Keeping your trash can improve your garden and, not to mention, help in reducing your garbage output. Your left over vegetable scraps and tea bags can supply nourishment to your new vegetables and other garden plants. When vegetable and other organic scraps are eaten and processed by compost worms it becomes a high-octane plant food, also known as worm castings. A worm compost bin will get you well on your way to a low cost and plentiful supply of vegetable fertilizer.

The Bin – The first step is the bin itself. There is a range of bins available to purchase or for the DIYers building a worm bin can be pretty quite effortless. The most common DIY bin is to use a storage bin. A 12-gallon bin works well and you can just add more worm compost bins as needed to increase the size of the farm.

Worm Compost Bin

Along the sides toward the top place plenty of 1/4-in holes approximately 3-4 inches apart provide air. If you notice flies you can place a screen over the holes to keep the flies out.

Want Some Worm Tea (optional) – Worm tea is like juice for you garden. To create an easy version of compost tea, just add a faucet or hole and plug at the bottom of the worm compost bin. Add a small amount of water each day, don’t drown your worms, and allow liquid to drip into a bucket. When you get about a cup or two add it to a gallon of water and water as usual.

Worm Bedding – Worm bedding is a large part of your worm composting environment. Worm bedding gives your worms a place to work, is used to maintain moisture levels, and provides a place to bury your scraps. Strips of newspaper, wood chips, partially decomposed leaves, and/or coconut fibers can all be used as worm bedding. My preference is mixture and I prefer not to recommend peat moss as there is controversy over how renewable it is and natural peat moss is becoming limited.

You should also add dirt to the bedding. Since worms don’t have teeth they need some grit in their digestive track to grind the food up.

The Worms – Not just any worm will work and although systems can be created for regular earthworms the worm compost bin described above will require red wigglers. They will thrive in this environment as they also stay towards the top where you will be placing your scraps to be composted.

How Many Worms – The basic rule excepted for most worm compost bins is a ratio of 2:1. This refers to the weight of worms compared to the weight of scraps per day. For instance if you add 1lb of waste each day than you should have roughly 2lbs of worms inside your bin.

Worm Compost Bin Care – You should visit the worm bin daily until you get use to how things go. Keep a spray bottle handy to keep the bedding moist and the worm environment should be kept between 60 and 70 degrees F. Light is meaningless to them so some basements work well. If the bin has an unpleasant smell inside, try adding more bedding.

Creating a worm bin can provide fun and education to the whole family. It is a good way to explain the process to children and the worms can sometimes feel like pets.

Richard Allen composts to create fertilizer for his organic garden and to help the environment. For articles and tips such as, rotating compost, please visit Discover Composting.com. You can get a unique content version of this article from the Uber Article Directory.