The Activist for Activists. Author of Make a Difference with Mental Health Activism and The Happy Activist: Journey the 5-Step Activism Path to Focus Your Passion and Change the World. Teacher, Psychologist, Environmental Activist, Animal Lover.
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My composting efforts include traditional methods such as compost bins, leaf mold, and brush piles. In addition, I use the less conventional methods of bokashi and vermicomposting.
Vermicomposting is the official name for using worms to eat waste and provide excellent fertilizer.
In this article, I will go into more detail about using worms to process your household waste. Those of you who feel squeamish about the thought of worms in your house may be surprised.
Why is Vermicomposting Good for The Environment and Your Garden?
Vermicomposting for your garden
Vermicompost can be used in many ways in the garden. You don’t need a lot because of how rich it is.
- When you put your seedlings in the ground, sprinkle the compost into the hole to give your plants a good start. Sprinkle it into seed rows.
- As a fertilizer throughout the season, vermicompost provides good nutrition. Just sprinkle the compost around your plants, and don’t worry if you use too much; it won’t burn your plants like other fertilizers. It helps with water retention and soil quality, too.
- Add a bit to your house plants every 2 months.
- You can mix the compost into a ‘worm tea’ to spray on your plants, which some research has shown will help fight diseases.
If you make your own potting soil, add worm compost. Here is a recipe from Worms Eat My Garbage:
- 1/4 worm castings
- 1/4 peat moss
- 1/4 perlite
- 1/4 sand or garden soil
Vermicomposting for the environment
Vermicomposting is good for the environment, too.
- Reduce your waste. Instead of putting your household waste into the trash, put it to use in your garden. Worms break down waste into compost that is rich in nutrients and good microbes. Your garden will thank you with better yields, soil quality, and water retention.
- Food waste added to the landfill makes the greenhouse gas methane. When food waste is composted, you are helping reduce these dangerous emissions.
- Much fertilizer is made of animal by-products, such as bone meal, blood meal, chicken feather meal, and manures. Much of these by-products are from factory farming of animals, which is terrible for the environment. Factory farming is not small, local farms, where using the manure from farm animals is routine. Instead, it is large-scale agribusiness where multitudes of animals are crammed together in terrible conditions. In addition to generating significant amounts of greenhouse gases, factory farming of animals is the number one source of water pollution.
- Communities can use vermicomposting to manage solid waste, and the resulting compost can be given to gardeners.
How to Start in Vermicomposting
Where to Get Worms
The Red Wiggler (Eisenia fetida) is the worm of choice. I got my original batch from PetSmart. Just make sure you don’t get nightcrawlers. I have also received them by mail from Uncle Jim’s Worm Farm. Yes, USPS mail! They arrived safely, with instructions on how to care for them.
Caring For Your Worms
You do not need to pay much attention to your worms, but they do need the right environment to do their best job.
Moderate Temperature
This has been the issue that has caused me the most grief with my worms. They cannot be too hot or too cold, ideally between 59 and 77 degrees. They will burrow to the center if conditions aren’t good, but I’ve lost all my worms on a frigid night, even though they were sheltered in my garden shed. Consider what location will work best for your household: garage, basement, kitchen, or outdoors.
The Right Amount of Moisture
Your worms need moisture, although mostly they will get that from the kitchen waste you add. If it is hot or the bedding is not moist, simply spray with water.
Excellent Aeration
Good air conditions support the worm and the microbes that are part of the composting process. So, no air-tight bins. In my original homemade bin, I drilled holes in the bottom and sides for air circulation.
Food
Worms are not picky. If you forget to add kitchen waste, they will just start in on their bedding. In my experience, they love pretty much all kitchen scraps. Although they don’t like tough foods like citrus and avocado skins, meat, or oil, they’ll eat everything else, including the grit of coffee grounds. All the guides I’ve consulted say you should chop up the kitchen scraps, but I’m not very attentive to this, and the worms do fine.
Bedding
Bedding is simply filler that provides shelter from extreme temperatures and light. You have many choices here. I use shredded office paper, another way to reduce my household waste (and protect my vital information.) Other options are coir, shredded newspaper, leaf mold, and wood chips.
Light
Worms like the dark, so make their environment as light-free as possible.
Worm Farming Techniques
One of my outdoor compost bins became an accidental worm farm when worms crawled up through the drainage holes. The resulting compost was terrific. That doesn’t always happen, though, because the outdoor temperature and water conditions might not support it.
Make your own bin
For years I had an upcycled, homemade worm bin, which consisted of a plastic bin seated inside another plastic bin. The outside bin helped shelter the worms from light and caught any liquid that might drain from the inside bin.
Worms Eat My Garbage by Mary Appelhof is a good resource for getting started in vermicomposting. She has detailed instructions for homemade worm bins.
She even has plans you can use to build a patio bench worm farm!
Watch the video “We made a worm bin for $5 and it was easy!” to see the entire process, including how his Uncle Jim’s worms arrived for his bin.
Purchase a bin
I moved straight from a homemade bin to the Urban Worm Bag, so I have not tried other options. Mary Applehof recommends these:
- Can-O-Worms
- Worm-A-Way
The website Uncle Jim’s Worm Farm offers a Worm Hobby Kit that includes everything you need to get started, including the worms, for $69.99.
My favorite: The Urban Worm Bag
After much research, I purchased the Urban Worm Bag. I put kitchen scraps in the top, which draws the worms up. The castings they leave behind are harvested from the bottom.
It has been about 5 months since I started my Urban Worm Bag. Here is my review:
Advantages
Disadvantages
My worm bag is in a nook in our kitchen, so I find it easy to compost our kitchen waste. Just unzip the top and add the scraps.
There has never been a smell from the bin, I imagine because of the fabric used for the bag. We have also never had insects like fruit flies from the bin.
The Urban Worm Bag is pricey, selling for $129 at Amazon.
It is also a bit bulky compared to other worm bins you can purchase. The bag sits in a frame that is 27” by 27” and is 32” tall.
I made my first harvest from the bottom, and the compost that came out was absolutely perfect.
You don’t have to handle worms. Because the worms are attracted up to the new scraps at the top, there was only one worm in my compost harvest.
My sweet dog Ben sniffed the worm and chose not to bother the little fellow.
When I sprinkled the compost on my plants, the worm left to start a new life in my garden.
Try Vermicomposting
I hope I have convinced you that vermicomposting is worth a try. Some techniques allow you to avoid touching the worms at all, and I bet you’ll grow to appreciate all these little creatures do for your garden.
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Worms Eat My Garbage: How to Set Up and Maintain a Worm Composting System by Mary Applehof
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