Vermicoast

You have the worms in their bin and have let them settle in for three days. This allows them time to de-stress from the rigors of travel. Recall those vibrations they had if they arrived through the mail to you or riding in your car.

I hope you have been saving your kitchen wastes for the worms, if not your compost bin, while the worms were traveling to you. There are many ways to save them in preparation for the worm bin.

You can freeze the wastes in containers, if you have the room. This method allows for the first level of molecular breakdown to occur within the food. As the moisture in the food waste freezes, it takes up even more moisture, breaking apart the tough, fibrous skins of bananas, etc. This is the same as the action that happens when you make ice cubes and the water in the tray has that small dip in the middle of it. Once the ice has frozen there is a slight bulge or the top of the cube and is rounded because the water has frozen and expanded in the freezer. The action in the freezer will hasten the food’s breakdown in your worm bin. 

Another way is to use a small bin on your counter top to collect wastes throughout the day. Now we have biodegradable liners for these and you can wait until it is full before taking it to your bin. These liners will dissolve in the bin and a plastic bag is not used or wasted.

It is a good idea to have thought ahead of time, before the worm’s arrival, as to where you will store the wastes until the worms are ready for them. I use lidded, very tall pails for mine. I place these around the 90 plus bins I have, in the sun. This allows the waste to further break down through the action of the sun’s heat on the food waste. After one week the wastes are soupy. I have found it hard, but not impossible to tell a banana peel from an apple core.  Using a long handled scoop I feed the worm bins this way.

What to feed your worms? I recommend all wastes from your kitchen. This includes the plate scrapings from meals, all the left over ends from making a salad. Virtually everything you once put into the garbage disposal will now be food for your worms. I have often been asked about citrus and how to feed them the rinds because they are so acidic. As I have many citrus trees this was a problem in the beginning for me. I found, by trail and error, that if I placed them into a pail of water, allowed them to sit for three or four days, I could them pour off the water onto an acid loving plant, such as an azalea or Camilla without a problem. Then I could feed the bins a small amount of the rinds without harming the worms.  

One reliable way to feed your worms is to make a grid on the top, outside of your bin’s lid with a making pen. This allows you to know which burial site you have used for the worms. I label mine with the numbers one through eight. Feeding first in the spot of number one. I gently  pull back the bedding and place the food at the bottom of the bin, replacing the bedding when I am done. This should be done on the third day after your worms have arrived. Every three days you can feed them again, until you are at the spot of number five. Pull back the bedding and see if the food in number one has been consumed, if it has the worms are keeping up with you. If not, wait another three days and feed them, if the food has been consumed. Continue on this way, since it appears the worms are keeping up with the feeding schedule. The number one reason that worms die in the bin is from over feeding. The food wastes heat up, hot compost. Since the worms are  secured in the bin and have no where to go, they die from the heat. You can see this is a disaster for them. By giving the worms just one cup of food every three days you are going to be erring on the side of caution. You will be able to judge just how much food they can eat, once you have worked with them for  two to three weeks.   

I do recommend that everyone who keeps a worm bin have a worm annex. This is another bin, any type you might have on hand will do. It could be an old wash tub from your kitchen sink or a sweater box. If it doesn’t have a top you can use a piece of wood with a rock on the top. This will make sure that you have a safe place to transfer the worms to if you do have a problem within the bin. The other insurance you will need is more dry and soaked shredded bedding for them, just in case, for the annex. The only way the worms will tell you there is a problem in their bin, is come to the top of the bin, as they are trying to escape from either over feeding or over poluation .

I will write about those two issues next time and who else lives your bin.

Have a good time with your bin. We all make a few mistakes in the start of any new project. The worms will forgive you just about anything. Until next time: enjoy your bin and the creatures who live and help the worms in it along with the worms.

~Shel