box and you can water your
01:50
plants with this you have to dilute it
01:52
because it's extremely rich in nutrients
01:55
for plants and this will be like a
01:56
natural fertilizer and we call this an
01:59
automatic green box because well the
02:02
worms here do all the work you basically
02:04
never have to empty it you have to
02:07
harvest the compost every once in a
02:09
while but this takes quite a while to do
02:11
this box is about two years old and I've
02:14
never emptied it yet I love to dig my
02:16
hand in and just see it like how many
02:18
worms there are in here it's crazy I see
02:20
you have a little handful here you
02:22
probably have about 15-20 worms and
02:25
there you
02:25
sleep so I'm just gonna add some things
02:27
today yeah okay okay we're gonna put
02:29
some tea bags right uh some coffee
02:31
grounds get the warm is nice and hyper
02:34
yep they love this stuff they love
02:36
coffee you love coffee believe it or not
02:37
some grape stems Kiwi skin some rotten
02:42
old tomatoes banana peel well as you can
02:46
see in my tray I am NOT going to put the
02:49
citrus peels like grapefruit and lime
02:52
worms don't really like that it changes
02:54
the acidity of their environment and it
02:57
makes it unpleasant for them right and
02:59
things like bread and bakery products
03:02
they're going to grow the wrong kind of
03:03
organisms you're going to get a lot of
03:05
little white worms and it's going to
03:07
start stink being stinky as well and you
03:09
want to avoid any meat products so
03:11
everything except meet citrus and bakery
03:14
products is good to go now every time
03:16
you add some food in there you also want
03:19
to add some dry carbon material stuff
03:22
that doesn't rot so in this case here
03:25
we've got some some egg cartons yeah and
03:27
this is going to balance it out and make
03:29
sure the worms have everything they need
03:31
to live so if you want to do this at
03:33
home all you need is two bins of the
03:35
same size you drill holes in one of the
03:38
bins so that the liquid can drip out
03:40
sometimes worms will come out to you
03:42
have to check and rescue the worms that
03:46
came through add them back in but that
03:49
liquid that trips down there that's
03:50
exactly what I was holding up earlier
03:52
cool renee code Goulet and her automatic
03:54
green box thank you for telling us about
03:56
it you're welcome this was science alive
More Stories by
