Worm Bin

I started a worm bin last week - basically a large plastic box filled with shredded newspaper bedding and about a thousand worms. The bin is commercially available - Worm A Way - pre-drilled with PVC pipe air tubes and vents on the lids. I ordered from Fisher Scientific's education site, Scienceville, and the kit was supposed to come with a lot of extras that didn't show up. After some back and forth with customer service, they refunded my purchase price completely while not asking for the bin back. They still haven't changed their site, so you could try for your free bin if you're up for a gamble.





I had to order my worms separately from Worms Etc - 1 pound of red wrigglers. They arrived Priority Mail exactly when Matthew said they would - packaged in some loose bedding in a little canvas bag all wrapped in cotton. A few worms had escaped from the bag, but they were still alive. A pound of worms, if you've never seen it, is A Lot of worms! They estimate 800 - 1200 worms per pound, depending on average size. My bag contained all sizes of worms, a good mix! Excellent customer service and the worms looked just as healthy as the ones on the website. I hope I can keep them alive and happy.

I set up the bin as directed - moist shredded newspaper, a little bit of soil, and worms on top. If you leave it open with a light on, the worms will migrate down into the bin away from the light. It's hard to tell if they're doing okay. Besides a few with wanderlust who migrated out the top of the bin and died in the laundry room floor, most of the little guys are down in the bedding doing their thing.

The idea is that we bury our kitchen scraps in there - a pound a week or more - and the worms very politely convert our waste into worm castings that we can add to the garden. I took the bin to show the children at Kids' College and they LOVED it! I gave them worms to hold and we talked a great deal about composting. Even though they had gloves, most of the kids took them off to play in the worms.

Yesterday I buried a little leftover cantelope and coffee grounds. I checked this morning and the worms had migrated to the food scraps. Eggplant parmesan for dinner tonight, so the worms will get eggplant trimmings and more. I'll keep you posted on how they're doing!