Composting with worms is easier than you might think! Hesitating before starting a new composting project? Take a look at these five common vermicomposting myths. Myth: Composting is a Ton of Extra Work Facts: The worms do most of the work. They convert kitchen scraps into valuable fertilizer 24/7. Initial setup takes less than an hour; more if you build your own composter from a tote or wood pallets. Collecting kitchen scraps add very little time to kitchen cleanup. Feed the worms every few days in about two minutes. Several times a year, you can harvest the valuable worm castings. Typical harvesting times: Tray-based composters: Takes 1 minute to remove the bottom tray. The worms should be fed in the top tray, so the bottom tray should have few or no worms. Or Compost bin with a door in the bottom: 5 minutes. Open the door and scoop out what you need. Or Generic compost bin, tote, or pile: Choose from manual sorting, making piles, or sifting through a screen. 30 minutes or more depending on the amount of worm castings. Or Add 10 to 20 minutes to sift the fertilizer through a screen. Optional. Screening removes sticks, rocks, debris, indigestible items, fruit stickers. Screening also makes the compost fluffier, which helps regulate soil drainage.
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Composting with Worms: Don’t Make These Five Mistakes
Composting worms speeds up the composting process. New worm bin owners tend to make mistakes. Once you get the hang of vermicomposting, you will love it! Reducing trash, saving the earth, and creating free fertilizer makes worm composting worthwhile. Your household might even adopt the worms as members of the family! Watch out for these five common mistakes. Mistake #1: Overfeeding Enthusiastic worm bin owners toss every available scrap into the bin. The worms cannot keep up. The bin starts to smell terrible! In theory, worms can eat their weight in scraps per day. However, that number might be lower, depending on air temperature and other factors. A fool-proof method is to feed them every 2 to 3 days. Be conservative in the quantity. Soon, you will get a feeling for how much food they can handle.
Read MoreKeeping Worm Composting Bins Cool in the Summer
If you are feeling hot in the summer, so are your composting worms! Unless they are snuggled indoors in air conditioning, your wiggly composting helpers need help staying cool. A few precautions will keep your worms operational. What natural cooling techniques do worms have? Where should your worm bin go? When should you intervene? What’s the worst that can happen? Natural Worm Cooling Worm in the wild knows what to do when they feel too hot. They dig down deeper in the earth or bedding
Read MoreMaking Compost: Differences Between Vermicomposting, Anaerobic and Aerobic Composting
Did you know that there are different types of composting? Aerobic composting and vermicomposting require ventilation. Anaerobic composting works without oxygen. How do you make compost? Which type is best for households, farms, businesses, institutions, and schools? How Composting Works Composting takes advantage of the natural process of decomposition. When leaves drop on the ground in the fall, Mother Nature breaks them down. Ants and other insects, bacteria, and fungi do their work. Soon, nothing remains except brown matter, which becomes part of the topsoil. This rich organic matter nourishes plants, helps regulate water saturation, and creates air pockets.
Read MoreHow Do I Catch Worms for Fishing and Composting?
Earthworms make great fishing bait, and they also speed up composting. Maybe you are tired of using artificial lures or over-paying for small quantities at the bait shop. Or perhaps you’ve decided to start composting kitchen scraps. Adding European Night Crawlers or Red Worms to the composting bin will make the waste break down faster. Either way, you can catch the worms yourself or get them cheaper online. Types of Worms First, you want to figure out which types of worms to catch. There are around 182 taxa of earthworms in North America. Of these, two are especially useful: The European Night Crawler is called Eisenia hortensis or Dendrobaena veneta in Latin. This earthworm grows to 6 inches long. They grow to the diameter of a pencil. It has a bluish, pink-grey color with bands or stripes. The end of its tail might be pale yellow or cream. At Uncle Jim’s Worm Farm, we call them “Super Reds.” These are especially good for fishing because they continue to wiggle for quite a while on the hook underwater. The smaller Red Worms are also known as red wiggler worms, manure worms, panfish worm, brandling worms, tiger worms, trout worms, tiger worms, red Californian earth worms, and Eisenia fetida. Red Worms are smaller and thinner than European Night Crawlers. These champion composting worms are ideally suited to turning waste kitchen scraps into finished compost quickly. Get Ready for Worms When you get ready to go worm hunting, prepare a container with holes …
Read MorePlanting with Organic Compost: How to Use Worm Castings
The spring is the time to start using your compost from your worm bin. Your red worms have been busy all year eating kitchen scraps and creating valuable fertilizer. How do you apply worm castings to your garden and lawn? Can you use compost on seeds and bulbs? How much compost do you need? Harvesting Compost You need to retrieve the valuable worm castings (worm poop) from your vermicomposting bin. If you have a tray-based composter, harvest from the lower trays. If you have been feeding the worms in the top tray, there will be few worms in the lower trays. Remove the lower trays and dump them into a wheelbarrow, bucket, or sack. For other types of composters, harvest finished compost from the bottom. See our page on harvesting compost. The fresher the worm
Read MoreRevive Your Vermicomposting Bin in the Spring
As winter fades into spring, vermicomposting bins will start to warm up. Warmer temperatures make the composting worms more active. If they froze outdoors during the winter, new baby worms might hatch. Spring is the perfect time to refresh and renew your composting bin. Your spring gardening will require fertilizer and the worms have made it for you! What can you expect? Do you need to add bedding or water? How can you tell if you need to order more worms? And is that composter still serving you? Gather Information Look inside your composting bin and dig around. Do you see any living worms? Do you see tiny brown specks? These specks are probably worm eggs. Baby worms should be hatching soon! You should see black, crumbly material. This is worm poop, called “black gold”, “worm castings”,
Read MoreUse Compost to Grow “Starts” in the Spring
Compost helps starts grow strong! Gardeners often grow “starts” in the late winter and early spring. These are tiny plants grown from seed. Planting starts before the spring growing season gives your plants a boost. Later, you can plant the juveniles outdoors. How do you make starts, and how does compost help? How much compost should you use? Where can you get compost? Which Plants Should You Start? Peppers, tomatoes, onions, head lettuce, leeks, eggplants, and cucumbers are more likely to survive and thrive if they are started indoors. Coniferous vegetables such as cabbage and broccoli are also great for starts. You can buy seedlings in the gardening store; however, growing your own from seed is cheaper. Store-bought seedlings are available in only a few of the most popular varieties. You will have a much greater variety of seeds to choose from. Also, you have total control over the little plants’ conditions. Therefore,
Read MorePros and Cons of Composting with Worms
If you are thinking about composting with worms, you will need to weigh the pros and cons first. Some folks start composting to reduce trash and help save the environment. Others are motivated by the end product: nutrient-rich compost for gardens, indoor plants, and lawns. Parents and teachers engage youngsters with a vermicomposting project. Whatever your reason, composting worms have both pluses and minuses. The most common concerns are waste reduction, odor, time, and cost. Reduces Waste Composting diverts organic waste from landfills and incinerators. You can compost food trimmings, leftovers, spoiled food, coffee grounds, compostable napkins, compostable takeout containers and utensils, garden trimmings, and certain agricultural waste. Pros: Composting requires sorting out organic matter from the trash. Sorting is easily accomplished by tossing vegetation into a container. Unsorted trash develops a terrible odor, due to anaerobic decomposition of organic matter. Foul odors attract pests. Collecting trash requires time, fuel, trucks, and expense. Landfills lack enough oxygen for proper composting. They are prone to buildup of flammable methane gas. Garbage is essentially entombed for eternity. Burning mixed trash is an utter waste of valuable organic matter. Incineration creates air pollution and toxic ash. Cons: Participants need instructions on what can be composted and how to separate it. Unlike recyclables, compostables start to break down quickly. Collection is highly time-sensitive at room temperature. Stored compostables should be refrigerated or frozen. Organic matter that has already been mixed in with other trash is difficult to separate. Composting Worms’ Odor You might be …
Read MoreBest Ways to Dry Out a Wet Worm Bin
When your worm bin is too wet, what are the best way to dry it out? At Uncle Jim’s Worm Farm, we have heard this question many times. The vermicomposting bin’s moisture level is crucial to worm health. We have been raising worms on our farm in rural Pennsylvania for more than 40 years. In that time, we’ve developed a simple protocol for drying out a wet worm bin. Let’s start with the primary question: is the worm bin too wet?
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