Ordering Worms Today? Better Make That Bin First

So you wanna try worm composting eh?

Worms Escape Bin
Image courtesy of the wormcompostinghq.com

First of all, congratulations!  There is simply no other form of recycling that comes close to it. Vermicomposting is efficient on a small, household scale, insanely healthy for the environment and, get this . . . it’s addicting.

If you’re like I was, you want to hop online and order a couple pounds of these eating machines and get started, pronto. While I’d love to take your money and send you some red wigglers right now, I want you to tap the brakes a bit.

There’s one important step standing between you and wasting your money.

If all I did was sell online, I probably wouldn’t even think about this potential problem because the transaction is very simple:

They send money.

I send worms.

But I’ve been getting a greater proportion of my customers by phone looking to pick up locally,  a “happy accident” in the words of PBS painter Bob Ross. The personal contact allows me to gauge the level of knowledge of the customer and get to know their specific situations.

80% of these customers are brand new to vermicomposting, which I love.  But 80% of that 80% have not yet prepared their bin.  (Enter the sound of screeching brakes.)  And this is where I knowingly risk the sale by spending time explaining why doing that is more important than ordering the worms at this point.

So dear budding vermicomposter, while I would love to take your money, I would rather make sure you start out the right way.

There’s a difference between a house and a home.  A house has walls, a roof, doors, and windows.  But only a home has a stocked refrigerator, closets full of clothes, pictures of your kids, and of course all those Barry Manilow CDs. Without these things, you won’t want to stay there.  And if your worm bin isn’t a home, then your worms won’t want to stick around either.

Why Do You Even Need The Bin?

Let’s think about this for a second.   Worm bins serve to:

  • give you more control over environmental conditions
  • protect against critters
  • keep sanitary conditions elsewhere in your living space
  • give you portability for your worms
manual_windrow_composting
www.practicalaction.org

If you didn’t need the above benefits,  then you could just pile some bedding, food, and your worms on the living room floor and they’d be happy.  These piles, also called windrows (pictured at left), are effective methods of both vermicomposting and vermiculture, yet feature no walls, ceilings, or armed guards to prevent a jailbreak.  The worms stay in the windrow because they are content, not because there’s no other option for them.  (Speaking of jailbreaks, the image of worms escaping above is courtesy of Henry over at www.wormcompostinghq.com)

So a well-prepared worm bin is defined by worms wanting to stay rather than one where they simply can’t escape.

So What Makes For A Good Worm Bin?

In short, a hospitable worm bin has plenty of proper bedding, appropriate moisture in the 60-90% range, and a “living” environment where a microbial population is thriving.

So please heed this advice and postpone your worm purchase until you’ve prepared a proper home for your new friends.  Give yourself two weeks to do this!  

Here’s 3 reasons why . . .

1)  It Gives Time To Get The Moisture Under Control

A top nemesis of beginning vermicomposters is improper moisture control, especially if they’re going with a plastic bin.  And you’re probably not going to get it right the first time.

Unless you have access to aged horse manure (which I highly recommend) or peat moss, your most immediate source of bedding is going to be shredded paper or cardboard, which you are going to need to soak.  Thoroughly.

If you’re impatient like I was and interpret “soak overnight” as “soak for 10 minutes,” you are not going to saturate your bedding evenly and you’ll end up with areas of wet bedding and spots of very dry bedding. So I definitely didn’t get it right the first time.

You may make a different mistake in the other direction, but if your bin has no worms in it, then no harm, no foul.

So take your time, thoroughly soak any dry bedding, wring it out, place it in the bin and check its moisture level daily for a couple weeks.

If you see condensation forming on the inside your bin, that could be an indication things are a little too wet.  

Add some dry bedding or leave the bin uncovered until the bedding has the consistency of a wet sponge. If you take a handful of your bedding and can’t squeeze out a drop of water, then you might consider using a spray bottle to wet things down a bit.

It’s going to be much better to get this under control ahead of time rather than try to do it on the fly with a live population living at the mercy of your moisture-keeping skills!  Note:  Most of your food waste is going to be mostly water weight.  You may find you can keep moisture in that 60-90% range without ever needing to add water.

2)  You Need Microbes!

The need for a microbially-active environment is by far the most important reason to take my advice.  While the topic of microbes requires its own chapter (which I don’t have the chops to write), just know this: Worms don’t really eat your food so much as they eat the microbes that form on the food as it decomposes.  Throw a new apple in a worm bin and come back the next day.  You’ll find a day-old apple with little interest from the wigglers. Throw some aged pumpkin in a worm bin and expect to see what looks like an worm orgy.

It doesn’t matter if your “bin” is a Rubbermaid or Sterilite bin, a 5-gallon bucket, or a Worm Inn or Worm Factory.  It is going to be sterile until you grow or introduce a source of microbes.
“But Steve!,” you say. “I don’t know the first thing about growing microbes!”  And this is where I’d argue anyone who “knows” how to leave wet laundry in their washer and forget about it for a few days “knows” how to grow microbes.
I can’t give you a detailed recipe for growing microorganisms.  But try this:
Let your shredded, wrung-out bedding sit in a covered bin for a week (I am assuming you’re using an entry-level Rubbermaid bin).  Then add a couple banana peels to really get the party going and let it sit for another week.
I can’t tell you all of what’s going to grow in there, but I do know you ARE going to have microbes at the end of the two weeks.

Remember:  Sterility is for operating rooms, not your worm bin.

 3)  It Teaches Patience

This more about preparing yourself, rather than preparing your bin.

When your worms arrive, you’re going to want to check on them daily, if not hourly.  It was one of the toughest things for me to let my bin be just for a couple days, and I’m pretty sure my worms suffered for my curiosity. Preparing a bin properly well before your worms arrive will teach you ahead of time how to have a worm bin in your house without messing with it every day.  When it’s stocked with worms, the urge to mess with them may seem irresistible, but at least you’ve gotten some practice being patient.  Had I taken my own advice early on, I think my population growth would have been a little more impressive than it was at first.

How To Short-Circuit The Process

Find an existing living habitat, which can be compost, aged horse manure, or better yet, someone else’s worm bin!  Take several scoops of this goodness to inoculate your new bin with a ready made source of bedding, microbes, and maybe even some worms, babies, and cocoons.  If you are the impatient type, this is probably the best route for you to go.

Have you had any issues yourselves with rushing the process?  How’d it go?  Let me know in the comments!

8 thoughts on “Ordering Worms Today? Better Make That Bin First

  1. I put my first homemade bin (styrofoam recycled from fish delivery cooler with lots of holes and shredded newspaper and one pound of worms) in the basement. It was too cold, and they just died and decomposed – yuck! 🙁

    My second attempt was a seven story worm factory – with a vacation rental business we can get lots of compost! I probably overwhelmed them at first, didn’t give the compost enough time to really get started, probably it was too wet, and quite a few worms did try to migrate. We had some problems with little white mites too. But additional bedding helped (a mix of coconut coir and shredded newspaper now) as has some benign neglect. You are right about leaving them alone.

    I’m astonished how effective the worms are – avocado pits, mango pits, corn cobs, all disappear given enough time. They seem much more efficient than my outside compost bins.

    I only have a few chickens as livestock, so it is tough getting good manure and compost for my garden, so I really appreciate the work my worms do, transforming what I give them to great compost. It takes some time sorting through the bin to separate the worms from the compost, but it is a chance to slow down and sit and relax.

    I like that I can ignore the worms when I’m really busy, or manage the system more intensively when I have the time and the additional material to feed them.

    Thanks for your work! 😉

  2. I used to compost in the ground and was pretty successful, feeding, watering turning the compost, but then went on vacation and didn’t have anyone look after it. I do not have a source of animal manure. I use compost that I purchase from the nursery.

    I thought a tumbler composter would be easier to manage, but I found it to be more difficult to get the right green and brown ratio and balance. I had to buy equine pellets to dry out my compost, because I did not have enough brown and my tumbler contained too much rotted green waste products. I am having difficulty getting the correct ratio of green and brown still.

    About 2-3 months ago, I was given a used worm factory with 2 trays and started my vermicompost. I watched a few videos on how to start a vermicompost and made a lot of mistakes. Killed a couple bag of worms.
    I prepared my bottom tray with a layer of wet shredded paper, coco coir, compost, grit and covered it with a layer of wet newspaper and paper towel. I waited about a week before adding a bag of red worms. I have since checked on the bottom bin and the worms are still there and active, but some of them are escaping to the bottom tray where the drain is. I put a little layer of wet coco coir, compost, shredded paper, paper towel to entice them to stick around and not escape. So far that has worked. My top bin has been around for over 2 1/2 months and I started it with a mixture of wet compost, coco coir, shredded paper, grit, covered with wet shredded paper, newspaper and paper towels. I waited only a couple of days before adding the worms and I know I over fed that top bin. The worms were there initially, but they seemed to have disappeared. I saw quite a few white worms and bugs in the top bin. I check the hydration and pH of the bin and had to add more grit a couple of times to neutralize the soil. Most of the worms disappeared and I am not sure where they all went? I can find a few scatterings of worms and saw a few brown cocoons. Now I feed one corner section of the bin with a 2-3 small stripes of banana peels, because I am afraid of over feeding them again. There is still some shredded paper in the compost. I know I should not disturb the worm bin, but sometimes I am curious and want to see how they are doing. Do you have any suggestions or recommendations for me? I love working with my vermicompost more than the tumbler composter. Is it possible to use the tumbler as a vermicompost bin or should I buy another worm tray and prep it to house more worms?

  3. Please send me the plans to build my own bin. Thank you. If I do wait the 2-3 weeks to order red wrigglers are you going to be out of stock?

  4. I am building a stackable bin that has 3 compartments of appx. 2’x4’x5″. The top two are for the worms and the bottom is to catch the leachate. The bin will have two top compartments so when the bottom is full of castings, they can move up to the top bin and start the process again. What is the “ideal” screen size for the bottom of the bins? I was planning to use 1/2″ or 1/4″ wire mesh but worried that 1/2″ might be too porous and 1/4″ might be too narrow for them to travel through. Thanks for the help. I look forward to ordering worms soon!

  5. My bin worm factory was in the basement. It was fine for awhile then I started having a gnat problem. Could I use neem meal in the bin to kill the gnat larvae? Please I need an answer before starting up again.

    1. Hi Lorraine,
      I would do one of the following. Drench a piece of newsprint in neem oil and lay on top of your vermicompost.
      Another option is to use Rove Beetles to consume the fungus gnats. I had a reader use them and he said the gnats (possibly because they ate the gnat larvae) were gone within 2 days.
      Cheers!
      Steve

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