Red Worm Composting…

My Wife looked at me like I was crazy. How could a Boy Scout not have done anything as earth friendly as Worm Composting? Maybe it was because we were busy learning how to camp, tie knots and shoot arrows or something, but either way, at 10:30pm Saturday night I found myself sitting down to construct a worm bin for my daughter’s Girl Scout troop.

Fortunately, its not as involved as it could be. I started with a 10gal Rubbermaid bin, its light blue with a dark blue top, some window screening and a tube of liquid nails. I drilled 15 holes in the top, 1/2″ in diameter, and I drilled two on the sides and one each on the end. Then I very systematically applied liquid nails around each of the holes and flatened a piece of the screen (about 2″x2″) over each hole and spread out the liquid nails with a putty knife so that the screen was tight on the opening. This was done to allow air flow in the bin but keep the other unwanteds (like fruit flies) out.

While I worked on the bin, G and E were busy tearing newspaper in to strips. You only want the newsprint, you don’t want the glossy ads as there are chemicals in the glossy print that are bad for the worms. When I finished the bin, I tore up some of the brown cardboard boxes that the girl scout cookies came in. According to Redwormcomposting.com the worms LOVE the brown corrugated cardboard as they can crawl between the sheets in the tubes. It also helps add some variety to the mix for the bedding.

We put the shredded paper and cardboard in a box and I added half a pitcher of water to the mix to moisten the bedding. You don’t want it too wet or too dry, but as with most “cooking” projects, its easier to add water. According to the sites we had found, the bedding for the worms needs to be about as moist as a rung dish towel, so damp, not dripping. After the bedding was prepared we put it all in the bin in a trash bag over night.

Sunday we were on the hunt for worms. Both PetSmart and PetCo carry the worms in a little container of about 45 to 50 worms for less then $5. You can order them online, but then you’re buying by the pound and who really wants to say that they ordered a 5 pound bag of worms?

Once we had the worms we were ready for the girl scout meeting. When it came time for the girls to put everything together, we went out on the porch of the club house (that way we had less to clean up). I went over the bin and how it was put together, as well as the bedding material, the reason we add some dirt and the type of foods/compost we could feed the worms and then we got started.

For our bin, we added about 4 pounds of the newspaper/cardboard bedding that we had made. The amount just came up to the ridge on the side of the rubbermaid container. I had each girl reach in the trash bag and add a handful, that way everyone got a turn. Then we added a half cup (drinking cup) of top soil. We used a potting soil for shrubs since that’s what I had in the shed, but you could use any good, dark top soil (not red clay). The worms need the soil to help digest, plus it has bacteria and other bugs that help in the breaking down of the compost material.

After the girls added the dirt to the top, I let them each take a turn with the rake (plastic) and trowel to mix the bedding and soil up. We added a little bit more water to the mix just to give it more moisture before adding the worms.

This was the fun part. Each of the girls had originally said they didn’t want to touch a worm, but by the end, they all had their hands out and had multiple worms ready to be added to the mix. We added the worms and then gently stirred the mixture up again to give them a chance to start making their way in the bedding. Surprisingly, the worms took to it pretty quickly as it was.

Once the worms were added, we began adding the compost. Worms will apparently eat anything except meat and dairy products and they love things like Oatmeal, leafy vegitables, coffee grounds with the filter and egg shells. I let the girls add some shredded lettuce to the mix and some oatmeal and we added some orange peels and some other organic material before we once again gently stirred the mix to make sure that the compost was mixed in. According to the sites on composting this way, you don’t want to set the foods out on top as it can attract fruit flies and not compost properly.

I’ll post a photo of the finished bedding/compost mix tonight, G and E checked the worms last night and I was surprised to see some action going on. We’ll check it again tonight and add some more food if we need to. We’re expecting to see some baby worms with in a week or two and by the end of four weeks we should start seeing the worm castings that are so highly coveted for fertilizer. I’ll try and publish weekly updates on the worms as well as anything we find helpful or not.

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