We are now a two-worm-farm-home. That is: we now have two worm farms that compost our fruit and vegetable scraps. The worm bin started as a science project in my mom’s 3rd grade classroom many years ago. When they changed science curriculums they didn’t need the worms anymore, so my mom brought them home and we have had worms in our basement for many years. Our worms in the one bin we have had for years weren’t able to keep up with all our vegetable and fruit scraps, so we decided to add another bin. We set up the new bin and took some worms out of the old bin, and they are doing well- I haven’t heard any complaints.
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| worm bin #1 |
The worms still gross me out. I do everything possible to avoid touching them directly, but I am sure glad to have them around. They are pretty low maintenance pets and they are excellent composters. We keep a plastic container in our fridge and fill it up with fruit and vegetable scraps as we create them. When the container is full, I take it down to the basement, stir up the dirt a little, create a hole in the dirt for the food and then cover the food with dirt. It’s hard to estimate how many little red wigglers there are in the bin- hundreds though. All those little guys/gals go to work and break down the food. They leave behind castings (worm poop). There is also a liquid that collects in the bottom of the worm farm container that we call “worm tea”. I get it out of the worm house via a spigot in the bottom of the container. I put this liquid in my vegetable gardens as an excellent fertilizer. The worm castings can also be used for fertilizer, but that requires separating the worms from the castings and that a lot of dirty work- I did that once, but probably won’t do it again for a while.
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| Inside the worm farm |
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| worms chowing down on a banana peel |
There are a lot of people out there who compost with a bin/pile outside, but there aren’t many people out there with worms (if you do have worms let me know- I’d love to exchange some worm stories with you!). With worms we can compost all year round while outdoor composting really doesn’t work well during the cold winter. The drawback of using worms to compost is that our composting is limited to mainly fruit and vegetable scraps- they couldn’t possibly compost our grass clippings or other yard waste.
If you want to learn more about worm composting or getting a worm farm of your own I would suggest reading this highly entertaining and informative review/essay/short book about a worm farm on amazon.com. I came across this when I was looking for info about worm farms, and I was absolutely enthralled with the story and info about these worms. I can’t necessarily recommend this particular worm bin from personal experience, but all the comments from Michelle R. and other people are fascinating. Trust me, even if you don’t think you would ever want worms, after you read this you will at least consider getting some of your own.
