See there it is, right behind my couch. I fed it today, I fed it an old banana (my first banana), coffee grounds, and crushed and almost powdered egg shells. I feed a lot of coffee grounds, I know too many are bad though, each feeding still has grounds, I just try to make sure I have eaten a few eggs so I can balance the grounds out with shells. I use a lot of kitchen scraps, and when my girlfriend visits I have a lot more scraps, however I know the worms don't mind because they tend to eat the scraps we make. Actually, she brings some of her own too.
Saturday I added cantaloupe rind, some strawberry tops and coffee grounds. I have also added over the month, drier lint, zucchini, canned peach, and rice (there is a lot more that is just slipping my mind). Of all these things it seems like the rice takes the most time. In most cases I process everything, even the rice. I found that, especially with rice, if I don't process the scraps they get nasty quickly. If I process them, they are often gone in ten days. I am very particular about what I will feed them. I have added onions and garlic ONCE and wish I hadn't done that then. It took forever for them to process it. I add absolutely NO meat scraps or vegetables cooked in meat (sorry bacon fat, I have to ground you for a few weeks). I try to avoid anything in cooking oils but a little is generally okay. Oh and I switched to unbleached coffee filters.
So lets start with the fun!!!
Notice the lid behind the bin. It is sweating like crazy. I would worry if it wasn't for a few things.
- No stink
- Lot's of casting
- More worms every day
I also read that worms can enjoy between 80-90 percent humidity, and I wouldn't be surprised if there is often light rain with the lid on.
You will also notice that the paper looks as it did when I first made the bin, there is one reason for that and I think one of the biggest reasons for current success, I add new bedding every time I feed the worms. Not necessarily a lot, but enough to soak up some water, allow for reproduction, keep the fruit flies out, and balance out living space with castings. Worms prefer not to live in their own castings, so I don't want to make them.
I also have to note that, there are other critters in the bin, right now I just see mites but I would be surprised if I saw some earwigs or pill bugs. This isn't a bad thing, they will stay in the bin and help the worms out. I have yet to get centipedes or anything that will hurt my worms. I am also currently avoiding fruit flies, gnats, and flies. That isn't to say I won't get them later but we are good for now.
This is the side of my bin. When the lid is on and the lights are out my worms party all over the bin. I have even caught them in the handle groove on more than one occasion. What you see here are castings stuck to the walls, left by worms who like to poop and slide. This might mean that my worms are a little unhappy. If they are I would blame the wetness of the bin. So far it hasn't been a problem though my worms are reproducing and eating fine, as you will see later, but if it becomes an issue I will drill more holes in the bottom. They wouldn't hurt anyway, I am currently getting little to no drainage.
You see some corrugated card board, they love that stuff, they eat it up, literally. It is perfect because it is unbleached and heavy enough to take some moisture. You may also notice colored news print, the colored is generally fine, as long as it is news print, NOT GLOSSY.
There's a fun one of worms in casting, but it is a little blurry let's see if we can find something better.
Those are castings, and a little bamboo from a lucky bamboo plant. They have not eaten it very well and it has been there for a long time, but, it really isn't hurting anything, and it is breaking down.
This might be a little hard to see. I am holding castings, and there are about a dozen eggs in the castings. See how pretty the castings are. Lets see if we can even get a better look.
That my friends, is a handful of delicious casting, basically a handful of fertilizer. There is even a little worm in there. Though my bin is not ready to harvest nine feedings and one month later, it is doing well.
Just in case you are curious, my feeding schedule is twice a week, Wednesday and Saturday. Finding them food is generally not difficult even though my diet is heavily cardboard based. I collect back up feedings for light weeks. For example, they were throwing away some bananas at work, and I grabbed one. Another friend was getting rid of some green beans that had been in the can since 2004 (homegrown and canned). I will keep that jar for a feeding time in which I haven't much waste to add. I gather my waste through the week in an old plastic container, let is get soft, then add it to the bin.
I feed the bin in a pattern. Imagine if you will nine sections in the bin. Three rows of Three. I feed section 1 on week 1 Wednesday and section 2 on week 1 Saturday. My worms are eating everything I put in. My first run with white rice took a while and even became a little gross. I think I checked on it for two weeks every day or so, it was turning to mush when later feedings had already composted. I decided I was going to remove it for fear of maggots and flies (or vice versa). I put a spoon into it and found in the center a large ball of worm casting and worms. I became excited because it was the first real compost I had seen, that i was SURE it was compost. I had put some good black soil in when I started the bin and was never sure if that was what I was seeing. So instead of removing it, I added some bedding and spread it out a little, and covered it, always covering it. It had grown a littler anaerobic, so I just added some air and it broke down fine. Funny what the worms will eat, all the peas were gone. Since then I have added more rice but I chopped it up, and I still notice the worms take issue with my rice, this time I learned from my past and spread it thinner but, the rice is still taking forever.
Anyway, I hope you had fun reading, now go start a bin and tell me how yours is doing.
