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Worm Composting Hands On

watch as I report on red wiggler worms creating compost

Welcome to my blog about my personal results worm composting hands on.

Background

I had tried worms before, but without much success. I kept some outside in a flower pot covered with screen and a piece of plywood. They survived, but never produced much compost.

I tried an indoor plastic bin, but the worms got too wet and died.

Then I discovered red worm composting.com and got inspired to try again. Follow me, and lets see how it goes:

February 23, 2009 - order 2 lbs red-wiggler worms

Build worm bin from rubbermaid container.

worm bin

March 5, 2009 - worms arrive. Add worms to bin with layers of shredded paper and partially rotten vegetable matter. I keep another rubbermaid bin on my porch and throw kitchen waste in it over the winter. That's where their food came from.

worm bin

March 6, 2009 - Worms all over near the top of bin. Trying to escape! Over the next 5 days, worms periodically do this. I push them back down into bedding.

March 17, 2009 - Worms no longer escaping. Eating food. Break out of flies and gnats. I'm sure this is due to the rotten food that sat out on the porch. Put up fly paper and got the swarm under control.

worm bin

March 20, 2009 - Add more food (partially rotted kitchen scraps) and paper to bin. I was very conservative with first feeding as I killed worms by making the bin too wet before.

March 24, 2009 - Worms doing just fine. Note the dark matter being created under the dry paper.

worm bin

If you haven't seen the worm composting page, check it out for basic info on this great natural resource.

March 30, 2009 - Added some black bananas and wilted lettuce. More paper on top of added food.

April 6, 2009 - Most of the banana is smoosh, but there is some observable banana pieces. It takes this "fresh" food longer to disappear in the bin than the stuff out of my rotten bin. There is a lot of dark brown matter mixed in with paper. Worms are doing their job! I hope I'm not adding too much paper. I'm paranoid about it getting too wet in there. I moved away some of the dry paper so you can see worms and brown stuff below. There really are a lot of worms moving around. Most of them move away before I can even take a picture.

worms apr 6

I assume the brown specks on the walls of the bin is worm poop, or worm castings. Same as what's in the bin.

worm castings

April 20, 2009 - The banana is disappearing along with the lettuce. I put bread in one corner. Someone on TV said worms love bread. Let's see if they do.

Took these worms fishing over the weekend. They worked nicely because they don't need to be kept cold like nightcrawlers.

April 28, 2009 - The banana is just about gone. The bread completely disappeared, and so did the lettuce.

I put a thin, flat, glue trap for flies on the center lid of my bin. It's been catching gnats.

No recognizable food or goop in the bin. Time to feed again. I'm hoping to harvest worm compost soon.

May 20, 2009 - I feed, they eat. I've got a solid 3" of vermicompost going. I am so pleased with the results so far. I'm going on vacation, when I get back, I will try to harvest.

For you math enthusiasts out there, I calculated how much worm compost plus worms I have in the bin:

The bin is roughly 35" x 18", and I've got 3" of worms and vermicompost. So volume-wise, I have 1890 sq inches of compost and worms. With 1728 square inches per square foot, that's a little over a square foot of yummy black gold, minus the worms. When I separate all that out, I'll let you know what percentage was worms. I think it may be quite a bit, as the pictures show. Every handful is just wriggling with worms!

If I knew how much the stuff in the bin weighed, I could tell you how much vermicompost 2 lbs of worms produced in 2 months. But I don't, sorry.

June 9, 2009 - Started a new pile of compost to transfer worms into. I plan to harvest vermicompost soon!

THIS WORM COMPOSTING HANDS ON BLOG HAS MOVED TO WORD PRESS

Worm Composting Hands On

watch as I report on red wiggler worms creating compost

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