Brooklyn Queens Land Trust

Vermicomposting

Vermicomposting ?– The Basics

Vermicomposting – The Basics
by S. Zorba Frankel
A Bin to Call Home
A simple box or bin is all you’ll need to get started. A worm bin is any shallow (12"-15" tall) bin, typically of wood or plastic, with a lid and plenty of holes for aeration and drainage. The size of the bin will depend on what you eat — or, rather, what you don’t eat. Worm wisdom says you’ll need roughly one square foot of surface area per pound of weekly food waste. Either weigh your scraps or use the following estimate: a household of two requires a bin with four or so square feet of surface area. Rubbermaid tubs come in many sizes and work well (wash plastic residues out before using them). Do-it-yourselfers can construct a box with 1/2" exterior-grade plywood.

Plenty of aeration is key to operating a bin successfully!


Aeration is Key to Keeping Redworms Happy
Next, drill aeration holes, 1/4"-1/2" in diameter, in rows 2" from the bottom and 2" from the upper edge of the bin. This will promote air flow throughout the bin and keep your microorganisms, larger compost critters and redworms happy.

If you don’t want to create your own bin, there are many designs and models available for purchase. Worm Digest has published reviews of home-scale worm bins in issue #23 and of larger bins in issue #24. All reviews are available in the bin reviews section of our website at www.wormdigest.org.

Your bin can be kept indoors near the source of food waste or in the garage or outdoors. The bedding temperature should be kept between 40°-85°F, and the system will process waste fastest when bedding stays between 65°-75°F.

Beds for Their Little Heads
Bed your redworms down in any carbon-rich bedding. In combination with nitrogen-rich food waste, bedding provides a balanced diet for the bin ecosystem. Newspaper is a good, widely available bedding material, as is office paper. Simply shred paper into strips 1" wide or thinner. Coir (shredded coconut husk fiber) is becoming popular and chopped straw or shredded brown leaves will work well. Mixing more than one type of bedding helps to promote better aeration. Water your bedding until it’s as damp as a wrung-out sponge and fill your bin within a few inches of the top with bedding (don’t compact it, though). Now set your worms on top and watch them wiggle downward, moving away from any light.

Finding Your Little Waste Managers
Giving your bin a good start requires a pound or more of redworms (for a small bin of two square feet in area). Eisenia fetida — the species name for the common redworm sold by your local worm farmer or fishing supply store. A pound is roughly a thousand worms and costs about $15 plus postage. You could pick them yourself from a (cool) compost heap or manure pile, but it might take all day!

Do not confuse these epigeic (surface-dwelling) earthworms with those that burrow in the soil (anecic and endogeic). Nightcrawlers and other soil-dwelling worms require a soil environment to survive and are definitely not adaptable to your worm bin’s environment. Conversely, redworms will only live in garden beds that have been mulched with a good layer of decaying organic matter.

Bon App?©tit, Friends!
It’s best to feed your new pets lightly for the first couple of weeks. An ecosystem needs to form within the bedding and food waste. As the populations of bacteria, fungi, microorganisms and other critters increases, the bin will be able to process more. You can jump-start the process by mixing a bucketful of material from another worm bin or compost pile into your bedding when you set up your worm bin. After this start-up period, you can feed your new pets after each meal, once a day, even once a week. They’ll eat most foods, though you’ll want to leave out meat, dairy and fats, which have a tendency to putrefy. See how easy it is to care for these new pets? As a very rough guide, your worms will eat half their weight in food waste (and bedding!) each day, and increase in population to about a pound per square foot area.

Because worms have no teeth, they rely on bacteria and fungi (the primary decomposers) to begin growing on and consuming the organic waste first. The smaller the pieces of food waste, the more quickly it will be available to bacteria and fungi. So, chop your scraps, but don’t blenderize them, as a slurry tends to lock out oxygen and cause a stink! Always bury food several inches deep in the bedding, and either spread it out or feed in a pattern, choosing a new spot for each feeding. Finally, add bedding now and then to maintain a several-inch layer on top.

What are Those?!

Mites are generally found on the surface, and are among the most numerous inhabitants of the worm bin

As you continue to operate your worm bin, you’ll begin to notice many other inhabitants. Among the most commonly-seen ones are Colembola. These are tiny, white crawling insects that eat decaying matter. Some are called “springtails” because of their tiny spring-like organ, (a “fercula”) at the back of their abdomen that allows them to jump quickly. You’ll likely also see hoards of tiny round red, brown or white mites, especially where there’s fruit scraps. There may be sow bugs or “roly polys” and short, skinny white worms called potworms (a different species than redworms). Another possible visitor is the soldier fly maggot, which appears a dirty white/ grey, is segmented and about 1/2" long. While ugly, they’re also a voracious consumer in your worm bin system. Fruit flies are a very common nuisance in the bin and burying food waste helps to reduce their numbers. All these critters work to decompose what you feed your bin ecosystem. They live and work there because conditions are good for them and their only interest is in decaying organic matter — they won’t bother your house or garden plants.

Troubleshooting Your Bin
Your worm bin ecosystem is pretty easy to maintain and keep on track. It should smell good. Now and then it helps to check for and remove excess moisture that may collect in the bottom of your bin (particularly common in plastic bins). Standing liquid will promote the growth of anaerobes, whose by-products stink, and is not good for plants. Wooden bins “breathe” and will tend to experience more drying than plastic bins, particularly in dryer climates, and so may require occasional rewetting.

“Stink” in a worm bin is a sign that too little oxygen is reaching part or all of the worm bin system. If you find an area that stinks, where food waste and/or bedding are very wet or compacted, you’ll want to mix in more dry bedding. Stink may also happen where there is too much nitrogen-rich material in one place. Again, add more bedding to balance the situation.

Harvesting the Gold
The Dump & Sort method of harvesting.

After operating your bin for three to five months (or even more if you prefer dark, very finished-looking vermicompost), it’s time to harvest your bin. Dump out the contents onto a plastic-covered table in daylight or under a bright lamp and form many small piles of material. The worms will dive down, and in a few minutes you can remove a small amount of vermicompost free of worms. Ten minutes later, the worms in each pile will have gone down again and you can continue to remove the vermicompost. When you’re finished, rebed the worms and you’re done!

The vermicompost you harvest can be used directly in your garden or on your houseplants. It’s an excellent fertilizer that you can use sparingly. Because it the comes from an earthworm, however, it will not burn plants if you use more. Mixing it with coir (coconut husk fiber), topsoil, compost and vermiculite or perlite in equal amounts creates a good potting soil.

© 2003 Worm Digest.


Building Your Bin
The OSCR Junior



Earthworms’ castings have unique characteristics that make them an absolutely ideal plant food. In soil, they holdwater and release nutrients in a form well-suited to plants. They are a concentrated fertilizer that is most efficiently used as a portion of a planting mix, but still won’t “burn” plants if applied more heavily. Laboratory trials show that even 10% vermicompost in potting mix improves germination rates, plant growth, appearance and fruiting. Castings also contain plant growth hormones that provide a strong “kick” to plants.



Castings also deliver beneficial microorganisms to the soil in huge numbers, and can thus impart some amount of disease resistance to plants, especially when worked into soil at the level of the root zone before planting.



What’s more, research has shown that the vermicomposting process can reduce, and in certain tests, eliminate pathogens. Some farmers also know that worm castings can transmit disease resistance to animals. Chickens that scratch in worm beds, for example, eating worms and castings, are more resistant to salmonella. We definitely need and look forward to future research in this area.




Building Your Bin

About the Worm Bin Plans:
For clarification . . .

1. There is one base container and one or two upper processing containers.

2. The base container has holes drilled around the upper sides but not in the bottom. The base needs to catch and hold moisture but it also needs to allow air circulation.

3. The upper processing container(s) have holes in the bottom but not around the sides. The upper containers are the ones that actually hold the composting food and worms. They need to drain excess moisture and, when two processing containers are used, the worms will move to the topmost container through the holes in the bottom.

4. The lid assembly is the complicated part. The intent is to create path for air circulation while blocking light. Worms like air but not direct light. You can eliminate the screen but this will make the bin more accessible to insects. If you do eliminate the screen then you can just separate the two lids with a piece of wood that is 1.5 to 2 inches thick. Use screws with flat washers, or the even bigger fender washers, to attach the lids to the block of wood. The gap between the two lids is important for air circulation.

5. I used the 1x2 lath material on both sides of the plastic because if you just place screws into the plastic it will eventually tear the plastic.

6. The instructions show where to place the screws so they are offset on each layer of the lid assembly.
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Wood vs Plastic

Wooden Worm Bins

Advantages

Building with wood lets you get as creative as imagination permits! Your bin may double as a garden bench or a step stool. It can be simple worm digs, or (depending on your abilities and resourcefulness) a five star worm hotel!


Wood allows moisture to move through it and evaporate, which cools the bin. This promotes a drier bin, which helps to prevent “swamp” and “stink.”

Disadvantages

In drier, warmer times, a wooden bin tends to dry out. Monitor the bin carefully, adding water frequently and regularly to keep the composting mass damp.

Plastic Worm Bins

Advantages

Common plastic totes available in stores will work just fine as worm bins, with few modifications.

Plastic stacking bins are space-efficient.

Plastic holds moisture, a distinct advantage in drier climates.



Some people prefer the tidy look of a plastic bin to wood.

Disadvantages

Plastic bins have a tendency to become too wet and develop anaerobic pockets, particularly if they lack adequate aeration. A builders’ tip: drill plenty of air holes in the bin. Check and drain leachate often.


Giving Your Bin a Kickstart
From our Art of Small-scale Vermicomposting Issue


Whenever we put worms into fresh bedding, the bin processes waste very slowly. It takes many days, even weeks, for the microbial populations to grow large enough to make the incoming stream of food waste ready (rotted) for the worms. One way to get things started faster is to inoculate your bin with a several-inch-layer of vermicompost (or other microbially active compost). Place it on the bottom of the bin, below your bedding. You’ll notice a huge difference in bin start-up.

Advanced vermicomposters tip: if you know what material the worms were living in and consuming before you got them, and can offer the worms some of that same material after their move, you’ll reduce their stress, and the length of time they need to adapt

Guide to Vermicomposting and Earthworm FAQ

Young Person's Guide to Vermicomposting
by S. Zorba Frankel

Your First Worm Bin!
The easiest-to-build first worm bin is just a plastic or wooden box with air holes. It may be simple to you, but it’s a dream home to redworms!
Plenty of aeration makes the worms, and all the other worm bin critters, very happy.

Using the Right Worms
Earthworms live in many different environments. Some live under the ground, like nightcrawlers. Others live above the soil, wherever there are piles of leaves or animal manure or dead plants. (You’ll see them in our compost piles, too). Redworms won’t live down in the soil.
So, don’t take burrowing worms from your garden soil — they won’t live in a worm composting bin.

Redworms Are People, Too!
You need air, water food and warmth to live. Redworms need the same things! They’re a lot like people, really. Their needs, one-by-one, are:

Air
You breathe through your mouth. Then air and oxygen go into to your lungs, where a moist layer of skin absorbs oxygen. Worms have lungs, too — their skin! The whole surface of their skin absorbs oxygen, it passes through, and enters their blood. Carbon dioxide passes through, toward the outside.

Moisture
Worms wiggle and move by squeezing muscles around their bodies. Their bodies are filled with water (even more than ours)! They also need water to breathe through their skin.
(Did you know that worms can live in the bottom of a fish tank, if the fish don’t get to them? There’s plenty of air in the water in a fish tank, for the worms and the fish to breathe.)

Bedding’s Not Just For People Beds
Redworms don’t sleep in beds, but we set up a worm bin with lots of bedding in it for redworms to live in. Oh — they’ll eat it, too!

Good Beddings:

white paper

newspaper (not glossy pages)

cardboard

brown leaves

straw

coconut husk fiber (coir)


Shred all paper and cardboard into small pieces before using. Mixing types of beddings is great. Make it damp, but not dripping wet, then add it to the bin. (Make it feel like a wrung-out sponge).

Feeding Your New PetsRedworms will eat one-quarter to one-half of their weight per day. Do you eat that much? (I hope not! Feed your worms lightly for the first few weeks, as they get used to their new home.
Hint: always mix in some good compost or worm compost in a new bin, if you have it — the bin starts decomposing food waste faster that way.
Feed your new pets every day, or just a couple of times a week.
Feed worms:

bread

spaghetti

funny-smelling leftovers

fruit peels and cores

vegetables

eggshells

lots of other foods


Don't feed

meat

dairy

fatty foods

Chop up your kitchen food scraps for them. It gets eaten faster that way. Question: How many teeth do redworms have? Answer: None, they have to wait for bacteria and fungi to start eating the food first, and soften it for them.)

Bury Dinner in Their Bed!
When you feed your worms, bury the food in somewhere in the bedding, at least 3" deep. Don’t worry, the worms will find it. Change feeding spots each time you feed.
After a month or so, it’s good to add more bedding, once a week or so.

Best Temperature & OK Temperatures
A worm bin will eat up the most food waste when the bedding is 70°F-80°F. All the bacteria are happy, and worms are most comfortable. Down at 45°F, the bin slows down, and at 30° worms can freeze.

Who Else Lives in the Worm Bin?
There’s lots of other critters living in a worm bin. Here’s the short list:


bacteria

fungi

protozoa

microarthropods

Springtails

Sow bugs

Fruit flies

Pseudoscorpions

mites


A Funny Critter
The springtail has a tiny spring (called a “fercula”) at the back of its abdomen, which allows it to jump quickly.

All Critters are Good, & Only Live in the Bin!
All these critters work hard at decomposing what you feed your worm bin (the ecosystem). Conditions are good for them there — you kept it warm and their only interest is in decaying organic matter — they won’t bother your house or garden plants.

Keeping Worms the Easy Way
Now and then it helps to check for and remove excess moisture that may collect in the bottom of your bin (particularly common in plastic bins). Standing liquid may promote the growth of anaerobes, whose by-products stink and are not good for plants. Wooden bins “breathe” and will tend to experience more drying than plastic bins, particularly in dryer climates, and so may require occasional rewetting.
“Stink” in a worm bin is a sign that too little oxygen is reaching part or all of the worm bin system. If you find an area that stinks, where food waste and/or bedding are very wet or compacted, you’ll want to mix in more dry bedding and reduce your feeding in the future.

Harvesting the Gold
After operating your bin for three to five months (or even more if you prefer dark, very finished-looking vermicompost), it’s time to harvest your bin. Dump out the contents onto a plastic-covered table in daylight or under a bright lamp and form many small piles of material. The worms will dive down, and in a few minutes you can remove a small amount of vermicompost free of worms. Ten minutes later, the worms in each pile will have gone down again and you can continue to remove the vermicompost. When you’re finished, rebed the worms and you’re done!

The vermicompost you harvest can be used directly in your garden or on your houseplants. It’s an excellent fertilizer that you can use sparingly. Because it the comes from an earthworm, however, it will not burn plants if you use more. Mixing it with coir (coconut husk fiber), topsoil, compost and vermiculite or perlite in equal amounts creates a good potting soil.

Worm Digest’s Recommendations for Further Learning

The Art of Small-scale Vermicomposting, a 24-practical guide to creating, setting up managing and harvesting your worm bin. Available in print or download from our website. Also, the greatly expanded ebook of the same name.

Worms Eat My Garbage, by Mary Appelhof (176 pgs.), is best practical guide to small-scale vermicomposting. $13.

Worm Cafe: Mid-Scale Vermicomposting of Lunchroom Wastes, by Binet Payne (180 pgs.), explains the operation of a school-wide cafeteria waste vermicomposting project. $34.

Worm Bin Creatures Alive Through a Microscope, a 31-minute video by Warren Hatch, shows us springtails, mites, bacteria, fungi & more. $28.


Earthworm FAQ (Reprinted from Green Hut)
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How are worms beneficial?
How Much Garbage Can A Worm Eat?
What Do Earthworms Eat?
What Should Not Be Fed To Earthworms?
How Do You Feed Earthworms?
How Do You Harvest Castings?
What Kind Of Bedding Is Needed For Startup?
If I Want To Use Manure For Bedding, Where Can I Get It?
What Conditions Make For A Good Quality Of Life For Earthworms?
What Happens If I Order My Starter, (Or Add-On) Quantity Of Worms By Mail And They Arrive Dead?
Will The Earthworm Bin Smell Up The Basement, Garage, Or Storage Shed?
How Do You Clean That Black Stuff, (Castings), Off Your Hands?
How Hard Is Worm Farming?
How Fast Do Earthworms Multiply?


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How are worms beneficial?

Volumes of material have been written on the subject; earthworms are the unheralded soldiers of the soil. Among the primary benefits of having earthworms in the soil are: they aerate it, break it up for easier access by plant roots, help the soil hold more water, clean up dead organic matter by eating it and turning it into the world's best plant food, (whether natural or chemical), they contain 60% protein and are raised as a very high grade animal feed and much more. Then again, let us not forget, they make a lot of fishermen happy.



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How much garbage can a worm eat?

Generally speaking, 2 lbs. of earthworms will recycle 1 lb. of organic waste in 24 hours. In absolutely ideal conditions of comfort and ground up, moist food, the herd will recycle their own weight in wastes every 24 hours.



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What do earthworms eat?

Earthworms can be fed all forms of food waste, yard & garden waste, (plant and root material are OK but not too much dirt), paper and cardboard too wet to recycle otherwise, etc. Don't worry about how nasty some waste matter may seem to be, the earthworms have strange tastes. In fact, they are at their highest level of activity, consuming and procreating with glee when recycling cow manure or sewage sludge.



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What should not be fed to earthworms?

Do not feed them; metals, foils, plastics, chemicals, oils, solvents, insecticides, soaps, paint, etc. Avoid all citrus products (oranges,lemons, limes, grapefruit), onions, garlic cloves, extremely hot and heavily spiced foods, and high acid foods. Also, avoid oleanders and other poisonous plants (if you are unsure about a species, ask a nurseryman). Be careful of plants that have been sprayed with insecticide.



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How do you feed earthworms?

The earthworms will need a little help from you in the preparation of some of the materials. Be sure the overall mix, (or any individual waste), is moist, about like a blueberry muffin or sponge cake.

Avoid soaking or flooding the food. Most food waste can be put directly onto the worm bed just as it comes from the table. Just scatter it around the top of the bed.

Before feeding them, the waste matter can be mixed together or not, whichever is easier for you. Chocolate cake, watermelon and Chinese mustard topped with bread, beef, herring, candy and banana peels make a scrumptious meal for the versatile little creatures. Coffee grounds too, they love the grounds.

Grinding (via a blender or food processor) or cutting things up to 1/4" size particles or smaller will speed recycling time by up to 50%. Don't bother to bury the waste since they will come up for it, plus, it is easier for you to see when it is all recycled, and thus, feeding time again. Spread the material around, but not too evenly, leave the little recyclers room to "pull back" from the food when they feel like it. A loose coat of food up to 2" high is OK.



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How do you harvest castings?

With a two bin or single bin "through" system, it is quite easy, you simply take the container with the accumulated castings and pour them into a permanent storage container, directly onto your garden soil, or both. With any other bin, the worm/casting mix must go through a harvester to separate the worms from the castings. There are many types of harvesters from a simple framed piece of 3/16" mesh to motorized, drum type, large volume harvesters. For residential use, a hand held mesh frame should suffice.



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What kind of bedding is needed for startup?

Bedding material for startup and future re-starts can be; Canadian peat moss, soaked in water at least 24 hours, (US peat is too tough & stringy), yard clippings, dead leaves, wood shavings, newspaper (torn up and soaked in water). Garden clippings should have "aged" beyond the green stage. Any moistened organic material can be used for bedding. If you look around, there is usually plenty nearby, inside or outside of your house.



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If I want to use manure for bedding, where can I get it?

Many people live within a short driving distance from one type of livestock operation or another. Most rabbit, horse, cattle, ostrich, etc. farmers will make some sort of beneficial deal to get rid of their manure. Payment by you, if required, has to be substantially lower than bagged manure at the nursery. Many farmers will let you haul it off just to get rid of it.

Don't use green manure for bedding, it has to be dried and composted. A few months in the outdoors usually is sufficient. This goes for any pet poop as well. However, small amounts of green poop can be placed on top of the worm bed if there is plenty of room around it for the earthworms to escape the heat of decomposition. The earthworms will nibble at the edges of the pile where the heat is low, thereby reducing the amount of material daily.



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What conditions make for a good quality of life for earthworms?

Keep them at 55 to 70 deg. F., w/65 deg. being a good average temperature of the bedding. Mean humidity should be 55%, and keep the earth worms out of the rain. They will drown and/ or scatter all over under rainy or very humid conditions. Finally, the pH of the bed should be as close to 6.5 as possible, with 7.0 and 6.0 being the upper & lower pH limits.



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What happens if I order my starter, (or add-on) quantity of worms by mail and they arrive dead?

Write or phone your dealer right away. A reputable producer will replace the stock without question. If, however, the same customer, (out of dozens with no complaints), says that his worms arrive dead, time after time, most dealers will ask that the batch be returned for inspection.



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Will the earthworm bin smell up the basement, garage, or storage shed?

Surprisingly, there is no odor from the worm beds in spite of the highly odoriferous feed they receive. A handful of earthworm compost held close to the nose smells like rich, loamy, topsoil.



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How do you clean that black stuff, (castings), off your hands?

Fresh earthworm castings have a unique clinging characteristic. However, any good hand cleaner, including soap and warm water, will take it off. Light use of a soft scrub brush will speed up the process.



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How hard is worm farming?

Not at all hard, especially so a small, residential sized bin for recycling kitchen waste. An average of 5 to 10 minutes a day will do it. Obviously, the larger the worm farm the more work involved. Nevertheless, one person can successfully manage quite a large number of worms, up to at least 3,000,000. With larger farms your level of technology and equipment will make a big difference. If you are fully and state of the art equipped, one person can manage up to 10,000,000 worms, (approx. 6 1/2 tons). Whether or not you want to work that hard is another matter.



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How fast do earthworms multiply?

Faster than rabbits. 10 lbs. of earthworms can become over two tons in two years. Naturally this presupposes good living conditions and no loss of earthworms due to ingesting toxic materials. The count of individual worms doesn't come into it except for fishermen. The rest of us are mainly interested in the work the earthworms do for us regarding agriculture and horticulture.

What Do I Need To Get Started?
A. CONTAINER
We use wood and plastic containers. Either build or buy, or use your imagination and recycle something like an old dresser drawer, trunk, or discarded barrel. We prefer wood because it is more absorbent and a better insulator for the worms. We use plastic containers but find that the compost tends to get quite wet. Experiment and find out what works for you and your worms.


Guide To Size Of Container
In Worms Eat My Garbage, Mary Appelhof suggests weighing your household food waste for one week (in pounds), and then provide one square foot of surface area per pound. The container depth should be between eight and twelve inches. Options to one large (and heavy) box are a number of smaller containers for easier lifting and moving and more choice of location. The book illustrates a variety of containers.
Depending on the size of the container, drill 8 to 12 holes (1/4 - l/2 inches) in the bottom for aeration and drainage. A plastic bin may need more drainage - if contents get too wet, drill more holes. Raise the bin on bricks or wooden blocks, and place a tray underneath to capture excess liquid which can be used as liquid plant fertilizer.

The bin needs a cover to conserve moisture and provide darkness for the worms. If the bin is indoors, a sheet of dark plastic or burlap sacking placed loosely on top of the bedding is sufficient as a cover. For outdoor bins, a solid lid is preferable, to keep out unwanted scavengers and rain. Like us, worms need air to live, so be sure to have your bin sufficiently ventilated.



B. BEDDING
It is necessary to provide a damp bedding for the worms to live in, and to bury food waste in.
Suitable bedding materials are shredded newspaper and cardboard, shredded fall leaves, chopped up straw and other dead plants, seaweed, sawdust, compost and aged manure. Try to vary the bedding in the bin as much as possible, to provide more nutrients for the worms, and to create a richer compost. Add a couple of handfuls of sand or soil to provide necessary grit for the worm's digestion of food.

It is very important to moisten the dry bedding materials before putting them in the bin, so that the overall moisture level is like a wrung-out sponge. The bin should be about three-quarters full of moistened bedding. Lift the bedding gently to create air spaces which help to control odours, and give freer movement to the worms.



C. WORMS
The two types of earthworm best suited to worm composting are the redworms: Eisenia foetida (commonly known as red wiggler, brandling, or manure worm) and Lumbricus rubellus They are often found in aged manure and compost heaps. Please do not use dew-worms (large size worms found in soil and compost) as they are not likely to survive.


Where To Get Your Worms?
If you feel adventurous, find a horse stable or farmer with a manure pile and collect a bagful of manure with worms. Check your own or a friend's compost bin for worms. You can also purchase worms. Call the Compost Hotline for more details on local (British Columbia) sources of redworms.


How Many Worms Do I Need?
Mary Appelhof suggests that the correct ratio of worms to food waste should be: for one pound per day of food waste, use two pounds of worms (roughly 2000). If you are unable to get this many worms to start with, reduce the amount of food waste accordingly while the population steadily increases.


What Do I Feed My Worms?
You can compost food scraps such as fruit and vegetable peels, pulverized egg shells, tea bags and coffee grounds. It is advisable not to compost meats, dairy products, oily foods, and grains because of problems with smells, flies, and rodents. No glass. plastic or tin foil, please.
To avoid fly and smell problems, always bury the food waste by pulling aside some of the bedding, dumping the waste, and then cover it up with the bedding again. Bury successive loads in different locations in the bin.



Where Should I Locate My Worm Bin?
Worm bins can be used indoors all year round, and outdoors during the milder months. The advantage of mobile bins is that they can be moved when weather conditions change. Indoors, basements are excellent locations (warm, dark and dry), but any spare space can be utilized, so long as temperatures are between 40-80 degrees F. We know dedicated worm composters who have convenient kitchen counter worm bins. Outdoors, bins can be kept in sheds and garages, on patios and balconies, or in the yard. They should be kept out of hot sun and heavy rain. If temperatures drop below 40 degrees F., bins should either be moved indoors, or well insulated outdoors.


How Do I Maintain My Bin?
If you have the correct ratio of surface area to worms to food scraps, there is little to do, other than adding food, until about two and a half months have passed. By then, there should be little or no original bedding visible in the bin, and the contents will be brown and earthy looking worm castings. The contents will have substantially decreased in bulk too.
It is important to separate the worms from the finished compost, otherwise the worms will begin to die. There are several ways to do this. and you can discover which is best for you. The quickest is to simply move the finished compost over to one side of the bin, place new bedding in the space created, and put food waste in the new bedding. The worms will gradually move over and the finished compost can be skimmed off as needed.

If you have the time or want to use all the compost, you can dump the entire contents of the bin onto a large plastic sheet and separate the worms manually. Most children love to help with this process and you can turn it into a fun lesson about worms for them. Watch out for the tiny. lemon-shaped worm cocoons which contain between two and twenty baby worms! By separating the worms from the compost, you save more worms for your next bin. Mix a little of the finished compost in with the new bedding of the next bin, and store the rest in plastic bags for use as required.



Where Do I Use My Compost?
The compost can be mixed with potting soil and used for houseplants and patio containers. It is an excellent mulch (spread in a layer on top of the soil) for potted plants. If it is screened, it can be added for potting mixes for seedlings, and finely sprinkled on a lawn as a conditioner. lt can be used directly in the garden, either dug into the soil or used as a mulch.


Common Problems And Solutions
The most common problem is unpleasant, strong odours which are caused by lack of oxygen in the compost due to overloading with food waste so that the food sits around too long, and the bin contents become too wet. The solution is to stop adding food waste until the worms and micro-organisms have broken down what food is in there, and to gently stir up the entire contents to allow more air in. Check the drainage holes to make sure they are not blocked. Drill more holes if necessary. Worms will drown if their surroundings become too wet.

Worms have been known to crawl out of the bedding and onto the sides and lid if conditions are wrong for them. If the moisture level seems alright, the bedding may be too acidic. This can happen if you add a lot of citrus peels and other acidic foods. Adjust by adding a little garden lime and cutting down on acidic wastes.

In my case, I went on summer vacation and couldn't find anyone to wormsit. Thinking to put in enough food to hold the worms until I returned, I added vegetable peelings, garden trash, and a too-old melon.

We had a three week heat wave of 90+ degrees. The worms felt overheated and decided to leave the bin. Needless to say, there were worm bodies close to the bin! If the environment's not right, they will not stick around.) Ed.

Fruit flies can be an occasional nuisance. Discourage them by always burying the food waste and not overloading. Keep a plastic sheet or piece of old carpet or sacking on the surface of the compost in the bin. If flies are still persistent, move the bin to a location where flies will not be bothersome. A few friendly spiders nearby will help control fly problems!



The Final Word
Taking worms out of their natural environment and placing them in containers creates a human responsibility. They are living creatures with their own unique needs, so it is important to create and maintain a healthy habitat for them to do their work. If you supply the right ingredients and care, your worms will thrive and make compost for you. Happy and successful composting!

Building Your Bin

Building Your Bin
The OSCR Junior






About the Worm Bin Plans:
For clarification . . .

1. There is one base container and one or two upper processing containers.

2. The base container has holes drilled around the upper sides but not in the bottom. The base needs to catch and hold moisture but it also needs to allow air circulation.

3. The upper processing container(s) have holes in the bottom but not around the sides. The upper containers are the ones that actually hold the composting food and worms. They need to drain excess moisture and, when two processing containers are used, the worms will move to the topmost container through the holes in the bottom.

4. The lid assembly is the complicated part. The intent is to create path for air circulation while blocking light. Worms like air but not direct light. You can eliminate the screen but this will make the bin more accessible to insects. If you do eliminate the screen then you can just separate the two lids with a piece of wood that is 1.5 to 2 inches thick. Use screws with flat washers, or the even bigger fender washers, to attach the lids to the block of wood. The gap between the two lids is important for air circulation.

5. I used the 1x2 lath material on both sides of the plastic because if you just place screws into the plastic it will eventually tear the plastic.

6. The instructions show where to place the screws so they are offset on each layer of the lid assembly.
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