Building a new worm bin

This is super easy! Everyone should give it a try! My worm bin is pretty easy to maintain, reduces how much trash we produce and will give us great fertilizer for my container garden. Plus it's pretty entertaining :D

I have 2 lids for my bin, one with holes, one without. When it rains, I put the one without on top so the rain doesn't pool on top and run in through their ventilation holes. It rained and I forgot. Oops. So the worms are soaked and unhappy. I checked on them and their bedding is sopping, and a bunch of worms all up the sides. So I decided it's as good a time as any to divide the bin, something I've been planning to do for a few weeks.

I made the new bin a couple weeks ago, but didn't fill it until today. It's really easy!

Here's what you'll need to make your own worm bin:

1-2 old Rubbermaid style storage tubs

2 lids, or 1 lid and 1 solid cover
a waterproof support like a couple bricks, cinderblocks, small flowerpots
another tub or lid to use as a drip tray, optional

1 paper grocery bag of shredded cardboard, newspaper, dead dry leaves or a mix, moistened

fruit or veggie scraps

1 lb or so red wigglers worms

a drill and fairly large drill bit

Just take an old Rubbermaid style tub and drill holes all over it on all sides, including the lid to create a ventilated tub. Mine has some dry leaves in it already in the pic, but you can see the holes all over.

To assemble the tub, place the bricks on top of drip tray (spare lid or 2nd tub without holes). Put the ventilated tub on top of the bricks. Once it's in place, begin to fill it. Place a layer several inches thick of moistened shredded newspaper, cardboard or dry leaves. I like to save thin brown cardboard boxes, paper bags, toilet paper tubes and newspaper for this. Before adding to the bin, moisten it lightly. I dumped some rain water on it. You want it damp, but barely damp. It will absorb more moisture from the food you add. The worms really seem to like soft corrigated cardboard. Avoid any glossy paper and try to avoid color inks. No plastic windows from envelopes, staples or other noncompostables. This will be the worms' bedding, it helps keep the right moisture level and prevent odors, but it will also be consumed.

Now that the worms have a nice bed, they'll need something to eat. Fruit and veggie trimmings, bread, rice or cereal are good choices. If you're using banana peels or much fruit, I'd microwave it first to avoid fruit flies - voice of experience!

Only several handfuls are needed to start. Scatter it over the top of the bedding. Add your worms in with their food. It looks like I added a huge amount of food, but most of that is soggy stuff from the old bin. I scooped out a bunch of worms and old bedding from the old bin to start this bin.

Next it's time to tuck them in. Add another layer a couple inches thick of bedding material, your moistened cardboard or paper. You want all the food and wormy layer to be covered. Last, place your lid on top. One with holes is good for everyday use, but if it's raining put a solid lid on top so your worms won't drown. I didn't get a picture of it with bedding on top or a lid, I was working fast to avoid getting rained on.

To maintain your bin, keep it somewhere protected. They can take a light freezing after the bin is established, but it's best to keep them in the garage or basement if temperatures will be below the 40s at night for more than a couple days. They slow down eating when they're cold, so make sure you're not over feeding during cool weather.

To feed them, just scoop back the top layer of bedding and add new scraps then recover it. Try to go in a circle so by the time you dig up a spot again they've had time to eat what was there. I like to toss the contents around a bit when I feed them, to see what they're eating and make sure the worms are looking content. Add food slowly at first, a handful every couple days or a week, until you can judge how much they'll eat before it begins to rot. My worms seem to love banana peels, beans, Cheerios, lettuce and apple cores.

If it's too wet or you notice an odor, add more bedding. If it's too dry, sprinkle with water. When the bin is all full of nice powdered casings (worm poo) it's time to harvest! But mine isn't ready yet, so that'll be another day :)

I fed my old bin at the same time, some old salad, then tossed around some new bedding and more on top to make up for leaving the ventilated lid on and them getting too wet. Here's the bin after a little stirring around and feeding, see all the unhappy worms on the lower edge? They're hard to see, but trust me, they're there. I knocked a bunch of them back into the bin too.

Since the new bin is a secondary, I just stacked it on top of the old one. I'll create a drip tray for it another day, it's pouring today and I barely had enough of a break in the rain to put the new bin together today. Here they are all stacked. The bottom grey bin is my drip tray, the green bin is my old worm bin, the top grey bin is the one I just put together.

Eggin' the worms

One of the things I do for my worm bin is save egg shells. I put them back in the carton, then when they're all gone I put the carton on the fridge or somewhere to dry. When they're thoroughly dry and I have a couple dozen, I mash them up for the worms. They help give the worms grit so they can digest their food, since they have a gizzard like birds. They also improve the calcium content of the compost, which will be great for my tomatoes! Another benefit I've heard but haven't verified is that they can help control the acid level in the bin. Whatever benefits they have, I'm glad to be able to put them into the bin instead of the trash and know at least in part that they'll be recycled.

My favorite eggs to use are nice brown ones, which come in a recycleable cardboard carton and are laid by vegetarian fed hens. The shells are a bit thicker, so they're easier to crack without it crumbling pieces into the egg. I only get those when they're on sale about the same price as the white ones. Sometimes I get massive jumbo brown eggs too - yum!

To get the shells ready, first I put all the dried shells into a gallon size ziplock bag. A reused bag is just fine! Then mash them up with your hands, or use a bowl or plate. Be careful not to poke through the bag with sharp edges! When the pieces get small, you can use a rolling pin to finish pulverizing them. The smaller the particles, the better. They don't get eaten and disappear when added to the worm bin, so keep in mind if you add big chunks then there will be big chunks in your compost. If you add tiny ground up pieces then some will be eaten, some will be there to add texture, and eventually they'll break down to give calcium to your plants. You can use a food processor or whatever you'd like to turn the shells into tiny pieces, this works for me and it's a lot less cleanup than using the food processor.

All I do to put them in is sprinkle them over the top when I need to mix up the bin anyway. Right now is a good time to stir things up since I've deliberately not fed them in a week or two, letting them use up some extra food because I overfed them. I still have a few fruit flies in there so there's wet newspaper on top. It seems to be working, there are only a couple fruit flies left. I just folded that out of the way, scooted some of the shredded cardboard bedding off to the side then poured the eggshells over the top. I used my hands (wearing gloves!) to mix up the bin a bit, trying to pull things from the sides towards the center, and bottom up to the top.

Always really interesting to see what is going on in there! I found some baby worms, part of a sweet potato growing, more melon sprouts and a bunch of fat worms. I love seeing the baby worms, a good sign that things are working as they should be and my worms are happy. When I was done, I just spread the reserved bedding back over the top, put the wet newspaper back over everything, and put the lid back on. A well kept worm bin doesn't smell bad unless you happen to uncover something you've recently added, it has too much food at one time or it's too wet. The rest of the bin smells like good potting soil, earthy but not rotten, so once you get past the ick factor of it being full of worms it's pretty neat!

Can you see the baby worms in the picture above? There are two adults, there's one baby between them at the bottom and another on the left by my glove. These are older babies, they look like red threads. I'm sure there are others but those two are easy to see. The photo quality isn't great since these guys don't like to be out in the light long and my camera takes a moment to focus. I've been looking for worm egg capsules but they must be pretty tiny, I haven't been able to spot any. These guys are on a piece of newspaper that has been in the bin a while, it's just coated in good castings. When I stir the bin up, I try to fluff up any compressed clumped bits of newspaper. I'm trying to use more shredded cardboard, dried leaves and cardboard egg cartons for bedding and less shredded newspaper since the newspaper clumps so much more than the other materials. I'm looking forward to being able to use my castings, and seeing if my tomatoes do well this year! I have tomatoes sprouting in peet pellets indoors. I never have much luck growing tomatoes from seeds, but these sprouts seem to be doing well, so hopefully the combo of strong seedlings and some rich castings for their soil will help them out this year!

Green tip of the day - house plants

It's a great idea for everyone to have house plants. They naturally help filter toxins released by products like carpeting, paint and other modern materials from the air.

Check around for local growers, grab a packet of seed and a recycled container, or grow some from kitchen scraps. I have a very nice mango sapling growing that's about 2 feet tall now, grown from the pit of an especially good mango. I also have several pineapple tops and sweet potatoes. If you've never tried growing a sweet potato, do! They make lush green draping foilage, with large leaves that resemble maple. They're easy to grow, once you find one that sprouts. Just suspend it in water to get sprouts, then once they have leaves snap off the stem they're growing on where it attaches to the potato and plant them. They're called slips, and each one can produce another potato plant. You're not likely to get sweet potatoes in a small indoor container, but if you have a barrel half or other large container on the patio you may!

I also sometimes grow avocado pits or the seeds of other fruits I have around, or a bean. Fun projects, even if they don't turn into a lush, lasting plant.

Green Tip of the Day

Ever stopped to consider just how much soap and detergent you use? It's probably a lot!

If you think about it, the more you use, the more the makers earn on their products and the better it is for them. So it's in their best interest to advise you to use more than you really need.

Try decreasing how much you use, and see if you get the same result! I've found I actually get a better result on laundry using half the recommended amount of detergent! Too much detergent doesn't rinse completely off, leaving a residue that attracts more dirt and retains odors. To test this out, run a load of laundry without adding any detergent. Open it up during the wash, and look to see if the water is cloudy and sudsy like it would be if you had added detergent. If it is, then you're using too much and it's staying on your laundry!

Test out other products too, you may be using a lot more dish detergent, soap, shampoo and toothpaste than you really need to adequately get the job done. Remember those extra products take ingredients and energy to produce and transport, and when you rinse it down the drain it doesn't stop existing. Whether you're using hyped up green products, salon stuff or bargain shelf stuff it adds to waste water and has an impact on the environment when it's released. So much waste is produced that even biodegradable products take longer to break down than they should.

I'd eventually like to make our own laundry detergent, but haven't been able to locate washing soda in a store yet. Regular "green" laundry products are way out of our price range, but for now I'm content knowing I'm reducing our footprint by using less of the regular stuff. Better for the planet and our wallets!

Green tip of the day

Today's tip is composting!

We have no yard area, and definitely not enough space for a compost pile, so I have a worm composter. It was simple to make myself from a couple of old plastic storage bins and cement blocks. When I get pictures working again I'll post pictures of it, I just made another bin but it's not filled yet. My worms are reproducing fast enough that I can divide them to make 2 bins and come closer to being able to put all of our produce scraps in there! My total cost to get the worm bin up and running was about $30, $25 for a pound of redworms (I've seen them as cheap as $14, but I chose to go with a supplier close to home who charges more), and $5 for tubs (which were actually free since I had them laying around anyway, or you may be able to get them free on Craigslist, FreeCycle or at a yard sale) and a cinderblock.

Worms are easy to use, just bury scraps in there and add bedding and water as needed. For bedding, I use shredded newspaper, toilet paper rolls and brown cardboard boxes or packing material. I also add ground egg shells for good calcium content, grit and acid level control. They can eat a surprising amount of cardboard, leaves and veggie scraps! At the end I'll have wonderful free fertilizer for my potted plants, reduced our garbage output and made a better world :) If everyone had a small worm bin on the patio imagine how many tons of banana peels and cardboard tubes would be put back into use instead of using more energy to be recycled or going straight into a "locked in time" landfill!

Green tip of the day

The green tip for today is to save water while waiting for it to get hot. I've been keeping a watering can, bucket or pitcher next to the sink, so I turn on the hot and fill up a container while waiting for it to actually get hot. I use that water for the plants, cleaning or washing hands. The money savings isn't much since water is so cheap, but I feel better not letting quite so much just go down the drain for nothing!

Green tip of the day

I'm going to try to start offering a Green Tip as often as I can - something good for the environment, your bank account and you!

Today's tip is washcloths. You can buy the fancy eco friendly pricy ones, or the cheap packs of them for about $3 at Walmart. The green part comes in how you use them. Instead of spending money on paper towels to dry hands and clean baby faces, I've started using washcloths. I keep a nice basket of them near the sink, right under the paper towel holder. They're handy to grab to dry hands, clean dishes, clean the kids, wipe down counters - almost anything you'd use a paper towel for. Then just toss them in the laundry with all the other towels. I've calculated it saves us about $5/month, and an entire bag of garbage produced! It costs us nothing but the price to buy the washcloths. Very handy! Does a much better job cleaning up the kids after lunch too!