Death + Life: New Year Comes

I will admit I have been neglecting my worm bin for the past 4 months.
They (most anyway) are still alive down there.
I let the newspaper almost dry out.
I failed to feed them regularly.
I mostly just neglected them completely.
Poor worms. This just attests to their ability to survive and endure poor living conditions.
But this will all change soon.
With the new year comes an opportunity for me to take better care of my worms, since my living situation will be different. For the first time in my life I will be living alone and my worms will keep me company. Things will change. Writing this makes it so.

Other posts/projects to come:
Sprouting!

Yes, I purchased a sprouter at the Vegetarian Food Food Fair in Toronto this summer.
Check out Tony Hornick's website. He's got lots of useful information about sprouting your own seeds and the health benefits of eating them.

I will photo document the process of sprouting my own healthy seeds this January 2010.

Cheap food and Tony says they're chalk full of nutrients so eat 'em up!

Moving On

I'm moving to a new apartment, one without a balcony, so I decided to "downgrade" my vermicomposter into a smaller sized bin and sell my original big bin including all of its contents on craigslist. It was weird saying goodbye to my bin as I put a lot of work into it, and had a connection to it. I don't really have a use for the vermicompost inside the bin anymore since I will no longer have a balcony garden. I still want to be able to compost year round, so I've opted for a smaller under-the-kitchen-sink size bin.
But my bin went to a good home and you can follow its journey on this lady's blog here. I'm sure the vermicompost will be put to good use in her garden, and the worms will do a wonderful job eating her family's kitchen waste. Oh boy, bin, you sure do get around!
So, before I sold the bin I made a much smaller worm bin and put a few worms in it. This is a photo of it above. Unfortunately all of the smaller sized plastic bins I could find at Canadian Tire were translucent. I want the bin to be able to fit under my kitchen sink nicely so I opted to buy this small clear plastic bin and cover the whole of the exterior with duct tape to make it opaque, since worms do not like light.
I drilled many ventilation holes in the lid, bottom and sides of the worm bin, just as with my original vermicomposter. Duct tape holds screen in place over top of the holes to ensure nothing escapes.
A few days prior to introducing the worms I shredded up some old newspapers, moistened them down in a large recycling bag and let them sit and fester. The worms like materials that have festered as they're easier for them to start breaking down. I added a handful of soil and some crushed eggshells to the bedding mix. Then I added the worms to their new home!
A couple of days after I let the worms settle in to their new home I fed them some vegetable scraps.

Beautiful stripy red worms!

Mold in the Vermicomposting Bin

I've noticed various molds growing on the bedding of my worm bin since I started it. I've never been too worried about them as I figured they were part of the decomposition process. I have found some interesting (to say the least) mold formations growing out of the ventilation holes in the side of my bin since it's come indoors for the winter. After reading this article I found out that it might be from feeding my bin too much. I was worried my worms were not getting enough to eat so I was a little overzealous the last time I fed. I'm going to stick to the 1 to every 2 weeks I've been feeding them, since that seems to work best for my bin. When I feed it's what I feel is a good sized bowl full of scraps. I keep the scraps in a container in my fridge so they can break down a little prior to being added to my bin (the worms will eat them faster this way). I've been wiping down my bin frequently to prevent the mold from reoccuring, and added more fresh moist newspaper bedding on top. If the mold comes again I will take a picture of it.

http://www.allthingsorganic.com/How_To/12.asp - Read this article for great information on all of the other wonderful creatures living in your bin, how to cope, deal, and just realize that they're your friends too.

Worm Bin: Winter Update

It is now January and my worm bin has been living indoors for 2-3 months now. The harvest method I tried which relied on the worms migrating from one side of the bin to the other (see previous post) has not been successful. I've checked the old, casting-rich side of the bin several times and it is still quite packed with red worms throughout it. It is disappointing that the worms did not move.
I have decided to try to get the bin through Winter until I can move it back out onto my balcony where I will do another harvest by sorting. I feel bad letting the worms live in their own poo but I'd prefer not to harvest by a pile and sort method inside my small apartment with 2 cats and a dog in poor winter sunlight. I have been topping up the bedding in my bin around every 2 weeks as it shrinks down quickly and I want to make sure they have enough fresh bedding available. The moisture level of the bin's contents is good and is maintaining itself nicely without any spraying from me. I've been feeding weekly.
During the winter I do not compost as much as during the summer, when I compost everything that can be composted. Since I am not using the outdoor community composter during the Winter for larger compostables I don't feel like chopping up or those that I avoid putting in my worm bin, I end up throwing some of it in the garbage. It does still feel good though being able to compost the majority of food waste and scraps from my kitchen in my worm bin.

Vermicomposting Bin Moves Indoors & New Harvest Method Experiment

I have not posted in a while. The balcony garden slowly died as summer ended. We got many tasty cherry tomatoes. The pomodoros did not ripen in time. The bean plant produced 2 strange beans which I let go to seed. Growing vegetables in containers is challenging so I think I'll go crazy with flowers next year.

The vermicomposting bin has been a success. As the temperatures cooled off (lows below 4 degrees celsius), I brought the bin inside. It has found a place underneath a table my cats eat their food on in the kitchen.
3 months have passed since I first harvested the bin of its castings. I decided to try a different method than last time by moving the bin's contents over to one side, filling the empty half of the bin with new bedding (moistened shredded newspaper and hay that set for a few weeks in a plastic bag), and feeding the worms with fresh veggie scraps on the new bedding side in the hopes the worms will migrate over to the fresh side of the bin allowing me to harvest the castings.
I checked the casting-rich side a few days ago (I put in the new bedding on Oct 23rd) and there were still a lot of worms throughout. Hopefully they will move over eventually, if not I will have to harvest another way.

Harvesting the Vermicomposting Bin

Yesterday we harvested our vermicomposting bin in order to obtain the useful worm castings they have been producing. As you can see (below) the level of material in the bin decreased dramatically over the 3 months as the worms broke down their bedding and the food scraps I gave them. The original level was near the top piece of duct tape.

There were several steps involved in the harvesting:

1) Preparing new bedding for the worms. - We did this in a large recyclables bag, in which we shredded newspaper just like the first time we made bedding for our worms. It was easy to moisten the newspaper with water and estimate the amount of bedding we needed in the bag.

2) Piling and Sorting the bin's material into 3 basic containers: worms & reusable bedding material, worm eggs (to avoid overpopulation and eggs hatching in plant pots), and the worm castings (what we're doing all of this work for!). We taped two cut open recycling bags together to create a large plastic sheet to line the balcony to do our sorting work on.

We used the pile & sort method where we emptied the bin's contents into several small cone shaped piles. The worms buried down to the bottom of the piles to avoid the light and we, pile by pile, scraped off the tops of the piles to get the vermicompost, working our way to the bottom. This was a very long and tedious process as we did a very thorough job. There were so many baby worms which were at times difficult to pick out and did not move down away from the light as well as the adult worms did.

This is what the bottom of the bin looked like after taking much of the vermicompost out. It's amazing to see what a job the worms did on that newspaper!

Piles for sorting

Pie plates helped with sorting
The Results

Two containers full of worms (below)

Collected worm eggs. Not sure what I'll do with these yet. I've read they can last many years. I am kind of playing god when it comes to the population of my worm bin (removed a little less than half of the population, and most of the eggs - they'll just produce more anyway), but I kind of have to because overpopulation would be a bad thing.
Total amount of Vermicompost collected! Several pounds (about 3/4 of that ikea garbage can is full)

Poo poo la poo poo la poo poo la pooGardener's Gold!! Harvesting all of this natural fertilizer I helped produce with my own food waste was really satisfying! Harvesting was hard work, and since the next harvest will be in late summer/early fall, I'm going to try a different method whereby I just push all of the bin's contents over to one side, fill the empty side with new bedding and food to draw the worms over, then harvest the empty side. The way we did it produces a much purer end product which I was only really concerned for when used on my indoor plants (i.e. I don't want any missed worms trying to live in my indoor plants). I have decided I will make some vermicompost tea for use on my indoor plants, thus alleviating any of these concerns.

3) Returning the worms to their new bed, while removing some of the worm population to avoid overpopulating the bin.

We added the larger container's worth of worms back into our worm bin, with freshly prepared bedding material (moistened shredded newspaper, hay, soil, some egg shells, undecomposed bedding from before). We contributed the remaining worms to the community composter in the park by our apartment building, which from what I have heard, has run out of red worms.

To come: Using the vermicompost in my balcony garden & making vermicompost tea!

Vermicomposting Bin: Current Status > Almost Harvest Time

In 10 days I will have been vermicomposting for 3 months. At that point I think I'm going to harvest the vermicompost from my bin to use on my balcony garden and houseplants. The overall level of the materials in the bin have reduced by about half, indicating the worms have done a good job breaking down their newspaper/hay/soil bedding mixture into castings. There's a plethera of baby worms in the bin, which will be more adapted to the conditions of my bin. I will keep these when I harvest and will likely have to take some adults out of the bin to make sure it isn't overpopulated.
I have yet to decide what method of harvesting I am going to use. I will probably end up doing the method where I will divvy out the bin's contents into several small cone shaped piles on a large plastic sheet, the worms will escape the light by burying to the bottom of their piles and I'll scoop off the tops of the piles (will document harvesting process to come). I was originally hoping I could do the method whereby you feed the worms on one side of the bin for a week or two, and then harvest the castings from the vacated side, putting in new bedding and repeating for the other side, but I have been doing the rotating pocket feeding method, and I always seem to find worms wherever I pull back the bedding - they don't seem to stay just around the food source for me.

Vermicomposting Bin: Eggs & Baby Worms

Yesterday I was digging around in my worm bin checking things out and discovered small yellow balls that looked like worm eggs. After doing some reading, that's sure enough what they are. Here is a photo of some of the eggs I found in my bin.

This article has some good information about red worm cocoons. My first thought was that if the worms are reproducing, they must like their conditions, but after reading this article I became aware that if certain conditions deteriorate (temperature, supply of food, moisture level) then they may reproduce faster in order to ensure the survival of generations in the future. Not having vermicomposted before, it's hard to say whether my worm population is reproducing at an average or above average rate. I'll just have to continue on and see what happens. I can always donate some worms to the park composter if I feel there's too many in my bin.

Here's a photo of a tiny baby worm on a leaf I am holding. Click photo to enlarge.

Worm Bin Update: Castings & Red Spider Mites

I've been vermicomposting for about 3 weeks now. The worms are doing well and are producing many castings which is exciting. I am feeding them about twice a week and am feeding more organic matter than when I first got them, working them up to their full composting potential.
I have been adding more layers of hay after feeding to help cover it up, and to make sure there is enough "brown" matter to balance all of the fresh "green" matter I add to the bin. I also make sure to keep the bin moist. So far no liquid has drained out of the bottom of the bin, so I hope the bin is moist enough and that the drainage holes are not blocked. Sometime soon I am thinking of giving the bin a good mix to help aerate and to check the drainage holes to make sure they're not blocked up. The bin is not smelly at all, as all food matter added is buried under the layers of newspaper, hay, and soil. It has a pleasant earthy smell. There's some beauty to the bin:

Rich worm castings are being produced!

I have noticed some tiny red spiders crawling all over my worm bin, both inside and out, walking all over the lid. They appeared about 1-2 weeks after I started the bin. My initial thoughts were that they must be involved in the decomposition process in some way, just like the worms are. Even when I had to have my worm bin indoors due to cool weather, these mites did not leave vicinity of the bin indicating to me they were attracted to the contents of it.

This is a photo of one of the Tetranychus urticae inhabiting my wormery.

Vermicomposting: Feeding Process

This morning I fed the worms for the second time. I found the quadrants I divided my bin into were too big so I am using them only as a guideline. I fed the worms just next to the first spot I buried their food. This way I won't be digging into the last feeding's food scraps. If I feed about 2 or 3 times per week, it should be about a month before I have to bury in the same spot again. Below is a better documentation of the process of feeding the worms:

Dig a gully in the bedding about 3 inches deep.

Pour in some food scraps (not too much).

Cover the food scraps with the bedding and leave the worms to do their magic.

Vermicomposting Update: They're eating!

This morning I checked in on the worms to see if they were eating the first pile of food scraps I gave them. I gently lifted the top layer of bedding in the quadrant I placed the food and was extremely happy to see the worms were concentrated in that area! So it's definitely working. The worms are eating so they must be happy. The moistness of the bedding remains good. I will likely add some more food scraps either tonight or tomorrow, small amounts at a time as I don't want to overfeed. If I am under feeding with food scraps, they can always eat their bedding.

Vermicomposting Bin Part 3: Feeding for the 1st Time

24 hours after we first introduced the worms into their new home I gave them some of our saved food scraps. I read it is best to feed smaller amounts during the first few weeks so that is what I am doing. I divided the bin into quadrants and will feed in a different one each time I feed. This will make sure the worms move through the entire bin. I buried the food scraps under several inches of the bedding, and also decided to add some more soil to the bin. So far, it does not smell bad and I am hoping the worms are happy in their environment but it's hard to tell. I need to do some more research on if moldy things are okay to put in the bin, as much of the food scraps I'm saving has mold growing on it. Hopefully this is just a natural part of the decomposition process in general.
Right now the bin is indoors as I am waiting for the temperature lows to be no less than 4 degrees Celsius outside, at which point I will move the bin onto my balcony. It was sitting under my desk by the window but I noticed when I opened it up to check if the worms had moved towards the food scraps I placed, that the bin was quite hot from the sun shining in, and although the bin is opaque, it was still shining through the plastic. I moved the bin to a cooler and more shady spot beside the couch to avoid the hot afternoon sun.
More of my vermicomposting process to come!

Vermicomposting Part 2: Preparing the Bedding & Introducing the Worms

The worms arrived today! I fetched them on my bicycle from the Grassroots store on Danforth Ave. Here's what they came in:



Several days before the worms arrived, we started to prepare their bedding by shredding newspaper into strips to nearly fill the bin.

We mixed in some hay with the newspaper and then moistened the whole bedding mixture.

After sitting for a few days while we waited for the worms to arrive, this mixture already began to decompose. We found the bedding material had shrank down and dried out a bit, so we wet it down, added more strips of newspaper and wrung it out well, allowing the excess water to drain out the bottom. The moistness of the bedding should be that of a well wrung-out sponge.

Once the worms came in we crushed up egg shells we had saved and mixed them in with some soil which we added to the bedding mix.


I then mixed the bedding material well with my hands.

Finally, it was time to add the key component, the red wriggler worms! We emptied them into the bin and watched and listened to them slowly penetrate down into the bedding.

Click to enlarge

I will let the worms settle into their new home for at least 24 hrs and then begin feeding them with my food waste. We have already been saving food scraps for our worms.


Larger food scraps such as banana peels and melon rinds should be chopped up into smaller bits, to help the worms break them down faster. I purchased a cheap knife and cutting board designated for this purpose.

This is an exciting venture and I look forward to observing the vermicomposting process unfold.

Breakdown of my Costs & Materials:

-plastic storage bin: around $5.99
-aluminum catch tray: $1.49
-screen: $2.99 (still have lots left on the roll for other projects)
-wooden legs and slats: free
-newspaper: free (subscription I had for free)
-timothy hay: $9.99 (still have loads left, can be used as bedding if needed in future)
-soil: free (remnants from bag from last year)
-eggshells: free
-worms: $61.02
Total cost with tax: $84.14

To me, this is worth it. Not only is this a neat hobby for me but it makes me feel great knowing I am keeping food waste out of the garbage while producing my own rich plant fertilizer. Also, it was fun designing and building the bin.

To come: Feeding the worms for the first time and documenting the vermicomposting process!