Composting is easy so long as you have the right materials and equipment necessary, but did you know that even the worms are your best friends in this process? Vermicomposting or vermiculture is essentially the process of composting with the use of worms and their castings (i.e., worm waste). An easy and fun way to compost for your garden or house plants, vermicomposting can be done both indoors or out, and requires very little space.
Red worms or red wiggler worms, which are different from earthworms, are the best worms to use for your composting process. You want to stay away from using earthworms because they weren’t made to be composting worms; red worms will take your food scraps, eat and digest them, making worm castings full of nutrients for your soil. Earthworms on the other hand, are burrowing worms; they’ll aerate the soil and take everything on the surface down with it. Therefore, they’ll be absolutely useless for what you want to do, which is compost!
In order to have a successful vermicomposting experience, always remember to feed your worms! Worms need food too, and they love food scraps, another reason why vermicomposting is so easy. Readily available, food scraps like wilted vegetables, fruit rinds, bread and coffee grounds are great sources of food for your worms. Just be sure to never, ever add scraps like meats, fats, oils, or dairy products because the worms will not be able to eat and digest these items properly. Additionally, they smell bad and attract rodents and other animals to your compost bin or heap.
Be sure to bury your food scraps in the dirt about a few inches deep underneath the dirt. This will keep the annoying fruit flies away, not to mention leaving some wiggle room for your little worms. It’s always a good idea to bury your food scraps in different areas of your worm bin so that the worms don’t get too used to convening in the same spot and so that all areas of the bin receives its fair share amount of worm castings.
After a few months you’ll notice that in place of the dirt bedding you laid out for the worms earlier, you have what we composters like to call black gold, rich fine worm castings that are ready to go into your garden. After that you’re ready to start over! A fun process that students, young children and adults will surely enjoy, vermicomposting is a terrific and acceptable way to get down and dirty with worms!
For a wide selection in compost bins, chipper shredders and rain barrels be sure to stop by Composters.com.
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Earlier we’ve talked about the differences between compost bins and compost tumblers, and let you, our wonderful composting audience, decide for yourselves on what you thought would work better for your needs. Well, let’s put our differences aside and talk about worm composting, also known in the composting world as vermiculture or vermicomposting. There’s really not much to it, we use worms, right? Right, but not just any worms; red wiggler worms or night crawlers are the preferred types of worms to use. Why not earthworms, you ask? Well, I’ll explain that in a second, but let me first tell you why red wigglers and night crawlers are so beneficial to the composting process.
Red wiggler worms, also known as red worms and by their scientific name of Eisenia fetida, are recognized as the best kind of composting worm. Thriving in darkness and swearing off light, red worms are hardy workers and can eat half of their own weight. Additionally, they have hearty appetites and can live off of food scraps such as banana peels and chicken mash (a yummy mix of cornmeal and chicken meat, this is usually used only if you plan to raise your red worms as fish bait). Red worms also live well in damp places, and as fish bait, will wiggle around on the hook since they can survive in water for several days at a time.
Night crawlers which are popular amongst fishermen can also be used as composting worms. With the same performance level as red worms, they’re not really considered your number one composting worm. One reason may be that even though they thrive in cool, shady areas, they don’t seem to fare too well if there’s too much moisture; in fact, once they hit water they’ll pretty much just die. Unusually enough, fisherman seem to like using night crawlers as bait probably because they’re pretty big and fat.
Using earthworms such as the kind that show up when it starts raining is not recommended. Earthworms are great burrowers and excellent soil aerators, but they won’t digest the organic matter and leave behind worm castings, which is what you want. Your best bet is to stick with red wiggler worms. Though not necessary, mixing red wigglers with night crawlers is okay, but you’re fine with sticking to one or the other.
Vermicomposting can be a fun activity for families, classrooms, or even just solo. Just be sure to feed your worms and watch them as they do the work for you.
Need some compost bins, wood chippers or even a lawn sweeper? Stop by Composters.com today!
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