Worm Farming

By request I am sharing about our little worm bin.

It's pretty simple, really. I bought two rubber maid containers the same size and drilled holes in one of the lids for air circulation, and discarded the other lid.  We drilled similar holes in the bottom of one container for drainage.

I slipped the container with the holes inside the other container. Any extra liquid should drain into the second bin, but if there is very much drainage it would be safe to say that there is probably too much moisture in your worm bedding.

 We ordered red wigglers online. There is a ton of information on how to care for them out there. Basically, I made a bed of shredded newspaper and some peat moss, wet it down a little, threw in the worms and since then adding my trays of roots and soil for them to recycle for me. You want the atmosphere to be wrung dry rather than wet or just dry. So far so good.

I tried this awhile back and lost my worms because I was keeping them in the laundry room and that is where the water pump is. The pump and the dryer cause some vibration which the worms hate and they were escaping as fast as they possibly could. Also, I had been told that I could put regular salad compost in the bin and they would eat it up, but I have since found out that the compost needs to be in a very decomposed state for the little worms to scarf up. The best way to hasten that process is to freeze the greens, or blend them up in some water. We have been putting the trays in the freezer for a day or so before dumping them in. I've also been stirring up the bedding a little just to break up those fibrous roots to allow quicker breakdown.

Worm castings are very useful fertilizer, although, I have learned a new word: veganic, or veganically grown. Which would mean a person would not use any animal products or byproducts at all in their gardens. That's a whole new idea to me. So far I've decided that manure from a disgusting feed lot where cattle are fed poorly and medicated to the hilt is indeed a gross thought, but excluding worm castings? Probably not.  After all, the worms in my garden down by the barn are thriving and helping our garden a lot. I think God had something to do with putting them there.