Big Brood

Now that my red wiggler herd has arrived, I need to find a more permanent home for them. They came in the mail before I was ready, so I made a quick home for them out of a rubbermaid container that we had available. However, experience has shown that an unmodified rubbermaid container isn’t a good home for worms as they get too moist and eventually drown. Let’s take a look at our options:

I would like to find a home that:

• is large enough for my worms and my trash flow
• has good drainage to prevent the bedding from becoming too moist.
• has good weather protection so that I can put it outside (we get real winters here) I can’t keep it inside permanently because of the fruit fly problems that I’ve hit before. These worms just aren’t worth losing my marriage
• is raccoon-proof

First, we find a simple option that is aimed on a website aimed at kids at the UIUC. They basically take your standard 10 gallon plastic container, add some venting and some drainage and make the home. This may be the way I go for a longer-term temporary home but it won’t fulfill all of my needs.

It does provide us with a nice estimate of the size we need:

“Worms need about one square foot of surface for each pound of garbage added to the bin each week.”

A total guestimate at this point would be 1-2 pounds of food every week. We have six small children and you’d be amazed at the amount of food that they waste at every meal. And, since my wife likes to cook, we get lots of left over bits here & there.

• It is large enough in the beginning but may not be large enough for long-term growth.
• After modification it would have OK drainage.
• This would not be a good winter container
• It’s probably not raccoon proof, though a brick on top might make it so.

This bin seems like a good “continuous flow” bin but falls short in the “winter” department. However, it does help with harvesting castings and drainage, both of which are harder in a large single container. Also, racoons would love this. I think this might work indoors.

There are a couple of commercial bins from vermico. I especially like the Worm Wigwam but I’m a little too cheap to pay $590 for a worm bin. I’m sure it’s worth it to some but I just can’t afford to do that. I wonder if I could build something similar.

I also found this article on Outdoor Worm Bins for schools fascinating. This school happens to be in Nova Scotia, so I’m sure I can build it for outdoor in my significantly more temperate weather now. They mention a book called The Worm Cafe, Mid-Scale Vermicomposting of Lunchroom Wastes, which I’ve been meaning to read. It looks like now that I’m getting more serious I should. I have previously read Worms Eat My Garbage: How to Set Up & Maintain a Worm Composting System and found it to be very useful as an introduction.

I think what I’ll have to do is pick up a copy of The Worm Café and do some more research on how they scaled it up and insulated it. For now, I still have my plastic bin and I’m going to keep feeding them and move it to better heat so that they can really get going. Gardening is starting soon and we want them to eat as much as they can when we start to eat all those vegetables!