Category: How-to Articles
Building An Indoor Worm Bin
Composting is a great way to reduce waste and create nutrient-rich soil for your plants. If you don’t have outdoor space for a compost pile or want to compost year-round, an indoor red wiggler composting bin can be a great solution. In this article, we’ll guide you through building and maintaining an indoor worm bin out of a plastic tub, and we’ll also show you how to use a paper shredder to create bedding from cardboard and newspaper.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Before we dive into how to build an indoor worm bin, let’s talk about the importance of reducing, reusing, and recycling. By reducing the amount of waste we produce, we can save natural resources and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Reusing items instead of buying new can also save resources and money, and recycling keeps materials out of landfills and reduces the need for virgin materials. When building your composting bin, try to use items you already have on hand or can find at a thrift store or garage sale. You’ll be reducing waste and saving money at the same time.
Building Your Indoor Composting Bin
To begin building an indoor worm bin, you’ll need a plastic tub with lid. A tray big enough for the tub to sit in is ideal in case you have drainage and it’s not in a place where that’s okay. You’ll also need a drill with a 1/4-inch bit, some newspaper and/or cardboard, and some red wiggler worms.
First, drill a series of holes around the sides of the tub. These holes will allow air to circulate through and above the compost and the lower holes near the bottom will allow excess liquid to drain out.
Next, add a layer of shredded newspaper or cardboard to the bottom of the tub. This will be the bedding for your worms. Shredded newspaper and cardboard are great choices for bedding because they are absorbent and provide carbon for the composting process. Use a paper shredder to shred the newspaper and cardboard into small pieces if you can. When shredding cardboard, remove any tape, staples, or plastic labels first. Mixing both cardboard and newspaper can create a nice balanced bedding for your worms.
Adding Worms and Food
Now it’s time to add your red wiggler worms. You can order worms from us by clicking here! Red wigglers are great for indoor composting because they are hardy, reproduce quickly, and don’t mind living in close quarters. Start with about one pound of worms for a typical indoor composting bin. DO NOT SPREAD THE WORMS OUT. They will migrate where they feel comfortable. They don’t need our help.
Once you’ve added your worms you can then add a little bit of food waste to get them going. Red wigglers like to eat a variety of organic matter, including fruit and vegetable scraps, coffee grounds, and eggshells. Avoid adding meat, dairy, and oily foods to your indoor compost bin, as they can attract pests and create unpleasant odors. Be mindful of how wet your food scraps are when adding to the bin as those will affect moisture content.
After feeding, top off the bin with another (moist) layer of bedding. and add the lid.
Maintaining Your Indoor Composting Bin
Maintaining your indoor composting bin is easy once you get the hang of it. Here are a few tips to keep in mind:
Keep the bedding moist but not wet. The compost should feel like a damp sponge. If it’s too dry, add a little bit of water. If it’s too wet, add some more dry bedding.
Add food scraps regularly but in small amounts. You don’t want to overwhelm the worms with too much food at once, especially in a new bin. As your worms multiply and you notice the food scraps disappearing faster, add more as needed.
Stir the compost occasionally to help maintain good aeration. Use your hands or a handheld garden fork to break up any clumps as needed.
When the compost bin has gotten full or you just need some castings for your plants, it’s time to harvest the “black gold.” You can do this a few ways depending on the dimensions of your bin. One way is by moving the compost and worms to one side of the bin and adding fresh bedding and food to the empty side. The worms will migrate to the fresh food, leaving the finished compost behind.
Another way is to screen/sift the compost in a small tub with MANY 1/8” – 3/16” holes drilled into it and used like a shaker box you put compost in, shake it and the sifted compost falls out the bottom and the worms stay in the tub to be added to a fresh bin or bartered with.
In Conclusion
Building an indoor worm bin out of plastic tubs is a great way to reduce waste and create nutrient-rich soil for your plants. By using a paper shredder to create bedding from cardboard and newspaper, you can reuse these materials and reduce waste even further. Remember to always try to reduce, reuse, and recycle whenever possible, and to use items you already have on hand or can find secondhand to build your composting bin. With a little bit of effort and care, you’ll be rewarded with rich compost and healthy plants.
Worm Compost Tea: All-natural awesomess. Easy to make at home.
Worm tea, also known as vermicomposting tea or worm castings tea, is a nutrient-rich liquid that can be used as an organic fertilizer and natural pest control for plants. It is made by steeping worm castings, unsulphured molasses, and water, while adding air through a fish tank pump and air stone. The resulting liquid is a powerful brew that can enhance plant growth and ward off pests, while also improving soil quality and increasing soil biodiversity. In this article, we will explore the benefits of worm tea and provide a step-by-step guide for making it at home.
Benefits of Worm Compost Tea:
- Provides essential nutrients for plant growth: Worm tea is a rich source of nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and micronutrients. These nutrients are vital for plant growth and development, and worm tea provides them in a form that is readily available to plants.
- Improves soil quality: Worm tea helps to improve soil structure and texture, making it easier for plants to absorb nutrients and water. It also increases soil biodiversity, which promotes healthy soil microbial activity.
- Enhances plant growth: The nutrients in worm tea are quickly absorbed by plants, which can result in faster growth, stronger roots, and higher yields.
- Natural pest control: Worm tea contains beneficial microorganisms that can help to control plant pests and diseases. These microorganisms work by competing with harmful pathogens for resources, or by directly attacking them.
- Environmentally friendly: Worm tea is an organic and sustainable alternative to chemical fertilizers and pesticides. It is made from natural materials and is safe for the environment, people, and pets.
How to Make Worm Tea:
Materials needed:
- 5-gallon bucket
- 2 cups of worm castings
- 4 tablespoons unsulphured molasses
- Fish tank pump and air stone
- Fresh or dechlorinated water
Step 1: Fill the 5-gallon bucket with water. The water should NOT be chlorinated city water. If it is, let the water sit in the bucket for 24 hours to dechlorinate.
Step 2: Add 2 cups of worm castings to the bucket or make a tea bag out of your straining cloth.
Step 3: Add 4 tablesooons of unsulphured molasses to the bucket. The molasses will provide food for the microorganisms in the worm castings, which will help to multiply and create a more potent tea.
Step 4: Mix the contents of the bucket thoroughly using a wooden spoon or stick.
Step 5: Attach the air stone to the fish tank pump and place it in the bottom of the bucket. Turn on the pump and let it run for 24 to 48 hours. The air stone will create bubbles that will oxygenate the tea, which will promote the growth of millions and millions of beneficial microorganisms.
Step 6: After 24 to 48 hours, turn off the pump and let the worm castings settle to the bottom of the bucket.
Step 7: Use a strainer, cheesecloth, microfiber or t-shirt doubled/tripled up, to strain the tea, removing any remaining worm castings or debris. If you plan to use your worm tea in a sprayer, strain accordingly to prevent clogging the sprayer.
You may also use the aforementioned materials to create a “tea bag” of sorts to hang into the bucket by a string. Make the tea bag loose if you do and refrain from tying it tight. Allow the water and air bubbles to circulate through the castings.
Step 8: Dilute the tea with water, using a ratio of 1:10 (one part tea to ten parts water). This will create a liquid fertilizer that can be applied directly to plants.
Using Worm Tea:
To use worm tea as a fertilizer, simply pour the diluted tea directly onto the soil around the base of plants. You can also use it as a foliar spray by spraying the leaves of plants with the diluted tea. This will provide a quick boost of nutrients to the plant, while also helping to protect it from pests and diseases.
To use worm tea as a natural pest control, spray it directly onto the leaves and stems of plants. The beneficial microorganisms in the tea will compete with harmful pathogens for resources, or attack them directly, helping to control plant pests and diseases.
It is important to note that worm tea is a powerful brew, and should be used in moderation. Overuse can lead to nutrient burn or the buildup of salts in the soil, which can harm plants. It is recommended to apply worm tea once every two to four weeks, depending on the plant’s needs.
Conclusion:
Worm compost tea is a natural and sustainable way to provide essential nutrients for plants, improve soil quality, enhance plant growth, and control pests and diseases. It is easy to make at home, using just a few simple materials, and can be used on a wide variety of plants. By incorporating worm tea into your gardening routine, you can promote healthier, more vibrant plants, while also reducing your environmental impact and promoting soil biodiversity.
Composting Worms Springtime Update
Hello everyone. Wow, what a difference some warmer temperatures make. Below is a video from our YouTube channel that Sam made of the worm composting beds after a nice heavy feeding of cucumber food waste. Look at how fat and healthy the composting worms are!
Get your red wigglers now in our shop! We are now shipping everywhere in the continental US. We also have worm castings, worm bins and straw for bedding. Let us show you what red wigglers can do for your small garden or farm.
Here is the video from our YouTube channel of the owner of DIWW, Sam McCarthy, getting ready to harvest some worms for a customer. As you can see, our worm beds are made of straw bales put end to end to form sort of a raised bed.
When we build our beds we start off with laying out the straw bales and then adding 4″-6″ of a mix of manure/leaves/food waste. We then moisten our base layer mix and populate the bed with worms from an existing bed. Finally, we add a healthy top cover of bedding and water the bed one more time.
Without further ado, here is our YouTube video. Please do not forget to like and subscribe to our channel! Happy composting everyone!
Worm Composting Outdoors In Winter
A few thoughts on worm composting in winter with red wiggler worms. I have been raising and selling red worms in the Santa Fe area for over 20 years and I have found that the winter survival of the worms is a non-issue if a few critical criteria are attended to:
1. Feeding and watering of the worm bin during the cold is a must. The internal warmth of the system depends on these inputs. An active pile is a warm pile. In my experience, those piles that lose their worms during the winter are almost exclusively in bins whose keepers withheld water fearing adding such would cause the bin to freeze. A dry bin will be less active and, thus, colder than a properly moistened one. Furthermore, worms will leave a dry bin as they require moisture to breathe. Additionally, mice will soon find, and nest in, dry worm bedding. Another mistake in terms of water management is to construct a bin with pallets or wire which allow for far too much airflow and drying of the bedding. Straw bales and solid wood walls minimize water loss while still “breathing”. The worm composting bin, absolutely, needs less water in the cold months, but maintenance of the moisture level is absolutely critical.
2. Bin volume is critical to retention of warmth. And by “bin volume” I am really referring to the volume of bedding, as the bedding is really doing the work, rather than the bin itself. I build wooden boxes that are approximately 3 feet square (volume approx. 200 gallons) and I have never had one freeze beyond a few inches from the surface. It should be noted that I experimented with a much smaller commercially-available plastic worm composting bin that, amazingly, the worms survived a week or so of -15 F temps during the winter of 2011. The volume of that bin is on the order of 50 to 75 gallons and, due to the small volume, required much more attention as it dried out very rapidly as compared to a bin of larger volume. In my opinion, a bin of this type and size nearly guarantees failure for the beginning composter. Larger bins are easier to maintain. Also worth noting, high summer temperatures and solar exposure are serious challenges for the worms, and larger bins excel here, as well.
3. Regular additions of coarse bulking materials (bedding) is crucial. I find success in all seasons depends on an abundance of bedding. Red wigglers thrive in moistened straw and other materials like leaves and shredded paper. The more bedding the better. A very thick layer of bedding on top insulates, slows water-loss, and keeps flies and scavengers alike from finding the buried layer of food scraps. For all of these reasons, the worm bin should be kept full of bedding. For those who are experienced with building “conventional” bacteria-based compost piles, this method may seem odd at first, given that It seems strange to fill a worm composting bin with carbon, initially, with little to no nitrogen. However, once you see the worms thriving within the large volume of moistened bedding, and watch them quickly consume any additions of nitrogen-rich materials buried within the bedding, it will begin to make sense. The bedding provides both an energy-rich source of food -carbon- but, critically, also serves as the “house”. Nitrogen added over time suits the worms perfectly. As the bedding decomposes, the level of the pile falls, making room for additional layers of bedding and nitrogen. Finished worm castings -worm compost- builds from the bottom of the bin. In my experience, a 3’x3’x3′ bin will take about a year for an average household to fill. Bins made of bales can be any size, keeping in mind the fact that increasing the surface area relative to the overall volume, will increase water-loss. I find the cube shape to be ideal.
4. Additional considerations. During the cold months, a small bit of mixing or light turning of the bedding when adding food scraps and water will stimulate microbial activity and produce warmth without harming the worms. As well, the additional heat from a layer of manure can be helpful. Layers of nitrogen-rich materials may, temporarily, become too hot for the worms, but they successfully retreat to the cooler confines of the bin, returning to the soon-cooled layer.
Over the years at my booth at the Santa Fe Farmers Market, I have been amazed to meet many successful vermi-composters from climates with much colder winters than ours. I hope these recommendations will help keeping your worms happy all winter long!
This article on worm composting in winter time was written by the owner of Do It With Worms, Sam McCarthy. The original article appeared on the New Mexico Health Soil Working Group’s website located here:
Worm Composting Indoors
How to create and maintain and indoor worm composting bin.
Article originally posted on epa.gov. Click here for full article.
A worm composting bin, known as a vermicomposter, can be fairly inexpensive and easy to maintain. There are several ways to vermicompost. Below are instructions on how to build one kind of worm composting bin designed to be used inside. It is also possible to purchase worm composting bins. You will want to put your bin in an indoor space as you do not want the red wigglers to freeze in the winter or get too warm in the summer. Additionally, you may want to put the bin in a basement or other out-of-the-way space since you will be producing organic compost via worm castings and worm “tea” in the worm bin.
Vermicomposting 101
Vermicomposting: The Dirty Truth
Vermicomposting (a.k.a. worm composting) is the proverbial win-win situation. It gives you a convenient way to dispose of organic waste, such as vegetable peelings. It saves space in the county landfill, which is good for the environment. It gives worms a happy home and all the free “eats” that they could want. For those that have gardens or even potted plants, homegrown worm castings compost is a great way to feed and nurture plants.
Read the full article on
Vermicomposting For Beginners
This article is an excerpt from Rodale Institute’s “A Simple Guide to Vermicomposting.” Click here to download the full guide.
Solid waste generation in the United States continues to rise at a steady rate. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, Americans generated about 254 million tons of trash in 2013, which is the equivalent of 4.40 pounds per person per day.
Yard debris and food waste combined account for nearly 30% of the materials disposed in US landfills. These materials can be easily composted in municipal and backyard composting systems and fortunately, composting collection programs have been increasing with increasing waste generation. However, backyard composting may not be an option for many individuals that wish to divert their materials from the landfill because they lack yard space, time or energy or else live in a rental unit; therefore, vermicomposting becomes an attractive alternative. What’s more, vermicomposting can be a powerful educational tool for teaching children about decomposition, microbiology, earthworms and the importance of managing organic residuals such as food waste at home.
Why Vermicompost?
Vermicompost is the product of earthworm digestion and aerobic decomposition using the activities of micro- and macroorganisms at room temperature. Vermicomposting, or worm composting, produces a rich organic soil amendment containing a diversity of plant nutrients and beneficial microorganisms.
There are several benefits for vermicomposting but the two most popular are (1) diverting organic residuals from the landfill and reducing trash collection fees and (2) creating resources from waste materials.
Vermicomposting can be a fun activity for school children, and vermicompost can be utilized in gardens to promote plant growth. Vermicompost can be mixed with potting media at a rate of 10% by volume or else added directly into your soil; both options will provide plants with valuable organic matter, nutrients, and a diversity of beneficial microbes.
Earthworm Biology
Typical earthworms that you find in your garden are not suitable for vermicomposting. These are soil-dwelling worms that do not process large amounts of food waste and don’t reproduce well in confined spaces. Instead, worms commonly known as redworms or red wigglers are preferred because they reproduce rapidly, are communal and tend to remain on the surface while feeding.
There are several species of vermicomposting worms but the most common are Eisenia fetida and E. andrei. Red wigglers are hermaphrodites having both male and female reproductive parts; however, it still requires two worms to mate with each worm donating sperm to the other worm.
Under ideal conditions, a worm bin population can double about every 2 months (4-6 weeks from cocoon to emergence and 6-8 weeks from emergence to maturity). The “band” around a worm, known as the clitellum, indicates maturity and is reproductively active. Cocoons are about the size of a match stick head, turning pearly white to brown as they develop until one to several baby worms hatch.
Red wigglers require similar conditions as humans for growth – they prefer room temperature (55-85°F) and adequate moisture. The population of a worm bin is controlled through nutrient/food availability and space requirements.
For the full guide click here.