Rob’s Tips:
Tip 1: Creating a Successful Environment
• Regardless of which bin or method you use, you’re going to want to create the conditions for moms to be happy. That starts with their bedding.
• Coconut Coir: A substrate that can feel very similar to the soil if using the correct brand.
• Shredded newspaper, pumice stones, minerals, etc. There are many different types of materials you can use for worm bedding.
• The number one most important thing to remember is to keep the moisture level at the optimum level for your worms.
• So much about feeding/overfeeding, the carbon to nitrogen to carbon/ brown to greens, the dead to more alive materials has a lot to do with maintaining optimum moisture-rich levels.
• The bedding you provide for your worms is not a bedding in the traditional way we think of bedding for animals. Instead, it’s simply a slower breakdown type of food for the worms. It’s the carbon bedding you’re starting with.
Tip 2: Not Heated
• You want to keep your worm compost bin in normal human temperature ranges 55°F to no more than 90°F (12-32°C). This makes the indoor climate control that most humans live in perfect for worms as well. When it gets too hot, it will start losing moisture through evaporation and the worms will be uncomfortable.
Tip 3: Spreading out Your Organic Matter
• Cutting up and dispersing the organic matter over the worm bin is better than clumping it all together or giving them large chunks.
Tip 4: Outdoors Vermicomposting
• If you’re vermicomposting outdoors, make sure you are protecting it from the elements and that your bin is never in direct sunlight.
Tip 5: Size Your Worm Bin to Fit Directly in Your Kitchen
• By finding a place to tuck your worm bin into somewhere in your kitchen, you’re making it easy to access from where you generate food waste to begin with. Slide it under a ventilated cabinet, tuck it in a corner or under the table. If you build your bin right, people can walk right by and never know there are creepy crawlies right in your kitchen.
Tip 6: Activate Your Compost
• It helps to think about composting like a large digestive process. It’s the breakdown of materials in order for those materials to be used (in this case for plants). For any healthy digestion to occur, there needs to be healthy bacteria (like probiotics in our digestive tract). So you need to inoculate your compost bin to provide healthy bacteria for the worms.
• This may be in the form of a handful of compost or maybe you use a handful of healthy soil. Even putting a small amount of food scraps a few days before your worms arrive can help attract the beneficial bacteria to the bin to give your worms the right head start. Some people start this a few weeks before the worms arrive, I waited three days. There’s no exact science to the timing.