You would be surprised how many odd looks you get when searching for worms. If you don't know all ready (and you really should) earthworms are the workhorse of any healthy, balanced garden. I love them. I have found nightcrawlers out in the yard that were over a foot long and looked more like hot dogs than your typical bait shop worm, just fabulous.
Reciently, however, I have been introduced to a whole new level of worm culture in the form of vermicomposting. Now everyone has seen worm bins in gardening catalogs, high priced bags of worm castings as well ($10 a pound or more + shipping). I never really gave either any thought, mainly because I am a low budget gardener and both were just way out of my league... until now.
Somewhere I ran into some links on composting and ended up at a vermicomposting site called redwormcomposting.com and had a look around. To my surprise it really did not sound too hard to keep some worms happy, and the idea of having my own source of rich castings year round did have some appeal. So I took it to the next step and went to GardenWeb for a little research. I am a great fan of GardenWeb, there is some priceless information in the forums there, but I must warn anyone who has not used them to take the posts with a grain of salt and use common sense. There are always those posts by people that are so far out in left field they are probably lost till next week. That warning aside, I definately encourage people to register, read up, and if you can't find your answer, by all means ask away, you wont find a more helpful community. http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/verm/
Now down to business. I went down to the local Big Lots since it is about 5 miles closer than Wal-mart, and picked up the materials I needed to get started. 1 large rubbermade tote with lid, any opaque colour will do as long as it blocks out light. The size depends alot on how much space you have, how many scraps you want to compost, and how many worms you want to use. I got the typical blue tote that is about 1'x1'x2' ($4) and it fit nicely in the corner of my kitchen (basements are great alternatives if you have one that is easy to get to). Also grab a couple smaller plastic boxes, such as the shoebox size, that fit nicely inside your larger bin. These can be clear since the large bin will block out the light. Optional equiptment- a tube of clear silicone calk, some fine mesh screen, a pipe or tube that is moisture proof that has holes along the sides and is long enough to run through the bin.
Building the bin is easy. Grab a drill and any bit 1/2 inch or larger and start by drilling a row of air holes along the long sides of the bin near the top. 10 or so holes per side should be fine. If you also have the perforated pipe, drill 2 holes in the bin on opposite sides, large enough for the pipe to fit through snuggly. If the holes in your pipe are large enough that castings and bedding will fall in and block the air flow, wrap the pipe in a fine mesh screen held in place with thick rubber bands. slide the pipe into place, cap the ends with a bit more screen and another rubberband to keep critters out. This pipe is optional but it provides air directly into the bedding, helping to promote an oxygen rich environment. A strip of screen can be attached to the inside of the bin, over the vent holes with the silicone (I tried duct tape when I forgot the silicone, needless to say it did no appreciate the moisture of the bin) this will help keep any flies, fruitflys, gnats etc out of your bin (or in it should you have a bit of an infestation). Finally drill 2 tiny holes about 1/4 down in one of the corners of the bin. This is so you can run a thin wire in to hold a soda or beer bottle in place should you need to trap fruitflys with a bit of cider vinegar. Let the silicone cure for a day or 2 (whatever the package recomends).
Building your bedding is the fun part, but it gets a bit tricky, especially in a plastic bin that will hold in excess moisture. Bedding is a composting project in itself, and can be made up of any nontoxic, color-free scrap "fibre". The bulk of your bedding will probably be shredded newpaper. Some people use shredded office paper but I don't completely trust laser printer toner so I avoid it. Now mix in some texture. Bits of brown cardboard, a couple cups of peat or preferably coconut fiber (the kind that comes in compressed bricks, you can find it at pet stores where it is sold to be used as reptile bedding, it has tons of uses in the garden!), a few ground egg shells or a dash of mineral suppliment if you happen to have some for a pet lizard. Once you have it all in your bin add water very very slowly (I use a spray bottle) mixing it up then letting it rest for a bit to absorb the moisture before adding more. You want the bedding to be damp but not soaked. It should ALMOST drip when squeezed tightly but it should not actually drip. Once the bedding is perfect, put the lid on your bin and let it sit for a week and let nature work on the bedding and mellow it out.
Now for the hard part, finding worms. Composting worms are not earthworms, period. You can not go out in your yard, dig up some worms, and throw them in your bin and expect them to do well. You are going to have to find a batch of litter worms, these are worms that live in the leaves, dead grass, and other loose material that sits on the surface of the soil. In short you want redworms, and no, 99% chance the redworms sold in the bait machine at your gas station are not the right ones, I bought some at mine to check. Redworms can go by several names including tiger, trout, red wiggler and manure worms. They are small, a few inches long at best, fairly thin, and have bands of light and dark running down their body. No one in my area sells composting worms (or at least I could not find them). Even a wanted ad on craigslist resulted in no hits. You can buy your worms online, a pound is a good start for a bin the size of mine, but the initial investment is $20-30, a little too rich for me. My big break came when we drove out to a farm to pick up some organic hay to use as mulch in the garden. the farmer happened to have an old manure pile and a pitchfork. The manure was well composted, not overly wet and not stinky, and had a good number of red worms. I had a paper coffee cup full in no time and ignored my husband's comments about what "normal people" don't do. A coffee cup, however, doesnt hold all that many worms, This is where those smaller plastic bins come in, if you only have a small number of worms to start, nest them in a smaller bucket inside your big bin. The worms will breed better if they can find each other so you want to keep the population dense, which is why you wouldn't want to let 50 worms loose in a large bin that can normally hold 1000+. If you do harvest your own worms, carefully sort and rinse them before you add them to your bin to help keep other critters from hitching a ride inside.
Feeding is what we have been waiting for. The first thing I want to make clear is that worms do not eat your kitchen scraps, they do not eat vegies, fruits, or grains. Worms have no teeth, they can not bite or chew. So what DO they eat? Worms suck up the slimey goo that decomposing foods turn into. They adore a coctail of bacteria, fungus, mold and whatnot. A worm can process half their weight in food a day. If you buy a pound of worms, you can bury half a pound of food a day, or 3.5 pounds a week. If you have a small number of worms you can feed only a small amount of food. Too much food causes odor, which is a bad thing to have in a kitchen, it can also cause the bedding to become too wet. Most fruit comes standard with fruitfly eggs, if you want to try and keep fruitflys out of the bin (usually a lost cause but a zap with the vaccume hose as you open the lid solves fruitfly issues) you want to freeze your scraps for a few days, or microwave them till hot before you put them in the bin. To feed, be sure to chop up your scraps to create more surface area for microbes to work on. If the food was frozen let it thaw to room temperature before you bury it, if its hot let it cool. Dig a hole in the bedding on one end of the bin, large enough to fit the scaps and be well covered to deter pests like fruitflies. Fill this pocket with your scraps and cover with bedding. If your bin tends to be over wet, wrap the scraps in a sheet or two of fresh newspaper before you put it in the bin, this pouch will absorb some of the excess moisture as the food decays. For the next feeding move over a bit from the last pocket and make another, rotate through the entire bin this way untill you get back to where you started.
That is the crash course in worm composting! Remember, don't stir up your worms once they are in the bin, it will stress them. Worms dont like light or standing water. Worms do need a damp environment in order to breathe through their skin so it is a fine balance. Yes you will see other things in the worm bin such as molds, fungus, mites, pillbugs, soldier bugs etc, all of these play an important role in the composting process and will eventially find their way into a good environment. I don't suggest adding anything from outside such as leaves as they are already exposed to insects and other critters that may come in too.
Now I just have to experiment with how to separate the worms from the castings when it is time to harvest! I will post all about it when I have tried it!
In My Bookbag
Worms Eat My Garbage by Mary Appelhof The go-to bible on vermicomposting, this one is a great read with all the information you are looking for in one place. Easy to understand and easy to read I went through it in a couple of days, while on the bike at the gym. I can't think of anything missing from this, it is the only worm book you would need. |
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