As you find the benefits of composting becoming real for your efforts, you’ll find there are other forms of composting that are even more productive. Worm composting creates the richest and most nutritious soil additive you can find.

Worm compost, sometimes referred to as worm castings, worm humus or worm manure, is created through vermicomposting, which is similar to plain composting, except that it uses worms in addition to microbes and bacteria to turn organic waste into a nutrient-rich fertilizer much faster.

Worm composting is a specific type of system that is also sometimes referred to as vermicomposting. This system of composting is used to covert fruit and vegetable scraps into soil that is rich and fertilized. It uses two species of worms: Red Wigglers ( Eisenia foetida ) or Red Earthworms ( Lumbricus rubellus ), which are rarely found in soil and are most happy in an environment of rotting vegetation, compost and manure piles.

 Getting Started with Worm Composting

Like everything else in this life, a little planning is in order.

Things to Consider:

How much kitchen compost do I produce? Your new pets eat, when healthy and happy, about half their weight every day. If you have two pounds of healthy red wigglers you will need a pound of kitchen compost or scraps every day. Worm farmers often use a grain mix that you can buy as worm food but I’m not selling worms, I just want my worms to eat my garbage.

What kind of container or worm bin will I build or buy for my new composting effort? To start out I would suggest a RubberMaid type storage tote with lid of 20-30 gallons size. I got one at WalMart for $7.50 with a snap close lid in a 22 gal. size. Good size to start! After you find that this worm composting is for you, then you can get into worm farming with stackable worm bins and begging friends and relatives for their vegetable and fruit scraps to feed your rapidly increasing number of garbage eaters.

Where will I put my worm bin? Your new garbage eaters like it between 50 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Worm farming is an indoor and outdoor sport. If you are doing it right there is very little smell so find a spot that keeps your worms happy and productive. Since I’m in Florida my worms spend the summer indoors in the mudroom off the garage and most of the winter they are outside on the porch.

Where am I getting the worms for my new pet habitat? Easy enough to do it online. I get mine from several different suppliers like Uncle Jims Worm Farm or Garden Worms or the Worm Wrangler. They send out my worms and usually in three days my new workers are munching away in fresh bedding and the usual kitchen compost they so love.

To begin a worm compost, you will need about two pounds of worms to get started. Once you have the worms they will multiply fairly quickly. One pound of worms is capable of composting approximately half of a pound of scraps per day.

Place some bedding in the tote. The bedding can be shredded cardboard or newspaper. We have horses in the area and the stall sweepings of straw, manure, and grains work just great. You can also use leaves if you like, as well. The bedding should be moistened with water, but make sure that you only used non-chlorinated water. Make sure that you only moisten it and do not over-saturate the bedding.

Now, place the worms into the bin and cover them with organic waste. The composting worms seem to like a little sand and bagged manure on top to aid their digestion and cover it all with some more shredded cardboard to block the light.All you have to do now is to let the worms do their work. 

Within three to six months you will need to move the compost to one side of the bin and add new bedding. The worms will make their way to the new bedding and you can then remove the compost and use it in your garden.

In addition to increased nutrient levels, worm castings contain millions of microbes which help break down nutrients already present in the soil into available plant forms. As the worms deposit their castings, their mucous is a beneficial component absent from compost produced by hot or cold composting. The mucous slows the release of nutrients preventing them from washing away with the first watering. Worm compost is usually too rich for use alone as a seed starter. It is useful as a top dressing and as an addition to potting mixes at a rate of one part castings to four parts mix. Your plants will love it.

So now is the time to start worm composting and you can do it.

Let’s Recycle Organic Waste-Kitchen Compost and Garden Compost Together in a Composting Bin

The composting bin you decide on can be simple and cheap, to high-end style and not so cheap. It really depends on your preferences, your space requirements, and your budget. You are putting your compost pile, that ragged pile that takes a long time to decompose, into a compost container so it is not so ragged and long term in decomposition. You are helping nature along by closing in your compost and you don’t have to wait as long for your nutritious compost soil.

When aerated, kept moist, and covered, your compost is breaking down (decomposing) at about 140°-160° Fahrenheit. You have to turn it or stir it up every one or two weeks. Outside of that, there is really nothing to do. In 60- 90 days you have nutritious compost to add to your flower beds and gardens, or potted plants, or new plantings, or…….

Homemade Compost Bins

Four 5′ metal stakes, some snow fencing, and some heavy wire for attachment and with a tarp cover, you have a compost bin. Looks like crap but it certainly will get the job done.

I go down to the mower place when they get a shipment of riding lawnmowers on pallets. The guy gives me as many as I can carry away. Here I build a compost bin using 8 foot metal stakes and build the walls, top, and bottom out of the pallets. Looks neat and with good aeration, and keeping it moist, it works very well.

Now, some folks will tell you not to use untreated wood because it will also decompose. I figure “So What!”, I’ll just go down to the mower place and get another one. Isn’t that what recycling is all about? “Dust to Dust”……. and all that.

Composting Barrels

In that same recycling theme, you can use metal or plastic barrels. I particularly like those blue surplus 55 gal. plastic barrels that I get from the city and last year I got the surplus(read ugly) trash barrels from the beach authority. Cleaned up with a bunch of drilled holes and a secure lid and bingo we’ve got a compost bin.

I turn my compost weekly by simply rolling the barrel to another location in the yard. You can build a compost tumbler if you stick a steel rod through the barrel and put the ends on some sort of stanchion to create your own compost tumbler making it easier to rotate the barrel and turn your working compost. Not as much fun for the kids as rolling a barrel around the yard but if you are the only one participating in the deal a crank will be easier and quicker.

Worm Bins

When you first discover worm composting it may put you off a bit but really, get over it. They have tried softening the name to vermicomposting but “vermi” is simply latin for worm. We are not just talking any worm here but “red wiggler” worms. These redworms   (Eisenia foetida) are not soil dwellers but organic waste pile residents. They make the best compost for your gardens flat out.

Since this whole exercise is to keep my new pets happy I’ll make a worm farm or at least something similar. I go to the local wine shop and liberate some of their multi-bottle wooden boxes. They are usually not finished or treated wood which is good for my worms. I find a couple that are 8 inches high and about 16×16 inches length and width. I now drill lots of 3/16th inch holes in the bottom and the lid. I’ve found some side vented plastic trays at  a local nursery that have a 16×16 inch nesting ridge leaving the bottom of my box 4 inches from the bottom. This is for some really wonderful compost tea.

Add your moist bedding, a little soil or fine sand, chopped up kitchen compost materials, and your redworms and you are good to go. 

There you go, all types of inexpensive composting containers you can use to build a compost system for your home. More composting ideas to help you go green and benefit.