Overview on How Worm Bins Work

You can build a worm bin out of wood, enhance a plastic tub, or buy a ready-made unit. But whatever container you choose, it must:

1. Be dark inside;
2. Be sized appropriately for your family (usually that is one square foot of space for every pound of waste produced per week);
3. Have air holes and drainage.

Once your build your worm bin, you will line it with bedding. The most common sort of bedding is shredded newspaper. Many people mix the newspaper with a little bit of coconut fiber or wood chips - this will add a little bit of porosity, ensuring that your bin will not turn into a wet oxygen poor environment.

Once you have your bedding lining the bin (about ¾ full), you can add your first food scraps and the red worms!

At least every few days, you will want to add food waste to your bin and make sure that the environment is suitable for worms (is it too dry? Is there enough bedding?). Whenever it is appropriate, you will need to change the bedding and harvest your worm compost.

A tip for Alaska worms: Worms are the opposite of us (they eat less in the winter), if your worms start to get sluggish, place a low watt light bulb in an old coffee can and place the can in the center of the bin. This will keep the bin warm enough to accelerate their eating habits. You may also want to keep your bin in the garage or basement.

Here is a great web link for making your own worm bin:

This is a link to buy a pre-made worm bin, including the worms:

Here is a system without the worms:

This is a link to a place to purchase worms:

The best book ever written on worm composting: Worms Eat My Garbage by Mary Applehof