As you might remember, we made a new worm bin after our original bin failed. This new one is doing great! The drainage holes in the bottom have helped keep it moist but not too wet, the shallow shape allows the worms to get to everything faster and the blending of food scraps allows the worms to eat right away. Today we harvest all the rich vermicompost (soil) and sprinkle it into one of our garden beds. Potted plants also LOVE this stuff. I’ve brought back to life more than one of our failing ferns with a scoop of nutrient rich vermicompost. Why buy chemically fertilizer when you can use worm poop?
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Technorati Tags: vermicompost, worm compost, worm bin, apartment composting, compost, garden, ryanishungry
Sweet, sweet success! Happy plants, happy worms.
Rockin’.
Nature is one of those tricky things that is hard to reproduce in the kitchen, glad to see your bin is doing so well. OK, I am ready to do my own…
Hurray! You’ve got it down to a process that works for you - that’s so cool!
You probably know this, but worms will retreat from bright light. I’ve seen people use a flashlight or clamp light to get the worms to crawl to the bottom of those little piles to reduce the time it takes to get them back into the bin when harvesting vermicompost.
Oh I’m so happy for you and jealous at the same time!
I think your wooden lid helps with the moisture control.
Cheryl is right on about the light method to gather the poop. Good ideas all around!
I fear my worm bin has gone the way of your first one… There’s just a grey sludge in there instead of a lovely brown compost. Gross.
Whats the best way to keep it moist. My first time around the bin dried out. I bought a plastic bin, kind of like your first one, but only filled it up about a 1/4. I started with the wet newspaper on the bottom and added my food scraps, but what about water? Should I add some every week?
If you start out with a wet newspaper as a bed, you should be good.
Presumably, the food you add should have moisture in it. But if you’re worms are drying out, then you should add more wet newspaper when needed. Pouring in a cup of water might be overdoing it. The worms just need to have a moist place to live.
Hey, we should set up a worm bin mailing list. I want to ask someone why mine has turned to sludge!
i think a worm bin mailing list would be awesome.
without knowing the details, i bet your bin got too wet.
Our first one turned the smely sludge too because we put in too much liquid, and it didnt have enough air.
Who wants to join the worm bin mailing list and discuss rotting organic matter? http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vermicomposting/ Anyone who’s anyone’s gonna be there.
Kick ass!