Many people want to compost, but don’t know where to start. We’re here to give you a step-by-step guide to composting with worms, including how to start your own indoor and outdoor compost bins, what to feed and not feed the worms, and how to help your worms thrive in the compost.
Did you know: About 20% of foods that Americans put on their plates is thrown away every year. That amount is enough to feed 2 billion more people annually!
Due to the dry and low oxygen conditions, the food in landfills mummifies rather than decomposes….
- After 40 years in a landfill, newspapers are still readable.
- After 20 years in a landfill, steaks still have meat on their bones.
- After 10 years in a landfill, carrots are brown on the outside but still orange on the inside.
Worm composting, also known as vermicomposting, helps speed up the process of decomposing food and paper scraps, as well as yard waste. With regular composting, minus the worms, you have to rely on time for the materials to break down. This can also get smelly.
Worms help speed up the process because they eat the waste. You do not have to stir or turn your compost because the worms go where there is food for them to eat. Additionally, as the compost breaks down, nutrients are released into the soil which aids the growth of plants.
Although our systems are more advanced now, we’re going to show you how we first started. Feel free to follow along at home!
Step One:
Decide if you want your worm farm to be indoors or outdoors. We started with ours in the basement. Some people even keep theirs under the kitchen sink.
If you start indoors, you’ll need a container, if you start outdoors, you do not…though you can use a container to keep the worms more (wait for it) contained (*facepalm*).
This is one of our outdoor compost piles.
Step Two:
If using a container (we started with a Rubbermaid storage container from Walmart), drill some holes along the bottom. This is used to prevent standing water.
** This is not a requirement, but what we’ve found works best.
Step Three:
Position your container on some bricks or a raised platform and put the lid of the container underneath. This will allow water to drain out of the container and be caught by the lid.
** Again, like step two, this is optional.
These are the bins we started composting with. We tried drilling holes at both the top and the bottom. They no longer rest on bricks.
Step Four:
Fill your container with about six inches of “bedding.” This could consist of shredded newspaper, cardboard, dead leaves, aged horse manure, or any/all of the above.
Step Five:
Add our compost starter to the top of the container. This starter contains 300-500 red wigglers, worm cocoons, and unfinished compost.
This is a bucket with some of our compost starter.
Step Six:
Add food scraps to the top of the bin about once a week. Red wigglers will eat virtually anything that is biodegradable, but there are some foods that should be avoided, such as meat, dairy, citrus, spicy foods, fats, oils, and heavily-processed foods. These foods take longer to break down and can start to smell. Instead, try to stick to composting the following: fruit/vegetable waste, coffee grounds, eggshells, horse/cow manure, grass, leaves, and shredded paper/cardboard.
Step Seven:
Cover the top of the bin with about 2 inches of shredded paper/cardboard to keep out fruit flies.
Some Things to Note:
- Worms may take a bit of time to get used to their new home. If you notice they’re hanging out mostly at the top of their bin or trying to escape, shine a light on them for a few days, which will cause them to burrow.
- If shining a light does not help and the worms are still trying to escape, the environment may be toxic. If this is the case, it’s usually best to start over with new bedding.
- Red wigglers double in population every three months, but they stop reproducing when they’ve reached their bin’s capacity. The more worms you have in a container, the faster your food will break down and the faster the worms will reproduce.
- Red wigglers are pretty resilient. They do not need a regular feeding schedule and can eat a LOT…as much as half their weight every 24 hours. However, it is always safer to underfeed rather than overfeed, as overfeeding can cause the bin to become too wet, resulting in sloppy, smelly conditions and potentially killing the worms.
References
Conrad, Z., Niles, M. T., Neher, D. A., Roy E. D., Tichenor, N. E., & Jahns, L. (2018) Relationship between food waste, diet quality, and environmental sustainability. PLoS ONE 13(4). Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0195405
Environment and Plastics Industrial Council. (n.d.). Biodegradation won’t solve the landfill crunch. Retrieved from https://www.bpiworld.org/resources/Documents/EPIC%20Position%20on%20Biodegradability%20and%20Landfills.pdf
The Squirm Firm. (2015). Get started worm farming: A beginner’s guide. Retrieved from https://thesquirmfirm.com/get-started-worm-farming-a-beginners-guide/
Troitino, C. (2018, April). Americans waste about a pound of food a day, USDA study finds. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinatroitino/2018/04/23/americans-waste-about-a-pound-of-food-a-day-usda-study-finds/#1b44f9754ec3