Show me your worm bins and compost

Disclaimer: I’m not the foremost expert on this but here’s what I’ve learned thus far.

Worm bins don’t require food compost. And really, most of it is consumed by the BSF larva in my bin.

A little bit added to the worms is helpful but not necessary. If I were indoors, I’d be cutting it up in much smaller chunks or blending it so it was a soup. the important part is to have plenty of bedding: cardboard, brown leaves, coir, peat, etc. Then depending on how nutritious you want to make it, you can add things like Kelp, etc. or if you like to keep your vegetable and fruit cutoffs, throw them in your bin.

As the worms work through everything in the bins (wherever they currently live) they are breaking stuff down. Over and over again. Just let them do their thing. Make sure they aren’t waterlogged but don’t let them dry out either. Over time, they’ll work through everything and it’ll be completely broken down – aka – high quality worm castings.

I’d suggest at that point, getting some metal screen, 1/4″ x 1/4″ and putting a frame around it. You could also build another frame wiht 1/2″ x 1/2″ or whatever size you want. Then take everything from the worm bin and work it over the screens so you are screening for just the castings. The night before doing this, you could put some melon rinds or apple cores in the corners of the bins and come back to harvest the worms out.

It’s a messy affair so I’d do it outside or somewhere you don’t mind some dirt/soil spilling out. Once you’ve screened it, use whatever fell through the 1/4″ or even the 1/2″ if you like and throw everything else back in the bin and start a new cycle. The size of screening you want to do is really up to you but typically the smaller, the more broken down.

It’s best to give the worms plenty of time to work it over. This isn’t a quick process. At least not with worms. I’d prefer at least a year to let the worms really concentrate their castings but 3-6 months can be done in optimal conditions. Now, if you get black soldier flies – they produce insect frass at an incredible rate. (insect poop – the equivalent of worm castings but from other insects). Meal worms can be cultivated indoors and can be fed to any reptilian pets, from what I’ve read. Meal worms make a nice frass that can be fed to your plants and they are prodigious.

Bonus: Insect frass has chitin which has been shown to be a great additive for plants of all types.

My leachate is mostly from heavy rains because it’s outdoors. If you keep it indoors and properly monitor water levels, I doubt you’d have anything close to what comes out of mine.

And you don’t need 4 bins. 1 or 2 is fine. Google it and I’m sure you’ll find tons of examples. Search it on youtube as well, lots of worm bin designs out there.

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