Trash Talking To Worms – The Dirty Truth About Worm Composting

Worm composting, also known as vermiculture, is the proverbial win-win situation. It gives you a convenient way to dispose of organic waste such as vegetable peelings. Save space at the county landfill, which is good for the environment. It gives the worms a happy home and all the free “food” they could want. For those who have gardens or even potted plants, homegrown compost is a great way to feed and nourish plants.

Worm composting, which some advocates have dubbed “the organic garbage disposal,” recycles food waste into a rich, dark, earthy-smelling soil conditioner. It’s such a good thing that Planet Natural sells a variety of organic compost that ranges in price from $5.95 to $10.95, as well as potting soil that contains compost.

And despite its reputation, worm composting doesn’t have to be a smelly endeavor. If you’re careful to set things up correctly, your compost bin shouldn’t stink.

Worm composting is increasingly seen as a way to help our environment and reduce waste. The City of Oakland in California has a recycling program specifically for food waste. (You supply the container and you provide the organic waste). The city of Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada, provides residents with worm bins and even has a hotline you can call to find out where to buy worms. Spokane, Washington posts information on getting started with worm composting to encourage residents to try this eco-friendly way to dispose of trash.

To get started, you need: worms, a container and “bedding”.

Don’t go digging up soil-dwelling insects near your home to fill your compost bin. Night crawlers need to tunnel through the ground to eat and survive and cannot live on plant debris. Instead, you need red worms… Eisenia foetida (also known as red wiggler, brandling, or dung worm) and lumbricus rubellus (dung worm).

You can buy worms at sites like Planet Natural. (We sell 500 red worms for $20.95 – shipping included.) If you have the time and access, you can also find a horse stable and salvage maggots from horse manure or have a farmer scavenge your manure pile for maggots.

Mary Appelhof, author of “Worms Eat My Trash” recommends two pounds of worms (about 2,000 worms) for every pound of food waste per day. (Some experts recommend a one-to-one ratio: one pound of worms to one pound of trash.) To calculate how much food waste your household generates, track it for a week and divide by seven.

When filling your bin with worms, also keep in mind that worms, provided you give them adequate food and a good home, can double their population every 90 days. It’s probably best to start with a little less worms than you need and just wait for your worm population to increase to meet your organic waste processing demand.

You will also need a container for the worms. We have a variety of worm bins for sale here, including Wormtopia ($109.95) and Can O Worms ($126.95).

If you prefer, you can also build your own. Size does matter when it comes to compost. You will want a container that is between eight and 12 inches deep. Wood is a great building material. If you don’t feel like building from scratch, you can even adapt a “Rubbermaid” type tub and turn it into a compost bin. Books like “Worms Eat My Trash” provide details on how to build your own compost bin. Just remember that worms like a dark, moist (not wet) environment and hate light. Any container must be opaque.

The bins can be located anywhere from under the kitchen sink to outside or in the garage. An important consideration is temperature. Ideally, a worm compost bin should be located in areas where temperatures are between 40 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Red worms generally prefer temperatures in the 55 to 77 degree range. If you live in an area that has harsh winters, you will need to move your bin inside during the winter months or compost seasonally. Another consideration: Worms are like people in that they don’t like noise or vibration very much. Keep them away from high traffic areas.

Once you have your worms and bins, you’re ready to set up your “compost shop.”

You will want to build a home for your worms first and one that will make them happy and prolific. You will need bedding that fills the container from one third to one half. To create bedding, soak a large amount of shredded newspaper or cardboard. Worms want an environment that is around 75 percent water. Newspapers should only take a few minutes to absorb enough water to make proper bedding. Let cardboard, such as toilet paper rolls and tissue boxes, soak overnight. Do not use garden soil or mix fresh cow, horse, or chicken manure into bedding. These give off gases and will raise the temperature of your compost bin. You could end up “cooking” your worms to death.

Once the bedding has soaked, wring it out until it is damp but not dripping. Place it in the bin along with something gritty like a little soil, fine sand, leaves, cornstarch, sawdust, or ground up eggshells. (Worms don’t have teeth, so they need something gritty to help them grind up paper and food.) Once your bin is up and running, it will be self-sufficient and you won’t need to add additional sand until you harvest the worm castings and clean the bin.

To make the worms feel at home, dig up halfway through the bedding and place them there. Don’t put them on top. Then put the lid on the container and keep it at a moderate temperature. Leave them alone for about a week to settle. They will feed on bedding.

After about a week, start feeding your worms food scraps such as fruit and vegetable peelings, powdered eggshells, tea bags, and coffee grounds. Avoid meat scraps, bones, fish, dairy scraps, and fatty foods, as these will make your compost pile smelly and attract flies and rodents. Experts are divided on whether pasta and grains should be composted or disposed of in regular trash. Your best bet is to experiment and let your worms tell you what they will or won’t eat.

Of course, there are certain things that worms don’t or shouldn’t eat. Do not dispose of glass, plastic, or aluminum foil in your compost. Although the paper can be used as bedding, do not include paper with color printed letters. Many colored inks are toxic to worms. Also avoid rubber bands and sponges.

It is best to feed the worms once a week in small amounts. If you feed them more than they can process, you’ll end up with a stinky compost bin as the trash literally builds up.

Compost doesn’t actually smell. The bad smell comes from rotten food that the worms have not yet eaten. If you give them the right size meals, not oversized entrees, they’ll eat the food before it starts to rot (and stink).

If they’re eating too slowly, chop up the plant matter, which is easier for them to eat and gives new meaning to the term “fast food.” If chopping doesn’t help enough, reduce the amount of organic matter you’re feeding them.

When you feed your worms, check back and see how things are going. If the bedding is wet, provide some additional bedding to soak up the excess. (Remember bedding should be damp, not dripping.) If the bedding is too dry, use water from a spray bottle to moisten it.

Once your compost bin is up and running, it requires little maintenance until little to no original bedding is visible and the bin contents are reduced in bulk and consist mostly of worm castings, which is brown and has a ” earthy”. Once your container has reached that point, it’s time to collect the worm castings and give them a new bedding. The waste can be collected anywhere from two and a half months to every six months, depending on how many worms you have and how much food you are giving them.

There are several collection methods. For those with the time and patience or young children, pour the contents of the container onto a large plastic sheet, then manually separate the worms from the compost. Children usually love to help collect the guts of the worms. Remember that both you and your helpers must wear gloves. Once all the worm casings have been removed, save some of the compost to mix into the new bedding and then the cycle starts all over again.

A more common way to harvest is to move everything (worms, waste, bedding, food) to one side of the bin. Pick the partially decomposed materials and push them to the other side. Place some food on top of the partially decomposed materials. Put the lid back on and leave it alone for a couple of weeks. During that time, the worms should migrate to the new food. Once they’ve made it through to the other side, put on a pair of gloves and harvest the debris. Make sure you don’t remove any worms in the process. Then give the worms new bedding mixed with a bit of compost.

Compost comes in handy whether you have an apartment decked out with potted plants or a backyard garden. Use compost to enrich potting soil and garden soil. It also makes a great mulch. It’s relatively simple and not only helps your plants, but also the environment.

Common problems and solutions

Problem: Strong unpleasant odors from the compost bin.

Solutions: The smell is most likely due to rotten food because you are giving the worms too much to eat and the food sits too long so it rots. The solution is to stop adding food waste until the worms have broken down what they have. (Also avoid meat and other fatty foods that can cause odor problems.) If odor becomes a problem, try stirring the contents of your compost pile as well. That will allow more air in, which can also reduce odors. At the same time you’re exploring those solutions, also check your container’s weep holes to make sure they’re not blocked, and drill more holes if necessary. The worms will drop if the contents of the container are too wet.

Problem: The worms crawl out of the bedding and onto the sides or lid of the container.

Solution: Bedding can be too acidic, forcing the worms to migrate. Bedding can become too acidic if you add too much acidic food scraps, like orange peels. Try to reduce the amount of acidic organic matter that you are putting in the container.

Problem: Fruit flies.

Solution: Avoid the problem in the first place by burying food waste and not overloading your worms with too much food. You can also try keeping a plastic sheet or a piece of old carpet or sack on the top of the compost bin. If the flies persist, consider moving the compost bin to a location where files won’t be a problem. Also think about recruiting some friendly spiders to take up residence near the compost bin.