Tips On Building 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 one is the actual bin. There are a variety of bins available to buy or for the DIY people building a compost bin can be fairly easy. 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 compost bins as needed to expand production.
Along the sides toward the top place plenty of 1/4-in holes approximately 3-4 inches apart provide air. If you notice flies you can place a screen over the holes to keep the flies out.
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 - Worm bedding is a large part of your worm composting environment. Worm bedding gives your worms a place to work, is used to maintain moisture levels, and provides a place to bury your scraps. Strips of newspaper, wood chips, partially decomposed leaves, and/or coconut fibers can all be used as worm bedding. My preference is mixture and I prefer not to recommend peat moss as there is controversy over how renewable it is and natural peat moss is becoming limited.
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.
Red Wigglers - Not any worm will work and although systems can be built for regular earthworms the worm compost bin described above will need red wigglers. These worms stay towards the top where you will be placing your scraps and they will thrive in this environment.
How Many Red Wigglers - The general rule for most worm compost bins is to use a ratio of 2:1. This ratio is a ratio between the weight of the compost worms compared to the weight of scraps you will have each day. For example if you add 1lb of kitchen scraps each day than you should have roughly 2lbs of worms inside your bin.
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 introduce children to science or gardening.
Richard Allen composts to create fertilizer for his organic garden and to help the environment. For more articles or a complete composting how to, please visit Discover Composting.com.
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