Making your Feed Work Better

One excellent tip is to freeze all food scraps in the freezer for a period of time and then allow them to thaw before adding to the worm bed.

Put all of your scraps in the deep freeze for a couple of weeks and then thoroughly defrost them prior to feeding. This starts the breakdown of the cellular structure and hastens the composting process.

Worms, after all, have no teeth, so their food has to be good and sloppy before they can slurp it up.

When you take the “fresh” scraps out of the freezer they are quite soft and soupy.

Just pour the liquid from the plastic bags right into the bin. Using this method, your bins will  remains quite moist, without adding any other liquid.

Alternatively if you don’t want to use space in your deep freeze you could mulch any large green matter (such as the lettuce leaves) before adding it to the bin.

A simple food processor will do the Job and a couple of pulses are all it takes.

Breaking up the larger leaves into many small pieces in such a way allows for a greater volume of surface area to be exposed and will again speed up decomposition.

You can also bury the material just under the surface of the bedding to speed the process up further still.

Of course, you could also simply break the material up by hand before adding to the bed using a basic ripping method, but the smaller the pieces of material, the faster they will decompose and become utilized by the composting worms.

 

Worms Dying and Other Issues

Some symptoms that your worm composting is not going as well as it could are:

• If your worms are dying
• If your bin smells rotten and/or attracts flies

Worms Dying

If your worms are dying there could be several causes:

1. It may be that they are not getting enough food, which means you should bury more food into the bedding.
2. They may be too dry, in which case you should moisten the box until it is slightly damp.
3. They may be too wet, in which case you should add bedding.
4. The worms may be too hot, in which case you should put the bin in the shade.
5. The bedding is eaten, and it is time to add fresh bedding.

Bin Smells

If your bin smells rotten and/or attracts flies, there may be three causes:

1. First, it may be that there is not enough air circulation. In this case, add dry bedding under and over the worms, and do not feed them for two weeks.
2. Second, there may be non-compostables present such as meat, pet feces or greasy food. These should be removed.
3. Third, there may be exposed food in the bin. In this case, secure the lid, cover food scraps with bedding, and cover worms and bedding with a sheet of plastic.

 

Raising and Feeding Worms

Let worms eat your organic waste! They will happily turn it into some of the best fertilizer on earth – worm compost, otherwise known as “worm castings” or “vermicompost.” A fascinating, fun and easy way to recycle your organic kitchen wastes, vermiculture:

• Requires very little work
• Produces no offensive odors
• Helps plants thrive

Only a few things are needed to make good worm compost: a bin, bedding, worms and worm food. By following the steps listed below, you will learn to make, maintain and use your own worm compost.

Worm Bins

Your bin needs to be only 8 to 16 inches deep, since compost worms are surface feeders. You can build your own bin by using a washtub, dish pan, used shipping crate or a commercially available worm bin. Just be sure your bin has a lid to keep out flies and rodents. It also needs holes in the bottom (a quarter inch or smaller), for ventilation and drainage.

The rule of thumb for bin size is two square feet of surface area per person, or one square foot of surface area per pound of food waste per week. Because worms like moderate temperatures, place your bin in a shady location where it will not freeze or overheat. Some good locations include:

• Kitchen corner
• Garage
• Basement
• Patio
• Outside the back door
• Laundry room