Do you juice a lot? Drink coffee? Use a lot of vegetables and fruits? Where does your “waste” go? If you’re in some states, you can throw that stuff in your green (yard waste) bin and save it from going to the landfill. Vermicomposting is a way to use that “waste” which call a resource, at home. This is especially useful in areas with no yard waste bins. I see a lot online about people juicing and lining their pulp trays with plastic bags then throwing it out.
Red wriggler worms (Eisenia fetida) work great at breaking down fruits, vegetables, juice remnants, coffee grounds, and more. These worms are extremely efficient and relatively fast at breaking down these fruit cores and lettuce ends to a very rich nutrient compost for your garden. You can sometimes find these red wriggler worms at bait shops, online, and soon through me! You can farm these worms at home with a rubbermaid container, a few pieces old wood constructed into a box, a five gallon container, a purchased worm farm kit, etc.. I find the more wide and shallow the structure, the better the environment for the worms. These worms generally live in the top 12″ of the soil while night crawlers can go much deeper into the ground. These bins for the worms must be aerated. At the very least, you want drainage holes on the bottom and a loose fitting lid for the top. Worms need oxygen too!
Here is a list of what you’ll need:
- Newspaper
- Sticks
- A box for your worms
- Worms!
- Some soil
- And some leftover food waste (no meat or oils)
Step 1-
Make sure your box is well ventilated. In my case, I drilled hole on the bottom and sides of the rubbermaid container with a 5/16″ drill bit.
Step 2-
Layer sticks in a crossing pattern. This will help the bin drain.
Step 3-
Tear newspaper length wise and lay that over the sticks.
Step 4-
Put an inch of soil in the box over the newspaper.
Step 5-
Lay worms on top of the soil.
Step 6-
Chop of the food waste into small pieces and lay on top. Tip: Don’t overload the bin with food scraps at first. They take a while to get going and giving them too much food may kill them and make your bin stinky! They generally take a month to get used to their new home.
Step 7-
Shred more newspaper length wise and lay on top.
Step 8-
Moisten the newspaper and attach the lid. You do not want an airtight lid.
Tips:
- The worms don’t want to be soaking wet but they despise being dry. Think of a wrung out sponge!
- You can replace the newspaper with leaves too. Make sure not to use conifer (redwood, pine, etc.) leaves because worms do not digest those. Those leaves and needles require fungi to break them down.
- Do you juice a lot? That pulp is excellent worm food, you’ve done have the work for them by grinding it up like that.
I will be selling worms in about two months, ready for spring time!
dirt and diy 