An Illustrated Guide to Setting Up a Worm Composter

This weekend, I made the bed in my compost bin; now I just have to get the redworms to lie in it when they arrive sometime in the next week or two.  I thought composting would just mean tossing food scraps into a box and letting the worms go to town. But it turns out that worms need to get used to their new home and burrow down into their beds before they'll start eating--at which point they'll eat food and the bed both!

Here's an illustrated guide to the 10-step bedding set-up process, for anyone who is contemplating trying the redworm composting experiment along with me.

Step 1: Assemble the composter, which I got from Gardens Alive:

 

Step 2: Line the "working tray" of the composter with 3 sheets of dry newspaper.

Step 3: Dissolve a coir block (made from coconut fibers, this came with my composter) in water, and squeeze out excess moisture.  You should have what looks like crumbly soil.

 

Step 4: Gather 1 cup of organic material. I used dead leaves from the garden plus some crumbled egg shells I had handy.

 

Step 5: Add the organic material and some shredded paper (my composter came with a small bag of shreds) to the coir.

 

Step 6: Spread the coir mixture evenly over the dry newspaper in the composter's working tray.

 

Step 7: Add two big handfuls of food waste (I used red chard and cuke trimmings plus coffee grounds to start) to one corner of the bin.

 

Step 8: Add 2-3 inches of shredded paper on top of that whole works. I used shredded bills!

 

Step 9: Place 4 sheets of newspaper on top, which will get moistened when the worms are ready to go to bed.

 

Step 10: Place on the lid, and wait for the worms!

Comments

[Jenn]

Very exciting! I've been on the verge of vermicomposting for a few months now...mostly because I'm tired of schlepping my food scraps to the farmers market to drop them off at the composting table. This is inspiring. Though I'm still scared of killing the worms...

[Knox Gardner]

Here's a tip we got when we set our up.

At Step 2, use weed barrier cloth instead of newspaper, which will get wet and eventually fail, leading your bin to get maybe a bit soggier than the worms like and clogging the holes the worm tea is supposed to seep into.

Also, you might want to warn the others in your house that for the first couple days the worms will try to escape! It takes them a few days to appreciate their cozy home. Silly worms!