Indoor Worm Composting

Recently at our Earth Day Celebrations, one of our practitioners (Chandra), brought in this article on Indoor Worm Composting which I thought I'd share with you ...

Setting up a Worm Bin... This set up uses a 3 bin system, 
1 to collect water in the bottom, 
1 to hold the worms and 1 used to harvest the castings later on.

Materials:
3 medium shallow bins (approximately 60 x 40 x 20 cm) with 1 lid
Large and small sized drill bits
2 pieces of wood
Newspaper
Red Wriggler Worms

1.  Drill large holes in the bottom of 2 bins
\2.  Drill smallair holes in the lid and along the sides at the top if needed.
3.  Tear up strips of newspaper to be used as worm bedding in one of the bins.
4.  Place compost that contains worms into bin and put the lid on top
5.  Put 2 pieces of wood on the bottom of empty bin(no holes).  This will raise the worm container off the ground and collect compost tea in the bottom to be used for plant nutrients.
** note:  The third bin (with holes) may be placed on top of the other 2 but is not needed until castings sare ready to be harvested.

Adding compost:  Add you compost in 1 corner of the bin.  Some people like to burry their waste underneath the castings.  You may add most types of uncooked fruits or vegetables to your worm bin like you would in a regular composter.  Such as:  Skins, Rinds, over ripened fruits, crushed eggshells, etc.

At first don't feed too much to your worms, only as much as they can eat to keep your bin from having bad smells.  Usually about 2 - 3 pounds of waste a week for this size of bin in the beginning is the maximum.  
Collect worm tea every couple of weeks in a jar.  Add a small amount of this tea mixture with water to your plants.

Harvesting:
Start harvesting when most of your compost has become worm castings.  You will need to use your empty bin to harvest the worms.
1.  Take a few handfuls of castings with worms and put into your bin
2.  Add some new compost to the bin
3.  Place this bin over top of the existing worm bin so that worms will crawl up through the holes in the bottom to reach new food.
\4.  This process will take about 2 months, during this time, decrease the amount of compost you add, and leave the lower compost bin alone.  Not all, but most of the worms will make it to the top bin.

You can use worm castings on your house plants, flowers or vegetable gardens!!!

Courtesy by Harmony Hearth Healing & Massage by Chandra