Promote Global Worming.
Worms can be slimy
And they wriggle in the ground
Making us "black gold"
Seven years ago, I thought that my girlfriend (now wife) was quite mad for leaping into a dumpster to save her worms. The jury is still out on that incident, but after experiencing the magic of vermiculture myself, I understand her reasonings much better.
Enter, the humble worm!
So, to answer the burning questions some of you may have, WHY did my wife jump into that dumpster? One word: Vermiculture.
Vermiculture is an amazing composting technique that uses worms, usually red wrigglers, to turn household food scraps into beautiful, nutrient-rich black compost. In the soil, worms can spread nutrients, aerate around plant roots, and break down organic matter. Turns out, if you put them in a bin with the right set-up, they can do this for you and let you have a compost pile in your apartment that doesn't smell, requires very little maintenance, and lets you turn your waste into something amazing. "Worm castings," the compost you get out of your worm bin, is special stuff. Treehugger's article on"Vermicomposting and Vermiculture: Worms, Bins and How To Get Started," summarizes the benefits of worm castings:
"In addition to increased nutrient levels, worm castings contain millions of microbes which help break down nutrients already present in the soil into plant available forms. As the worms deposit their castings, their mucous is a beneficial component absent from compost produced by hot or cold composting. The mucous component slows the release of nutrients preventing them from washing away with the first watering."
From https://www.treehugger.com/green-food/vermicomposting-and-vermiculture-worms-bins-and-how-to-get-started/page2.html
In addition to its nutrient value, worm castings can naturally repel insects. The worms use an enzyme called "chitinase" in their digestion and pass it on into their castings. Chitinase breaks up chitin, which is the outer substance on many insects. If insects with a chitin exoskeleton, like aphids, eat a plant that has absorbed the chitinase, the enzyme can start to degrade the insect's exoskeleton and help you reduce pests naturally!
Chitinase from barley seeds. Image originally from en.wikipedia; description page is/was here.
Less waste, excellent and easy compost you can keep indoors..... have I convinced you to try it yet??
Starting your own worm bin!
Things you need:
- A large container with drainage
- Worm "bedding" (like newspaper)
- Worms
- Food scraps
Going into a little more detail...
1.) A large container with drainage
You can get as fancy as you want with your worm containment system and there are lots of premade systems that you can buy, but we started off with two large plastic totes from Target, starting at about $8 each.
You need two totes because you, my friend, are going to collect worm juice! In other words, worms need moisture, but they can't swim very well. To keep your worms happy and healthy, you will need to have some form of drainage at the bottom of your tote. We found that the easiest way to keep the system contained was to drill holes in the bottom of one tote for drainage and then put the whole tote inside another tote to collect the water that dripped out! This liquid is also a pretty good fertilizer, so worry not! Nothing will be wasted.
Speaking of ventilation holes, you'll also need a few holes at the top to make sure your little critters can breathe. We put ours at the top rim of the tote just under the lid.
If you have an apartment, your worm bin can go pretty much anywhere- you won't notice it except when your using it! Under a sink or in a corner would work. You can start off with a small tote and see how it goes!
If you're putting your bin outside, you don't want to put it in full sunlight. Your squirmy friends like shade! Also, your worms do NOT like to freeze, so if you live somewhere cold you'll have to bring them in or put them in a large in the winter.
2. Worm Bedding
When you're making compost, there's a whole magic formula that you can worry about involving ratios of nitrogen and carbon and turning the compost and all that. It can be very interesting if you're into that kind of thing. With worm composting, you get to skip most of that because the worm bedding is your carbon source as well as your worms' home!
For your bedding, you can use untreated paper (no glossy paper). We use newspapers, old phone books are good, and brown packing paper or shopping bags. (You can also use dried leaves in the fall!) Shred or tear the paper into strips and pile them all the way to the top! Next you'll need to wet the bedding so that its moist but not dripping too much and voila! You have worm bedding! You also need a handful of dirt. Just pick up a bit from your backyard. Whether you need this for a small grit source or to start off your microbes is still under debate, but it'll help you get started off right!
The bedding will get broken down over time and you'll need to add more to keep up the cycle. Also, you need to keep the bedding moist (although they usually produce enough liquid that this isn't a problem after the first batch of newspaper goes in).
3. The key ingredient: Worms!
Sadly, you can't just go into regular dirt and dig up some worms. You need a specific variety that works in these systems. Red wrigglers are the most common. How do you get your worms? The easiest way is probably to buy them. They sell worms at some garden stores and there are lots of places you can get them online. However, I have a slight aversion to paying for worms, so we've always managed to find a free source when we've needed. Most people who vermicompost are very excited to spread the wormy joy! How easy this is depends on where you live - in California, we found that any local gardening group would have someone with worms to share. When we moved to Maryland we had to work a little harder - we posted in FreeCycle and asked a local organic farm without luck. Eventually, we found a coworker that had some worms and we could start getting down to business!
4. Food Scraps
You can see a little bit of cabbage that we just added. Most of our scraps are under the newspaper on the other side of the bin, but you can see all of the nice dirt that the worms have made us!
Yes: Most food scraps. Aside from the "No" list below, any vegetable scraps are great. Worms love coffee grounds! Put in your leftover grounds in with the filter and all.
No: Meat. According to hearsay, you should also avoid garlic, citrus peels, tea. We haven't experimented with these ourselves, but it's probably best to avoid them until you have a robust system going at least.
Additional things to be aware of: Banana peels often harbor fruit fly eggs, so we avoid those. We also avoid dairy products because it's more likely to generate smells and/or attract critters. If you add things like avocado pits or avocado peels it doesn't hurt the worms, but they won't break down for a long time so they'll probably be around for a while.
Some people go to a lot of trouble to prepare their food scraps. We have friends who swear that you have to blend them all together to make your worms happy... and they tend to get sick of their worm bins very quickly! The benefit of that is that it will increase your worm population very quickly and I bet that they get compost more quickly because it is easimore scraps!
Harvesting your compost
After a few months, you're going to have some amazing compost in your bin. Harvesting the compost can actually be a little trickier than you'd think because it's usually full of worms! There are a couple of ways to get around this depending on how patient you are feeling...
If you want compost now, then you can take out a handful of your dirt out of the bin and start brushing off layers of soil. Eventually, you'll have a layer of mostly soil and a layer of mostly worms.
If you plan ahead, you can move your compost to one side of your bin and then add the bedding and new food to the other side of the bin. Over time (a few weeks or a month), most of the worms will migrate to the new side and you can take the compost much more easily
Troubleshooting and Common Problems
My worm bin smells!
Most likely problem: The worms aren't keeping up with your scraps! If your food starts to rot before they can get to it, it will smell like (surprise!) rotting food. If this happens, add a bunch of bedding and keep the bin closed for a while. The worms will get to your food eventually! After 2-3 weeks open it up and take a sniff - if it smells better, you can start adding scraps again slowly.
On this note: your worms will slow down in colder weather. When it's cold outside, you'll need to add less material to give the little guys a break.
Rare problem: A bunch of worms died. We had this happen once when we put a LOT of glossy paper junk mail in our worm bin. It was very sad. Most of the worms climbed up the sides of the container and survived and we cleaned it out and started again. (Note: If all of your worms are climbing the side of the container and there aren't many in your compost, that is a sign of unhappy worms.)
My worm bin is too wet.
It's not that serious a problem - our worms have always seemed fine when the compost is pretty muddy. But, when you dig into the mud the smell can be a little bit off and it's harder to harvest. If this happens, you can pile on a bunch of dry bedding. Check to make sure that the lower bin is not full of liquid that seeping into the top bin. If you're not getting much liquid in the lower bin but the upper bin is still pretty wet, it can mean that your holes are clogged or not big enough. If this happens, just scrape your compost to the side of the bin and punch a few more holes in.
My worm bin is too dry.
We've never had this problem in our tote system, but if you buy a commercial system and you live in a dry area your worm bin can dry out. In the most extreme case, everything in the system will be bone dry and your worms will be dead. (NOTE: Try not to let this happen.) It actually can happen pretty quickly if you put a very well ventilated system outside in a dry area like Southern California in the summer. If you go this route, check your worm bin regularly and add water if the system is getting dry, even if you don't add any scraps.
I have too many worms!
Congratulations! You have a successful system with very happy worms! Lots of them. Lots and lots. We've never had this happen in our system, but if you do have this problem it means you've been feeding them very well and they've been expanding their population. A good option in this case might be to start a second worm bin! You'll get twice the compost and your scraps will keep getting turned into wonderful compost. Another good option is to make some friends! Post on Freecycle or ask at your local garden groups if anyone needs some worms. Ultimately though, their population will adjust to their space and food. If you keep going even if the amount of worms seems excessive to you, the system should self-regulate as long as you keep a pretty steady rate of addition.
And now you, too, can promote Global Worming!!
