Start Your Own Vermicompost System
How to start your own vermicompost system and start getting worm castings to use in your garden
Cost: <$100
Equipment
- 1 Drill for drilling air holes
- 1 Pair of Scissors for shredding newspaper
- 1 Bucket for soaking coco coir
Materials
- 5 lbs red wigglers
- 2 bricks coco coir (or a 5 gallon bucket of grass clippings)
- 4 shredded newspapers
- 1 bucket water (for soaking coco coir and adding moisture to worms)
- 1 tote with a lid
- 1 kitchen scraps (for feeding worms)
Instructions
- Soak the coco coir in water for 24 hours. Once it has finished soaking, squeeze the excess water out.
- Prepare your tote by drilling holes around the top so air can get in.
- Put your coco coir (or grass clippings), and shredded newspaper in the tote, and mix everything up.
- Once everything is mixed well, you can add a little water to make everything moist. You don't want it to be sopping wet, just damp.
- Now the bedding is ready for worms. Dig a well in the middle of the bedding, and place some kitchen scraps, and then your worms, and then cover with bedding.
- Close the lid, and leave them be! Check on them in several hours to make sure they have accepted their habitat. If they aren't trying to escape around the handles, then that means they are happy!
Notes
Keep the vermicompost bin in an area that isn't going to get too hot. If it gets below freezing where you live, you'll need to move them inside of a garage or somewhere that doesn't get below freezing during winter months. If you have hot summers, make sure you have a shady place to keep the worms, and don't let them get above 95 degrees or they will die. Otherwise, they are pretty hardy.