A Few Easy DIY Vermicomposting Bin Ideas

A vermicomposting bin needs to house your worms comfortably. It doesn't need to be fancy, but it can be if you want. There are so many different potential worm bins out there that it would be impossible to get them all down and detailed here. One of my favorites, the easiest and cheapest I've come across is the worm trench. The 5 gallon bucket buried in the garden works well and is not too difficult to get going productively. The last method I'll discuss here is the plastic 18 gallon storage container bin. They are all easy DIY vermicomposting bin ideas and really inexpensive.

My favorite method is the trench. Vermicomposting in a trench is easy. You dig a trench at least 18 inches deep but not more than 3 feet. Those are numbers that I have found online during my research and they just kind of make sense. If you go too deep you'll get pretty worn out first of all and it may cause aeration issues. You can make it as wide as you want. I keep mine at about 1 and a half times the shovel blade width apart. Add some bedding. Next is time to add the food. Let all that "marinate" til it cools down then add the worms. Depending what you've added as food, you may have to wait a long time. I like to fill my trench a little at a time. That way the worms can stay in there old food and bedding until the new food has "cooked" enough for them. The windrow concept is similar in idea except instead of burying the food you pile it up and then keep adding the food as it is available and create a row as you go. I prefer the trench because it allows me to create small garden beds that benefit immediately from the vermi- activity. This type of vermicomposting bin gets rid of food scraps and turns it into gardening fertilizer. You can also grow worms this way. Take them out to start new bins or to sell/give away. This is not the best way to generate excess vermicompost. With the windrow you will be able to harvest the vermicompost to use in your garden or to sell.

Along the same lines as the trench is the more portable Bucket System. I have a 5 gallon bucket with 1/2 inch holes drilled all over its sides and bottom. I then buried in a small 4' X 4' garden bed. I add food and bedding for the worms and they come in and eat when there is food for them and take their castings out into the garden to fertilize for me. I would almost be willing to bet that worms would naturally compost for you if you put food in the ground for them. You probably don't need to buy worms if you have enough space for all of your organic wastes to be stored until the worm population catches up with your organic waste supply. But if you need it to be gone quick just get a pound or two of red wigglers.

Another cheap DIY vermicompost bin is the 18 gallon plastic storage bin. This one requires a bit more TLC to operate successfully. I'm not saying it is too difficult but it does require more attention than the other techniques I mentioned already. The idea is to put bedding into the box and moisten it. Add some food and let it decay a little then add the worms. You must have ventilation to allow for air to flow but it must also retain enough moisture to allow the microbes and the worms to stay hydrated and run optimally. The more airflow the more you have to add moisture, the less could lead to anaerobic conditions and disease. Its a balance that experience will show you how to accomplish. This system can generate either castings or worms. Actually it will do both. Your worms must be harvested if you can't keep ahead of their population when it comes to food. They self regulate their population.

Those are a few easy DIY vermicompost bin ides that you can implement right away. They don't cost very much to build and they don't require high skill level to create either.  You need to decide what you are expecting to do with your worms, grow more or just maintain a colony and feed your plants with their nutrient packed poop. I like the trench and bucket to help me with my garden, it streamlines the fertilizing program for my gardens. The bins work good for people with cold winters who need to keep the bin indoors somewhere hospitable. The design is super simple and can be done in just a few minutes. The worms do really well as long as their needs are met. It is easy to produce both worms and castings in them which makes them very versatile. For those who need something from the store there are plenty of options available that do the same thing as these DIY bins do. Some may look nicer and that may be the deciding factor. Keep your worms happy and they'll do as expected.

How I Am Using Redworms In My Garden

Let me start out by saying that I am a fan of a well fed worm trench system. My garden has begun to grow since I dug the trench and began adding manure to it. The key seems to be the manure. Now that I've had some slight success with the trench I've decided to create a series of garden beds that all utilize the same worm trench.

I dug a trench, that may need to be resized, that will have a 4' x 4' garden bed butted up to it. I will have another one next to it with a small 18" path between them. Opposite these beds, across the trench I will mirror this setup. I plan on having 18" paths between all my gardens. If I have enough room I am going to duplicate the trench and pattern of garden beds. I will plant in this setup and feed the worms more often and see if I can't grow some really nice veggies and some sweet fruits.

Meanwhile I've got two stackable worm bins and an old couch frame made into a three chambered on the ground bin. The stackable bins are doing the best right now. The on ground bin is getting attacked by large scavengers and making a mess. I should put a cover of some sort. I can do that today. It's just so hot out today. I will wait til this evening. Don't worry, the worms have shade all day,they are doing fine.

I haven't really checked the trench for worms, I have just noticed that the additions of cow manure have seemed to shrink into the pile pretty quickly. I need to add more soon. I have to go next door and pick up some free horse manure this weekend. That should keep them fed for a month or so. If not I can just go next door and get some more. Three horses work up a good pile to feed a lot of worms. I wonder how large a population that source alone could maintain. I guess a few months will tell. I wonder how long it will take for them to catch up. I wonder if I should weigh each time I feed them or just wait and let the worms catch up to the food source.

I think I've been under feeding my worms. They were growing and there were tons of them. I've spread them out quite a bit but I have been consolidating lately. I like having less bins to manage. It is easier to put food in one place than to try to remember whose been fed and who has been neglected. I know it is not too difficult to make a schedule and get a good feel for when they need food. It is just a matter of deciding when to do it.

Experimental Results in My Worm Farming Adventures

I had been putting 100 worms every week into small shoe box containers. I was having mixed results. Some containers were growing and flourishing and others were not doing as well. I noticed that the bins that had more moisture were the ones that did better. The ones that had less moisture didn't seem as alive. It seems that the worms aren't as much at risk of drowning as some misinformation out there would like for you to think. I did end up putting all of the shoe box colonies back together in an in ground bin outside.

As far as I can tell, in the past 3 days, the worms seem fine outside. My worm trench is really starting to pick up too. I am not sure if it is due to the increased moisture it has been receiving or if it is the steer manure I fed it or if it is a combination of summer, moisture and food. Since I am in Southern California I don't think that winter is going to be much of a struggle.

Our winters here in this valley rarely ever even see frost. I mean there are some cold mornings, every year, where frost shows up but the ground has never frozen, that I am aware of. The combination of a mild winter and some warm compost should keep them comfortable for winter. I may even try to grow a tomato plant all winter long. I think my porch may be warm enough. The only problem is that there may not be enough daylight.

I also have a bucket with 3/8" hole drilled in it buried out in the yard. I have been putting some bokashi compost and some garden waste in it and there are tons of worms all over in there. My garden is starting to pick up. It has a long way to go before I will be satisfied with it but the combination of more water and the worms being near by is starting to make a difference. It may also be the steer manure I piled on top of the worm trench. Any way you look at it I am getting better results. I am going to make a new trench with a 2' garden on each side of it. I am pleased with my results so far and I believe I will continue to improve as time goes on. As I start to see improvement I also gain motivation to do more work in the garden. It is a matter of how much you have to feed to the worms and how much room you have to keep them.

I recently picked up a new worm factory. I really need to start taking advantage of the nearby sources of free horse manure and start growing more worms faster. I only have so much time each day and only so much irrigation. I need to invest in more hoses and more sprinklers. That would allow me to care for more gardens with less effort. I could also build a shelter for a large quantity of worms. I could grow worms in large rubbermaid bins and sell worms and produce enough castings to keep my yard green. So, my new goal is to automate my irrigation and build a worm shack to house a large population of worms. In order to do that I need to start investing time in getting worm food supply. I will have to buy them food which may be a good investment but getting free manure is even more cost effective. I want to sell them locally but also online. There is a lake nearby that I may be able to sell bait worms to and there are lots of small farms. I need to start making money from my efforts.

What's With The Worm Trench?

I have read of a few people who simply dig a small trench and add some food and some worms and that's it. That isn't too hard, is it? I have begun mine. It is not doing much right now. The reason I dug the trench was because of a natural disaster. The disaster was caused by strong winds and a poorly thought out compost heap.

I had wired 4 wooden pallets together and added some yard and kitchen waste. I added a few leaves and some chicken manure. Then, the best part was adding the palm leaves. I added them by weaving them into the pallets. When the winds came the leaves were tall enough to cause the whole thing to fall over. I didn't want to have a big heap in the yard anymore anyway (although I am thinking that a proper compost heap may help out our recycling efforts). So, I dug a trench and stuffed the contents of the heap into it. Most of the heap was composed of cardboard and other carbon sources.

Now I want to get the pile a bit more active. I have been wetting the pile down every morning but it still seems to be taking a long time to break down. I am going to add more chicken manure and possibly some horse manure to the pile. I know the horse manure will be good for the worms but the chicken manure may be a bit too hot. I don't have enough to fill the whole trench anyway so a little at a time shouldn't hurt. I am excited to see the effects of a worm trench next to the garden.

The Shoe Box Bin Revisited

I am still happy with the shoe box bin. It is a little slow but it is good for creating a bit of castings for some worm tea or something like that. These little systems would be good for a fisherman. You feed them a few scraps every now and then and they will eat and grow and multiply. If you are fishing everyday then you may need a bigger system. I would guess you could take a dozen per week, after a few months when the population grows to the point of being able to produce that many worms per week.

I haven't noticed too many cocoons or eggs or whatever you call the things that worm babies come out of in my bins lately. I have also been using less cardboard as bedding too. I have heard from a few sources that they like cardboard for "laying" their eggs. Now I know what to add to my bins, or at least it is something to try out.

I am going to have to check out how many worms I now have in the bin. I wonder if they are increasing population or not. I don't know what the next step should be with the shoe box bin. Should I keep checking the population monthly or weekly and track the growth or should I add them to a bigger bin and use the castings on some plants in my garden?

I think I will set up a new shoe box bin every week with one hundred worms. Each week I will be feeding a new box, until the first feeding is devoured by the worms. That's when I can feed them again and that's enough bins to keep me on a weekly schedule. Once I am feeding and having the worms finish their food weekly then I will have to find a way to finish the compost. So, maybe the new bins should be made until I am harvesting a box full of finished castings and a setting up a new box every day.

I started a new bin on Sunday. The first bin I set up is a few months old and going strong. Each has had 100 worms added to it. Next Sunday I will make a new bin with one hundred worms and feed last week's bin. I will have to see if the oldest bin needs food or not. The food is going to be some Bokashi compost. If I get real motivated I will weigh out the food. The oldest bin is almost ready to be harvested. I may count out the 100 worms out of that bin to start the new bin. After a few weeks I will harvest the rest of the worms out of it.

The extra worms will go back into the indoor fabric pot bin. I want to get that bin going strong too. I mean I want some castings coming out of it constantly. I want to fill it to capacity with worms. Once I have it full then I want to start a new one. I need more worms but I don't want to buy them. It is really hard to wait for them to reproduce. They reproduce rapidly but it still seems to take forever when I have all these huge plans for them.

How To Keep Track Of Your Worm Population

I need to learn how to keep track of my worm populations. I have a shoe box sized bin that has had 80 worms added to it. I started with a 1 1/2" or so layer of sphagnum peat moss. I added 10 worms a day for 5 days and also added 2 apple cores, some strawberry tops and peels from one apple. I may have also added a small piece of papaya. All that's left is some remnants of peels and some of the cores. I have been adding 10 worms a day for the last three days now bringing my total added to 80. I am going to let them grow on their own once I've added 100. I have heard that worms double their populations every 90 days but I don't know if that's exactly true. There is a good article over at http://www.redwormcomposting.com/general-questions/will-a-red-worm-population-double-in-3-months/ that does a good job of explaining that it is very difficult to determine how fast someone else's worm population will grow.

I don't know if I should harvest all of my worms at one and weigh them or if I should just keep harvesting them 10 at a time and see if the population I am taking them continues to grow or if it gets difficult to find worms in my bin. I am going to have to decide how to track my inputs too. I do have a small food scale I could use to weigh how much I am feeding and I could see how long it takes a certain population to devour what I add, then see how many worms there are after a certain amount of time. I have noticed a bunch of small worms in my bins lately.

I want to do so much with them but I have to wait for them to do something. They need to reproduce and grow. That redwormcomposting.com site has tons of great information on how to compost your kitchen and garden scraps with worms. The guy who put that site together has written about tons of different types of worm bins he has tried out over the years. I've been learning a lot from his site. Google Drive has a spreadsheet that I can use to track my worm population. I started a spreadsheet there and I will post a link to it later, in the comments, when I figure out how to do it. Please help me figure out how to improve on it. So far I only have the approximate date I received them and the amount I received plus the date I should have double my original population.

I am going to add a column that will account for the amount I feed them. I will also measure the castings that I harvest. A later project will be how to process them to get a consistent texture. Not sure how I am going to harvest them either. A post for another day. I've got to go figure out how to share that spreadsheet.

Worm Farm Patience

I am at the point where I have to wait for the worms to grow. They are doing well. I want the population to grow to the point where I can release a pound of worms into my trench and feel confident that I will have that many new worms in my bin, or in my overall population to replace them if something goes wrong. I need to figure out how to feed them properly to keep the population on the rise.

My focus is on growing the population right now. I have many small bins started right now. I don't have space in any one bin to house the whole herd. So, I am going to keep them where they are right now and continue to feed them individually. I have been wanting to try out an experiment with a bin soon. I want use a fabric pot and slowly feed it til I have it full of castings. I will then take out the worms by some method that I feel will do the job, and plant a seed in it. Then take the worms to a new pot where I will do the same thing. I want to do this for many pots and also have a bin producing castings for top dressing and worm teas.

I want to get more worms. That seems to be the hard part. Being patient while the worms grow. So, back to my plan. I will focus on feeding the stackable worm farm until I have all 4 trays full. Next I will focus on the fabric pot. I need a way to quickly estimate my numbers.I need a way to quickly harvest. Well, maybe I could just take my time. I am rethinking the stackable trays. I believe it has about 1 1/2 square feet of surface area and each tray is about 6 inches deep. I would guess that 2 to 3 thousand worms should be a good amount of worms for this system. Once I reach those numbers I will need to harvest some amount on some sort of schedule and start filling my other projects to capacity. Once I have enough where the trench is producing a fine garden then I will start selling my stock.

I need to prove to myself that these critters can make me look like a decent gardener. These castings need to prove themselves before I can honestly sell the worms for this purpose. If I come into a few extra dollars somewhere I may order more worms to help speed up the process and I may look into getting a local group together of about ten people and go in on a 10 pound shipment or something like that. I wouldn't mind doing that. I will try and set something like that up. Maybe I will do that and try to get my worms paid for. Maybe I could go to the swapmeet and sell worms, or craigslist, or ... ebay? Who knows, if the worms act like they are supposed to then the worst that could happen is I get to eat healthy fruits and veggies that I grow myself!

Some Interesting Research Findings

If you are seriously looking into using red worms for waste reduction, a gardening amendment, or to raise and sell worms then you've probably come across the site redwormcomposting.com. That site has tons of articles about the many different uses for red worms and other worms. Today I was reading a few of the articles and I came across a paper from some university, I'll see if I can find it again and put a link to it, and it gave me an important distinction in the direction worm farmers can take.

The realization came when I found out that there is a difference between vermiculture and vermicomposting. The first, vermiculture, is the act of raising a colony of worms while the second focuses on processing waste and turning it into a gardening amendment. The reason I bring this up is because I was wondering how to feed my worms appropriately. The answer was, of course, "that depends!"

What this has led me to is to focus first on vermiculture. I want a large population of worms so that I can process all of my waste and all the waste of those in my close proximity. In order to do this I need a substantial population. 1 to 2 pounds of worms per square foot of bin area is the recommended amount. So, with this new found information I must redirect my efforts. The day before yesterday I dug a trench and stuck a bunch of waste I had been composting in it. I had planned on adding some worms into it but now, that seems a bit silly. What I expect would happen is that my small population, in regards to the 10 foot long trench, would spread out and not see each other. That would result in slow population growth and overall slow decomposition.

The trench will remain in its current slow decomposition mode for now. I just started a Bokashi bucket. This is what I will be feeding to my worm farm as it ferments down enough. That is going to be a few months down the road. In the mean time I've got to keep feeding the worms. I have plenty of cardboard and junk mail handy but I don't have a ton of nitrogen rich material to add. I am going to have to use some chopped weeds or something. Even the weeds are going to be a little tough to come by since it hasn't been raining at all this year.

I read this morning that pig manure stimulated the most growth in populations of worms. Too bad I don't have a pig! Anyway, the Bokashi will eventually start mass producing a feed source soon enough. I will be able to scrounge up enough waste for my worms to at least sustain there current level, especially since I now know what I am aiming to do.

Just to make sure I am on the same page as myself, my goal is to grow my worm population so that I can sell worms and have a constant flow of nutrient rich castings. I want a vermiculture that also produces plenty of vermicompost. I want the best of both practices. My focus is on growing my current worm population to be able to consume the contents of a trench 1 foot wide, 10 feet long and 3 feet deep. So far I have been spreading them out to thin to allow them to reproduce at a sufficient rate. I need more patience or more money to buy more worms.

One last observation, I built a small bin out of a shoebox sized container and added 50 worms. It has been doing well but I think it would be doing better if I added 500 to 1000 worms. I would like to see my scraps disappearing daily instead of bi-weekly. I have 7 working bins right now. I will take from the less active bins and add those worms to the stackable farm. I will use that farm to create a large population to fill all of my 7 bins to capacity then begin working on expanding. There are 4 trays in my stackable farm, 3 filled and one emptied yesterday. I will add some peat moss to the empty tray and begin feeding there. I have two 10 gallon rubbermaid trays next the stackable farm that have worms. I will take 10 worms per day from there and add them to the top tray. I also have a large tub with a tomato plant growing in it that has no drainage and has chickens eating from it. I found a large cache of worms hiding in there that I will begin transferring over to the top tray as well.

I guess it would be wise to take measurements and see where my experiments are leading me and that is my number one downfall. I am almost incapable of keeping written records. It has always seemed like that was someone else's job to me. I am too good to do that. I think it is really just that I am too lazy and selfish to burden myself with that type of activity and my personal growth will most likely continue to suffer because of this shortcoming. I am enjoying this project on the other levels though. Who'd a thunk I was gonna be a worm farmer?

My Bokashi Experiment

I felt pretty brave and decided to make Bokashi Bran. I say brave because I made it all from home made ingredients, besides the wheat bran. That cost me about $20 for a 50 lb. bag. And Molasses, another $22 for a 5 gallon bucketful. At the whole food market they run about $10 for a liter or so. I bought both from some local feed stores. The lacto culture was the most sketchy part. I used rice wash in a mason jar to "catch" the lacto and then "fed" it some milk. Each step took around a week. Then I took the lacto and mixed it with some molasses and some water and mixed it into the wheat bran. I left that in an airtight bucket for three weeks to ferment.

The next part I drilled a few holes in a 5 gallon bucket and nested in another bucket the same size. I sprinkled some of the finished bran on the bottom of the "holy" bucket and threw some way over ripe bananas on there along with another dash of bran and placed a plastic bag on top of that mixture. I put a plastic pot saucer in the bag and a small ceramic pot on that to hold it down and keep it anaerobic.

That's where I am at right now. The plan is to put the finished Bokashi compost in my worm bins to feed my worms. The benefit of this method is to be able to compost more kitchen waste. Waste like bones and meat scraps, dairy and fats can all be "pickled" using the Bokashi method and then be safely fed to the worms.

We will see how this goes. So far I am pleased that my science experiment type of project has worked out like it should. No foul odors or strange colored molds, I am happy!

The Worms Are Doing Fine

Not much to report lately the worms keep eating what ever I give them. They eat soft watery foods faster than the dryer thicker stuff. Like strawberries, they devour them in about 2 days. The cabbage or lettuce hearts take a bit longer. I have started a Bokashi bran experiment. In case you don't know what that is it is a type of fermentation using specific anaerobic bacteria to pickle your compostables. I am guessing that the worms will be able to process things like cabbage hearts much faster once they go through the Bokashi Process.

I started from scratch on this one. Bokashi kits and the bran are too expensive for me. There are plenty of websites out there that tell you how to grow your own bacteria that you use to inoculate the bran which in turn you use for pickling your waste. Then the process is much faster. There are youtube and other sites that show you step by step how to build a bokashi compost kit. Once it starts it only takes about 2 weeks to be ready to feed to the worms.

That is the way I intend on using it. Oh, I almost forgot to mention that it also expands the possible inputs to your compost. Meat, dairy, and even citrus and garlic are ok. No waste, all recycle. I like the idea. Right I am waiting for my Bokashi Bran to finish fermenting and be ready for use. That is what it seems like is happening, you hurry up and do something and then wait. It seems like forever. I guess I could be building more bins and setting up more "worm traps" around the yard. I just don't want to be buying any more worms. They are expensive. I also need to start gathering more "weeds" and composting them to feed to the worms.

I did get a few pictures on my phone that I need to post. I'll do that later in this post as an edit. I can do that from my phone but it is hard to type on my phone so it takes more time to take pictures and post them. That's all for today. 

 

That is the shoe box sized container that I drilled some holes in and layered with sphagnum peat moss. I added some cooked rice and some coffee grounds at the time of this picture. They finished all that and now I have an apple core and some strawberry tops in there. I added 50 worms to this bin and they are doing well.

Still Going Strong

I put about a cup of rice in my main bin (the 15 gallon fabric pot) and it is shrinking. There is a white fluffy mold growing all over it. From what I've read that is like worm candy. They supposedly go nuts for the stuff. I am actually getting a little worried that I may not be able to feed them enough.

I need to start cutting down the weeds around my house and feeding my compost pile or feeding them to the chickens. Then I could put the chicken poo in the compost pile. I wonder how fresh chicken poo would affect the worms. I know it can get hot but I wonder if small amounts would work ok. I am going to try a little in my outside bin to see how it goes.

We are up to 30 worms in the shoebox sized bin. There isn't much going on in there yet. It is see through so I can see a few of the worms hanging out at the bottom but not much going on there. I also fed them some rice. The outdoor tower farm got 10 more worms today and seems to be doing just fine.

The plan is to continue doing what I am doing and get some pictures up.

Surprising Results

Day before yesterday I placed a few pieces of strawberry and even a whole one that was going bad into the fabric pot that has the worms I ordered in it. This evening when I pulled back the cardboard on top there were no more strawberries visible. There are still pieces of the stems but no red. The cabbage I fed to them isn't disappearing very fast so maybe I should feed them more moist materials. I am pleasantly surprised at how well these worms are doing.

I am beginning to wonder if the other worms I've collected from the yard may be a different species or maybe the warmer indoor temperatures are preferred for the worms vigor. The outdoor bins seem to be doing ok too! They just haven't been fed strawberries for a long time. Tomorrow I am going to cut up a watermelon and give them some rinds. I've also got a pineapple I need to cut up. Not too sure the pineapple is the greatest thing to feed worms so I think I'm just going to feed it to the compost pile.

This is a really fun hobby and the work is so minuscule to care for them. I try to think of things to do for my worms because most of the time you just toss a little food in there and leave them alone for a few days. I am planning on building more bins soon so that I have more to do. That will also spawn many more worms who will make me tons of nutrient rich soil additive for my organic garden veggies and plants.

Action plan is to continue adding worms to my new bins.

What Do I Feed My Worms?

I just finished setting up my new experiment. I emptied the worm tower (I am not sure if that is the actual market name for my worm bin but it is a stackable one like a tower) besides the last tray and found around 30 worms that I added to it. I have a rubbermaid bin, without holes drilled in it, that I filled with leaf litter and branches a while back after it rained. Then I planted a tomato plant in it. The bin is about half full of water soaked leaves. When I dug around in the bin a little to see why the tomato was suffering is when I discovered that the worms were definitely reproducing in there. The large amount of water pooled in there is not too good for the plant though, I don't think. The point is that I have a bin that is producing red worms for me and I didn't even know. I am using the worms that I find in there to populate my worm tower.

While I was dumping out my tower I ran out of room in my 10 gallon bins so I used an old cardboard box from Costco to hold the last tray. Then I took some more of the rotting leaves like the ones I used on the other bin, the one with the tomato, and covered the remnants of the last tray. I am not sure if you call that bedding material or food, but since the worms eat dead decaying leaves that is how I will leave them until it is time to add more food to the tower.

I bought a few bags of peat moss to use as bedding material. I am not sure how I am supposed to use it but I plan on adding layers. I will probably add one inch of the peat moss then add about the same amount of composting material, and one more one inch layer of peat moss on top. The reason I am doing that is because I believe that the worms will eat the compost because of the microbes present in it. Another tidbit of info I am not sure about is what exactly the worms are eating. I have read that they eat food scraps and carbon based materials. I have also read that they don't have teeth so they can't bite anything solid. Since they can't take bites they need everything to be wet so they can slurp it down. Now I am not sure if they are eating solely microbes or if they actually chow down on things like watermelon.

There is so much information out there about what worms do, eat and live. They usually conflict with each other. I have even looked at university studies from around the world and even they cannot agree on what is actually happening in the worm bin. For example, I had a bin that I gave up on. I repurposed it to dry out some crabgrass that I had growing in the yard. When it rained I never dumped out the water. When I finally moved the old bin I noticed some worms floating around with the decomposing weeds. I thought that worms would drown in water. They must have come from the weeds or from the eggs that may have been left behind when I dumped the worms out (I didn't feel the need to clean it out real well for the weeds). Another thing that I read constantly was to not feed citrus to the worms. I didn't listen and all of the lemons, oranges and even onions that I fed to the worms eventually disappeared.

My point is that the experts are not all that schooled in the actual art of rearing worms. I think that many folks read a site or two and see how simple worms are to care for and just believe what they are told. They regurgitate that info to try and sell worms to someone else, for someone else. I don't think that the original articles or sites were completely invalid by saying that certain foods worms don't like or certain conditions must be met or the worms will die were intentionally deceptive. In fact most of them seemed to believe what they reported. The problem is that there are so many variables in every situation. The experts don"t always mention that the advice they give may work if there are many other factors already in place.

One thing I do know is that my worms never complain. They have gone up and down in population over the last few years. They have been baked in the sun, drowned in the rain, starved when neglected and overfed when I first began farming them. They have survived and thrived. Now I need to find out how to feed them to get them to reproduce at the highest rate possible. My plan is to feed them from my compost pile. The materials are already mostly broken down and should be easily broken down further by the worms and turned into the castings that every organic gardener wants in the garden.

Since I don't have an aged compost pile going yet I am relying on the leaf litter and some kitchen scraps to feed the worms. I want to see how fast they actually eat and how much they eat. I fed them some carrot peels about two weeks ago and they are all mixed in with peels but there seems to still be a lot of peels. I think that it has been too cold the last couple of weeks for the bacteria and fungus to really take hold and break down the peels. Of course that is only my opinion as is everything on this blog so far.

One of my problems is being patient. I want to see results and it seems to take forever with the worms. That is why I want to get the population of worms in the first tray up to full capacity. The worm gurus suggest around 1000 worms per square foot of bin area. The depth doesn't seem to matter much. Supposedly red worms live mostly on the surface so too much depth isn't going to be beneficial to my herd.

I am unsure if it is a good idea to have the worms climb up the tower or to have them climb down. They have been climbing so far but I haven't ever been able to let them finish eating all their food and bedding before adding another tray. I haven't been able to harvest any significant amount of pure castings. I have been collecting some of what appears to be castings where the leachate is supposed to gather. Some of the worms like to hang out in the leachate chamber and they breed down there sometimes.

Not too sure what is best for the worms or what exactly I expect from them but I am having fun learning about them. I have a 2 year old son who also loves to play with them. It is pretty weird to me to be playing with worms and dirt and getting so excited about it. I see the potential for healthy home grown fruits and vegetable, a source for learning, and eventually an income stream!

For now, another action plan:

1. Learn how to post pictures on my blog
2. Continue gathering worms for the tower bin
3. harvest some nutrient rich castings and put them to good use

Worms Are Loving It!

The worms are loving their new home. I am not sure if the worms just got bigger from the added water or if they already exploded their population. The Bin has tons of worms squirming to get out of the light and when I dig through a little I can't get a handful with no worms. I put some sphagnum peat moss in the fabric pot then put some compost from my other bin that isn't finished and I also put some soil amendments in there.

The amendments were 1/2 of a cup each of alfalfa pellets, gypsum, cal-phos, kelp meal, soft rock phosphate, and dolomite lime (I've read that is a death sentence for worms but they are thriving!). Once they arrived I put in some rosemary cuttings (excess from cooking), some strawberries that were starting to rot and some cabbage hearts (the part left over once you take the leaves off). I topped it off with some cardboard from some food packaging. I just opened the boxes up and laid them flat then poured some water slowly over the top and left them alone for three days. Today when I looked in there and dug around a little I was surprised and excited to see how many worms were squirming around making some good castings for me!

My 2 year old was helping me and we decided to make a small bin for him. We took a small shoe box sized plastic bin and put in some peat. We took some old grapes and put them in there with about 10 worms and covered them with more peat. Oh yeah, before adding the bedding, food and worms we drilled a few air vent holes. They are only about 1/8" holes. Hopefully that will be sufficient. I got that idea from a worm forum from a guy that said he'd been doing it that way for more than a decade. I took only a small amount of my stock to try this idea and if it works it may be a good project for other kids out there and something that my son and I can supply.

I am glad my boy enjoys the worms with me. He was hesitant about touching them at first but now he jumps in there and grabs them out to hold them and examine them. He is very gentle, even without being prompted. I've read that this is a great hobby for young kids and older ones too. It seems to be the case for me and my boy! My wife on the other hand isn't quite as thrilled as we are but she's not giving us a hard time or anything like that. She is only afraid that it is going to get smelly.

It is a valid concern since it has happened to us before. It happened before we had our son. We had a bad smell, and tons of those little fungus flies or gnats or whatever those pesky little flying devils are called. I believe that was do to me overfeeding the bin and it got too wet and went anaerobic. The gnats were attracted to the smell or came from the fruit I was adding. I haven't seen any flying insects in my bins for quite some time. They have been outside and I haven't been feeding them much fresh, as in not pre-composted, fruits and veggie scraps.

I have been giving these worms some fresh scraps and there haven't been any outbreaks of pests. I need to make sure that I don't over do it. I did notice that there is a good sized hole in a napkin that was recently placed in the bin. That amazed me since worms supposedly don't eat solids. Overall I am happy so far with my results.

What's next?

I am thinking about some of the guidelines I've read about worm capacities and the small bin I set up for my son is approximately 1/2 a square foot. So, the carrying capacity should be somewhere around 500 worms. We put 10 in there. We will add 10 more everyday and see what happens. I am not sure exactly what I am looking for or how to tell, without sorting through and counting all the worms, what the population is doing. I am planning as I type. My boy and I will add 10 worms til we have added 100 worms to the shoe box sized bin (pics coming soon!). A week from this Monday will be when we reach that goal of 100 worms. From there I guess we will decide if we want to start a new one or if it seems to be depleting my stock too much. If it is too much to supply 10 worms each day then we will need to let the population grow a little more before we try it again. This is going to be an estimate since there is no way I am going to spend my time counting up 1900 worms! In fact, I didn't even count to see if there were actually 2000 worms to begin with. Like I mentioned at the beginning of this post the worms already seem to be doing particularly well so I don't see 10 worms per day being much of a problem. Only time will tell.

Gardening is difficult, just like raising worms, because there is a lot of waiting to see results. It is difficult when patience is not one of your strengths, like me. I want to see the results right now. I also want to have a production line going. It is difficult to do because I don't have any gauges except for my guesstimates. So, what I am getting at is that my action plan needs to include the inaction of waiting.

With that being said, my action plan is going to span about 3 weeks. I will add 100 worms over 10 days then wait an additional 10 days, while repeating this process with a new bin and then count up the first bin and see what the population is. After 3 to 5 of these I should be able to tell if my fabric pot bin is increasing or decreasing in population significantly, with 300 - 500 worms removed there should be a noticeable decrease. If it seems to be holding up well then I shall continue with this plan but if not I will adjust accordingly. In my next post I will be discussing some of my options as far as selling my worms or their castings or...? Let's see where this goes!

My Worms Have Arrived!

I ordered 2000 worms from Uncle Jim's Worms about 2 weeks ago now. It took about 10 days, from order placement, to get here. They were packaged in a simple little bag inside a cardboard box. It looked like there were no casualties. All the worms, as far as I could tell, were ready to get into their new bin and get to work! I placed them in a 15 gallon fabric pot  that I had partially filled with some peat moss and a small amount of kitchen scraps. I pored some water over them because they were shipped in a dry peat moss bedding.

The next day when I lifted the pot to see if there were any escapees and I found 2 worms underneath. I put them back in and have yet to find anymore runners! When I figure out how to post pictures I will and I will also post updates on how they are doing. I am really excited about these little farmers that are turning my scraps into garden gold!

I got these worms to help turn my decomposed granite garden sites into lush jungles of fruit and vegetable goodness. I also have a plan to grow the populations these red wigglers so that I can sell some. I am dreaming of a huge greenhouse that has worm bins under the pathways producing their castings for the plants growing there. Since I only have a small amount of worms right now I have more food than mouths to feed it to. When I have in ground worm beds full of red wigglers I am not sure that I will have enough to feed them. I can't wait to have too many worms to feed!

In the mean time I need to figure out how to track growth rates and how to inventory my stock. Oh yeah, I also am trying to keep my costs down. I want to use only waste materials to feed my worms. Also, I want to expedite the growth of my stock. I have a plan for that. I ordered worms so that I could see how they are shipped. I am able to find worms, for free, just by moving some leaves that have been mostly undisturbed for the last few years. The only problem I have with this method is that I am not able to be certain that the worms I find are red wigglers.

I am making an assumption based upon the research I have been conducting that shows that red wigglers are "compost worms" that feed on leaf litter and manure on the surface of the earth. Now I am sorting through ideas on farming them. I have been keeping worms for a few years now but I have been unable to produce the pure worm castings that I have bought at the garden centers. Actually, I have bought a few different brands. The one that seems to have the best consistency is the one I am attempting to emulate.

In my attempts I have run into some of the same problems that other folks are reporting on other sites. The main one being overfeeding and ending up with fungus gnats getting out of control. I have a stackable bin, with 4 trays, that I keep outside and I have 2 ten gallon rubbermaid style bins out there too. About a month ago I started a compost heap that I will eventually feed my worms.

I feel like I am starting to wander in this post. So, I will end it with a plan of action:

1. Empty my stackable bin into the rubbermaid tubs, except one tray. This will be my gauge.
2. Find more worms from around my property to fill the first tray to capacity (I am not sure how to tell what that is, but it is a goal).
3. Find a rate to feed that tray.

Again, when I figure out how to post pictures I will update where I am now and continue to show where I am heading. I am excited about this endeavor and rambling off too much about my potential paths but time will show what I find to be the best road to travel!

-- G.