Vermicompost: A Gardener’s Friend

I recently had written an article on properly recycling your food waste garbage. I am big into recycling and feel that we can all do something beyond just putting our cans, bottles and paper into the proper bins for our local municipalities to come and get.

I bring up the food waste recycling for a reason and you gardeners are going to love this (if you do not know it already), and that is being able to turn your food waste into what is called vermicompost.

Vermicompost is nothing more than worm castings. Worms eat “something” and then their waste is called castings. These castings are an incredible source of a variety of nutrients for your soil.

In my previous article I wrote how you should just bury your food waste and that the worms will find it and eat it and of course produce worm castings better know as vermicompost. It is a pretty simple solution and very little work for you. It adds a lot of nutrients to your soil, and if you have a vegetable garden like me, it keeps my soil top notch.

But what if you don’t have a garden, or an area to bury the food waste, what then? You still want to recycle your food waste and keep it out of a landfill, so what can you do to help? You can start your own worm bin.

Did you ever have an ant farm when you were kid? If so then this is very similar only with worms. What you need is a large Rubbermaid container, some newspaper, food scraps and some worms.

Take your Rubbermaid container and drill ¼” holes in the bottom. This will allow any moisture to drain (we’ll get to more on that in a moment). Also drill holes (a bit larger like 3/8” to ½”) in the sides and the top for ventilation. We wouldn’t want to suffocate our worms.

Now that you have the bin all set you need to prepare the interior for the worm’s arrival. Shred up some newspaper and soak it with water. Now wring out the newspaper because you do not want to have it drenched, you just want it nice and saturated for the worms. This newspaper will serve as your bedding. Place the newspaper at the bottom of your Rubbermaid container using only half of the container. The other half you want to keep empty (I’ll explain why in a moment).