How To Make A Worm Compost Bin
Saving your kitchen scraps can improve your garden and at the same time help trim down on landfill waste. Your left over organic scraps and coffee grounds can provide contribute fertilizer to your new strawberries and other garden plants. When vegetable and other organic scraps are eaten and processed by compost worms it becomes a high quality plant food, also known as worm castings. A worm compost bin will be able to get you well on your way to an inexpensive and ample supply of garden fertilizer.
The Bin – Step number one is the bin. There are plenty of different bins available to buy or for the do-it-yourself friends building a worm compost bin can be relatively straightforward. The most common DIY bin is to use a storage bin. A 12 gallon bin would be a good start and than just add more worm bins as needed to increase your production rate.
Drill -inch holes down the sides approximately 3-4 inches apart. A mesh can be used to cover the holes if you see flies buzzing around.
Creating Worm Tea (optional) – Worm tea gives your garden an instant boost. To add a simple compost tea option, just add a faucet or hole and plug towards the bottom of the compost bin. Add small amounts of water, do not flood out your worms, and allow liquid to drip into another container. Add about a cup or two to each gallon of water and water as usual.
Worm Bedding – The largest part of you worm environment will be worm bedding. Worm bedding is used to maintain moisture levels, somewhere to bury your scraps, and a place for your worms to work. Bedding can be made from strips of newspaper, partially decomposed leaves, wood chips, and/or coconut fibers. My preference is mixture of the above. Just play with the mix to get the consistency you are looking for. I don’t like to recommend peat moss as there is to much controversy around it being renewable and the destruction of the forest when harvested.
You will also need to mix in some dirt with the bedding. Since worms do not have any teeth they need some type of grit in their digestive track to grind the vegetable scraps up.
You Need Red Wigglers – Not any worm will work and although systems can be created for regular earthworms the worm compost bin described above will require red wigglers. These worms stay at the top where you will be placing your scraps. They will thrive in this environment.
How Many Worms – For most worm compost bins you can start out with a ratio of 2:1. This refers to the ratio of the weight of worms and the weight of organic scraps you will produce each day. This means for every pound of organic scraps you add to the bin each day you should have 2 pounds of worms.
Worm Bin Care – You should check you worm bin daily until you get a good feel for it. Keep the bedding moist, a spray bottle works well and try to keep the bin between 60 and 70 degrees F. Light is meaningless to them so some basements work well. If you notice an unpleasant smell from the bin, try adding more worm bedding.
Creating a worm bin can provide fun and education to the whole family. It is a good way to explain the process to children and the worms can sometimes feel like pets.
Richard Allen composts to create fertilizer for his organic garden and to help the environment. For more articles and information on having a worm composting bin, please visit Discover Composting.com.
