Worm Bin - Page 5

cecil_b · 03-13-2004, 11:14 AM

Yeah, the frustrating part about worm bins is that you want to feed them every scrap you have, but they are easy to overload. That's when the get too wet, or get taken over by pests. More worms will eat more garbage faster, but they seem to find their own equilibrium depending on the size of the bin. I think the ratio I once read was a pound per 5 gallons. You can start with one pound for a large bin, and the worms will reproduce to fill their container.
Some vermiculture purists only wrap all their waste in shredded newspaper (with organic inks, of course), and bury their waste in a bedding of shredded paper. This tek seems to manage the amount of moisture in the bin. Mine starts with white papers and get pretty dark w/ castings. I've never added soil. I keep a shredder near my recycling bin and use the shreds of credit card offers and other private bills to *really* make sure no one gets my info. You can put in everything but meat, dairy, and liquids. I actually put in a few bones w/ little pieces of meat scraps and the worms seem to like it fine and it adds some diversity to the organics. Too much meat and the culture will attract maggots.

Any bin will do, from a plastic storage box from walmart to a custom multi-tier worm bin from a vermiculture vendor. It just has to have holes in the bottom (and pref. a piece of screen, or else your worms will find their way out the holes and get lost. A tray will collect tea as it weeps out the bottom. Plastic will allow the worm tea to flow down into the tray for collection, vs. wood which will absorb more of the juice. I started in a small homemade bin and graduated to a large multi-tier system that lives in the shed. Even a homemade or large one will smell only like rich soil and not like rotten food as long as it's not overloaded. Sometimes the bin will attract small whiteflies, but the overwhelming majority of bins do not attract pests. The pH of worm castings is directly related to what you put into it.

I collect my used coffee grounds in a tub that goes in the freezer (filter and all), and then this gets thawed (and then dried a bit) and sprinkled in the bin. A wet clump of coffee grounds has to cool for a while before it can go it, plus it will hold too much water and drown the culture. In addition to used grounds, Starbucks will also give away unbrewed coffee that has gone past its freshness date (which is a little less messy to transport). This is better in a lot of ways, because it has much of its richness still inside. Perfectly dry coffee may force some misting of the culture to keep it a little moist.

(This is a bit off topic, but if you like gourmet mushrooms and have lots of coffee grounds, you can get oyster mushroom kits that grow in buckets of discarded coffee - PM me if you want the info)

There is a defacto bible of vermiculture, called "Worms Eat My Garbage" by Mary Applehof is in print, readily available. The only thing I advise is to sterilize castings on an old cookie sheet in the oven on 250 for 30 minutes before adding them to indoor plants. The worms do a good job of eating anything and everything and keeping other pests to a minimum, but its possible to get nematodes and other bugs or bacteria that can destroy plants.

Good luck, and happy composting!

pfrtheotherside · 03-13-2004, 12:11 PM

Hi cecil

Thanks for all the information. When you first set up your bin, say 5 gal size and you are using shredded paper (like your idea of the shredder) do you spray it with water just to make it damp or just add the worms and coffee, and other scraps and let them develop their own set of moisture.

Was yours just a one bin setup or a two bin set up like Brindie was talking about?

Also, thanks for the offer on mushrooms but I would just add them to the worm bin. lol

Thanks - TOS

cecil_b · 03-13-2004, 02:18 PM

OK, so imagine the picture below being a 5 gal worm bin. The pail is light proof, because worms don't like light. The bin has some ventilation holes drilled in the top, drainage holes drilled in the bottom, and some screen on both because the worms will escape (even through the top). Ventilation is important, though - if the culture gets no air it will start to be overrun w/ bacteria. The bin lives on top of a tray that catches the worm tea as it seeps out. I bought a second lid and turned it upside down & put that on the floor.

Each time you clean it out, the bin gets filled 3/4 with shredded papers. Then add a first batch of waste - setting up a bin is a great excuse to clean out the fridge. A light misting w/ a sprayer is good to give the shredded paper some moisture. I wrap each item in shredded paper and then bury it in the shreddings. The first few weeks might require a few mistings a week to keep the culture moist. Drying out will mean that the worms skin dries out, and then they will just hide and not eat any of your scraps near the top (which will rot and smell after a while). I always keep some clean paper on top and mist it down when I add it.

I keep a stick, a little hand rake, and a pair of latex gloves near the bin, because every week or two it's a good idea to turn the culture over. It aerates the culture, forces uneaten stuff into the middle closer to where the worms are, and keeps the thing from smelling. Worms feed from the bottom up, but they won't migrate up until they've eated all the food at their level, which is what makes the stacked worm bins work.

As long as you make sure the bottom of the bin is not sitting in a pool of tea (jack it up onto a couple of blocks of wood if you have to), the culture will eventually self regulate in terms of moisture, amount of reproduction, etc. The one thing I don't like about the plastic tubs is that they have a tendency to collect tea, wet castings, and dead worms at the bottom of the bin. If I ever build another bin I'd make a false bottom of heavy duty screen material so that the castings and tea would fall through but the entire culture would be raised up out of the goo. The commercial bins take care of this for you.

If your worms start eloping (you may find a few dried up ones on the floor if your bin doesn't seal perfectly), this is sort of normal but is probably an indication that there is something in the bin that they don't like, either no food, too much food (and putrification), or too much moisture. A single person who cooks regularly will produce more waste than the bin of this size can handle. If you want a regular stream of castings, make up several bins and keep adding to all of them. Bins like this live easily under kitchen cabs or in basements.

BTW - any vegetable waste that is not meat, dairy, or liquid (including lots of oils and fat) is fine. This includes yard waste like leaves, grass clippings, etc. You can also add horse and cow manure to beef up nitrogen(no pun intended), but avoid pet droppings like dog/cat poop. They won't eat bark or woody branches, and don't add dry pasta or rice (cooked is great). Don't use newspaper if it doesn't specifically say "printed with soy inks." The chemicals in traditional newspaper ink are nasty, like lead, cadmium, residue from hydrocarbon solvents, etc. Bad stuff.

Whatever goes in will alter the composition of the culture (i.e. very acidic if you only added coffee, tomato seeds and orange peels). Banana peels will add potassium. Egg shells will add calicum & lower acidity, and moldy bread will add amino acids & iron. All of these things contribute to a very rich conditioner for soil.

The best thing is that even really rotten stuff from the fridge is fine, as long as you can stomach getting it out of it's container and into the bin. The worms will mow down any molds or growth on the food before it can grow in the bin. If a vegetable has a tough skin, like apples or tomatoes, cut them in half before tossing them in and they'll go faster.

Get your worms from a friend or mail order after end of April. Worms won't ship until after the threat of freezing has passed.

Good luck!

-c-

mr_chow · 03-13-2004, 02:24 PM

dang cecil_b....your knowledge of organics is unbelievable...thanks for that post.

how much seepage would you say occurs from an 18 gallon bin? (per week/month) does this liquid need to be sterilized also, or can it be sprayed directly to the leaves.

brindie...where did you order those little worms from? (i'll check back in the post...dunno if you mentioned it or not)

peace,

mr_chow

pfrtheotherside · 03-13-2004, 03:29 PM

Hi all,

Thanks again for all the info. Now I am getting the idea.

Mr. Chow, I did a couple of calls in my town today. Two to pet shops, spoke with one person and she recommended a bait shop. Call to bait shop, they plan on getting some red worms in in about 2 wks - great fish bait. It will cost $2.50 for 3 doz. I have also seen online where you can order them. Can't remember the price but right now the bait shop seems the place to go now that spring is finally around the corner.

Once again cecil - thanks for spelling out to me.

Worm bins - look out here we come.

TOS

03-13-2004, 11:25 PM

Cecil_b, thanks a lot for the great info.

My 18 gallon worm bin does not seep much liquid at all. It sits in my flowering room and the water from it evaporates as fast as it leaks out.

I bought one pound of worms, about 1000 of them, for around $25 with shipping. I don't remember where I got them but I just did a Google search for things like redworms, vermiculture, the genus and species name, etc. and compared prices to find the best deal.

My worms seem to be doing better now. They are starting to catch up with the amount of scraps I put in, and when I take the lid off they are frequently on the underside of it and at the top of the sides of the bin where condensation collects, where they hadn't been hanging out much in the last few weeks (haven't seen any more mites in these areas either). I think this is because the main part of the bin has dried out some and they are seeking moisture elsewhere.

Good luck with your worm bin, TOS!

cecil_b · 03-14-2004, 07:44 AM

Glad to see some fellow worm composters out there and lots of interest! I got into it as a geek project to reduce the amount of trash that exited our house. The worms were first and foremost a way to remove food waste from our refuse stream in an area that prohibited open compost. Of course it had the added benefit of creating nice castings for houseplants and planting beds. Even though now I live where composting is fine, I still like to be able to use my worm bin through the winter and reap the benefits for a new project...

I dunno about tea as a foliar spray. It seems like the organics, trace minerals, and the like would be most useful in the soil. There are some really complex compounds in this stuff - not sure of the effect on plant pores, photosynthesis. I just try to think about what happens in nature - it's not like it rains worm castings out in the steppes of central asia. I'd be interested to see some feedback from someone who has noticed a measurable benefit from using tea as a foliar spray.

Mr. Chow: You can get worms from a number of sources. Bait shops sell them because they are good for trout, pike, and other types of fresh water pond/river fish, and they are easy to cultivate for that purpose. These worms are not large - a mature adult is only 3" long and at most 1/8" in dia. It's hit or miss w/ the bait shops - early on I went to 2 and had people look at me like i was from Mars. Worm's way is a good source, but they won't ship until spring (after may 1). I got mine from a farm in michigan but they seem to have closed down their website. Google on "Eisenia fetida" and it will turn up dozens of places to order them, along with bins, etc.

pfr: Sawdust would be fine so long as it was truly dust and very small chips and was really moist (and kept moist). It might take the little guys a while to work on unprocessed wood, and if you used a lot of sawdust (and not much else) the culture would not be organically diverse. Paper is nothing but pine trees that have been chemically reduced to their individual fibers, and they chew through that like crazy. $2.50 for 3 doz is a ripoff - you can do much better than that.

You'll be surprised once you start a bin - pretty much everything that currently goes from the fridge into the trash is potential food for the worms. Even living alone I sometimes have too much for the bin.

wriggle on...

-c-

pfrtheotherside · 03-14-2004, 07:53 AM

Hi all

Thanks for the best wishes Brindie.

Well checked around locally and I found a bait shop that sells 3 doz. for $2.50 but that seems like it would be an expensive way to go if you paid $25/1000.

I think at wormsway.com I seen a pound for like $1.00, not sure what shipping and handling would cost but alot more than the worms - lol. I will have to go back and check that price out.

One other question - what about sawdust for the bin. Have a friend that does wood working so would have a never ending supply. More for additional bedding than as a food supply. As PFR says - my mind works in strange ways sometimes.

Later - TOS

cecil_b · 03-14-2004, 07:16 PM

pfr - I musta edited while you posted... see above

another reason why computers are not like real conversation...

pfrtheotherside · 03-24-2004, 05:41 PM

Checking the check list:

2 - 10 gals bins - check
1 - shedder - check
bills/junk mail for the shedder (number to be deterimed by the mailman - check
coffee grounds - check
holes in bin for drainage and air circulation - humm weekend project
worms - on order, waiting for warm weather to be delivered - check
Scraps from male plant - check (was going to keep for cannabutter but developed some mold)

Ok now my question:

Should I go ahead and drill all my holes, start putting the shedded junk mail and bill in (damped down of course) along with the coffee and some other scraps, so it starts to break down or wait for the worms. Not sure how long till they get here?

Later - TOS

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