Composting is essential to a garden especially if you are into the organic side of gardening. Composting is a process by which organic materials, such as kitchen scraps and lawn trimmings are converted from an unstable product, which is likely to further decompose and create objectionable odors, to an increasingly more stable product that will store well without being offensive. Not only will you recycle the organic waste and turn them into something valuable to your plants, you will also be able to earn money from vermicomposting.
Vermiculture is the process of using several species of worms to do the job of trimming down large amount of organic materials and get in return the valuable “poop” called casting which is rich in nutrients and best as fertilizers for your plants.
This process in composting is fast becoming a popular mainstay as a composting method nowadays. Whether you have a huge space for your worms or a small area doesn’t really matter as long as you have the materials and the passion for gardening then there should be no problem at all.
The materials you will need in creating your own worm bin is a bin made of plastic material or a wooden crate. The size depends on how much food you can supply to your worms as having a large bin is unnecessary if you can’t feed them how much they need. Make sure that your bin has holes to allow air to come in order to avoid steaming your worms inside. Worms need proper ventilation in order for them to stay and live in your bin.
Place a layer of newspaper at the bottom of your bin and make sure that you moistened the newspaper to give your worm bin a damp environment. Worms thrive best on damp surroundings that’s why don’t get surprised in case your worms break out of your bin due to the inappropriate level of dampness of your worm bin.
You can now put the foods of the worm inside the bin. Whenever you put food inside the bin, make sure that the first layer of food should be decomposed a little so that the worm will have something to eat. Worms will not eat fresh food as they can’t break it down. That’s why you can sometimes see worms coming out of the bin in case you only have fresh food wastes.
The ratio on how much food you feed your worms is ½ pound of food to 1 pound of worm. So if your household can provide 1 pound of food waste per day then you will be needing 2 pounds of worm for your worm bin. You can also reduce the number of worms as a fallback in case your food wastes supply is not consistent to avoid worms from getting hungry.
Now it’s time to get the best type of worm for this type of job. Although there are many species of worm used for vermiculture, not all of them can be used for this type of worm housing. Eisenia fetida also known as the popular red wrigglers are the best species of worm fit for this type of environment. Eisenia fetida, the one recommended for a composting worm bin, can survive at temperatures between 35° and 100°F but performs best between 65°and 78°F.
Worms do not have eyes, but they do have light receptors on their skin. They do not like light, and will quickly dig down into a bin to avoid it. For this reason, it is a good idea to provide a cover for your worm bin.These are voracious species that consumes any type of organic material thrown in their bin. Harvest the castings when these worms have consumed all the foods.