Surprising Things Redworms Can Turn into Compost

So guess what worms like to eat?  In addition to food scraps and your classic brown composting materials (ie leaves) and shredded paper, I've learned that they will happily chow on:

• Dryer lint
• Vacuum dust
• Bread
• Rice
• Oatmeal
• Tea bags (minus the staple)

Who knew?  I've set up a Ziploc bag next to the dryer to collect lint, and I'm excited to be able to re-use even more than what I thought I would with this composter.

Comments

[Lisa]

Is anyone composting without worms? We have a big composter that you load with everything, keeping a mix of browns and greens, turning it periodically. It's been frozen all winter and now I'm wondering if it's "bad". Or would you all say that composting with worms is the best way to go?

Thanks!

[Holly]

Ha - I wondered about that broccoli thing too. And with the caffeine question, Knox now has me worried about worms trying to get out of the bin. Jacked up on green tea and coffee grounds, will that be worse? Or are their brains not big enough to be affected by things like that?

I have read that food processing is good because it breaks down the cell walls right off the bat. But I don't really want to spend a lot of time "cooking" for my worms. I am going to start out with just regular scraps, no huge chunks but no dirtying up the food pro either.

Dan, thanks for that fantastic list!!

[Dan Moore]

I actually put the teabag in with the staple--I figure a bit of metal can't really hurt.

Here's a list of things I've added to my worm bin (which is, admittedly, outside):
http://bouldervermicomposting.com/2008/08/26/things-ive-put-in-my-worm-bin/

And pages 8-9 of this pdf file has a great list of worm food with commentary: http://oacc.info/DOCs/Vermiculture_FarmersManual_gm.pdf

@Knox Gardener, I think that a mix is great. From what I've heard, there ar some foods that worms would be happy to eat all the time (corn meal, pumpkin), but I have first hand experience that overloading a worm bin with other foods (meat, orange peels) can be hazardous.

Also, if you're worried about caffeine, why worry about broccoli?

[Knox Gardner]

Ah! The dryer lint makes nice alternate "bedding".

And here is something of a question: I am nervous of feeding our worms to much tea or broccoli. I am wondering what they are like if they get too much caffeine. Seriously. Could a diet of just our tea bags kill them?

To help speed things along, I actually use our food process to chop a fix of food scraps up for them, but I am fairly selective so that they always get a pleasant mix of rotting veg and not too much of one thing.

Do you think it matters?