Beginner's Guide To Vermicomposting

Worm Bin

A worm bin is great way to recycle and it creates a great natural fertilizer for you indoor or outdoor plants.

To start your own, you will need the following:
      A plastic bin with breathing holes on the lid or high up on the side
      A container of compost worms (red wigglers)     
      Shredded newspaper/paper/cardboard
      Food scraps
      Spray bottle (optional)
 


For my first worm bin, I decided to make it a tower-style one.  I bought 4 plastic shoe boxes and drilled some holes on the bottoms and lids of 3 of the boxes.  I used the box without holes as a bottom tray to collect any excess moisture.  I placed one of the boxes with holes in the bottom on top of water collection tray and closed it with the holed lid.  As the worms fill up this box with compost, I just keep adding another holed box to the top and the worms crawl through the holes into the next bin.  To keep the worms from escaping, I also put some lawn fabric on the bottom of the second tray (not taped) and on the top lid (taped on).

 

I placed a whole sheet of wet newspaper on the bottom of the second bin.  Next came the food scraps and the container of worms I had just purchased.  I covered the whole bin with a thick layer of wet shredded newspaper.  On top of this, I place a whole sheet of newspaper, so that it covers the entire surface of the bin.  Then I put the lid on top and my worm bin was finished. 

At the beginning, I didn't have enough worms or dirt, so I had to add water to the bin when I noticed that the newspaper was dry.  I disliked just pouring it in, so I bought a spray bottle at the dollar store and this worked really well to evenly distribute the water.  Now that I have enough compost to cover the bottom of the bin, the compost is wet enough that it keeps the wet newspaper moist. 

What to feed the worms:  

- try to limit things that are acidic, like lemons and tomatoes, as this will raise the pH balance of your bin and might kill your worms
- also avoid putting in meat, bones, and dairy products
-  some people add gravel to aid the worm's digestion but I find that coffee or tea grinds work as well
- egg shells have to be powdered using a grinder and it's a good idea to bake the egg shells first as this will kill the bacteria inside the shell.  Adding egg shells is a good idea if you want your worms to multiply quickly, as the worms need calcium to create their own worm eggs.


 I generally feed my bin every 5 or 6 days.  I put in a layer of food and a ton of newspaper and by the time I check it the following week, there is usually only a little bit of newspaper left. 

How to harvest the compost:

I have 3 single bins and 1 tower-style. The tower style is easier to harvest from because I can simply take the bottom tray off, collect the compost, and then put the empty tray back at the top of the stack.  But I always find a few stragglers even at the bottom tray.  To collect these, I simply use a pair of wooden disposable chopsticks to transport them back to the top tray.

For my single bins, I run the chopsticks through the compost.  This causes all the worms to dig deeper.  After doing this for about a minute, you can simply start scooping out the top of the compost.  You can't remove the very bottom, since this is where the worms are hiding, but you can remove quite a lot from the upper layers.

If you care about the worm eggs that might still be in the soil, you can simply keep the harvested soil in a seperate bin for about a month.  This will give the worm eggs time to hatch and grow to a decent size but not grow to egg-laying-adult size (this takes about 2 months).  Simply run your chopsticks through the dirt and scoop the soil out.  Any worms that are still in the bin should be at the bottom.  Just dump those back into your worm bin and now you can safely use the soil without any qualms.

Good luck with creating your own bin!