Starting the Worm Farm

We have three knife-honing steels, so we picked our least-favorite and heated
it in the gas flame of the stove, and used it to melt drainage holes.

My yard and kitchen are too small to generate enough materials to get a nice hot compost pile going, so in the summer I usually trench compost. We dig holes and trenches in and around the planting beds, and bury most of our kitchen waste. It usually decomposes within weeks. But frankly, I feel completely unmotivated to do that in the winter. I needed a winter composting method, which led me to vermiculture, or worm composting.

After looking at a lot of expensive commercial worm farms, I found instructions for a cheap and easy worm bin that is just our speed. It starts with two 10-gallon Rubbermaid storage bins.

We bought the worms at PetSmart, where they stock them as lizard food. I looked at bait shops and checked with my local Cooperative Extension Agent, but I couldn't find another source. I bought 2 tubs, for about $3.50 each, with 40-50 worms per tub. The worms will multiply, so I shouldn't have to do that again.

I had planned to drill the holes in the bin, but my drill chuck remains stuck. So, DD15 melted the holes with the tip of a knife steel and a metal skewer, heated in the gas stove flame.

We did eat the apples we peeled for the worms.

DD12 shredded and wet the newspaper bedding, then we added the worms in their peat moss, a little dirt and leaves from the garden, and some carrot and apple peels. We covered all that with a layer of wet cardboard. We will feed them only lightly for the next few weeks, to give them time to get settled and start multiplying. Once they get going, we should be able to give them 5-6 pounds of waste per week, according the articles I have read.

Worms are not exactly entertaining to watch.

DD12 has been appointed the Official Worm Farmer. The bin will be under the kitchen table, where we will remember to feed and tend them. The worms like temperatures between 55 and 75F, and the cellar will be too cold in the winter. In the summer we will move the bin to the cellar or outside on the back porch.

Our kitchen table is a storage/work surface, not for eating, so I put stuff under it,
like a big box of extra pots and pans. Now, it also has a worm farm.

We put the waste bucket back on the counter to collect worm food. Hopefully, by spring we will have turned our scraps into buckets of lovely worm castings for the garden.

I checked on the worms today, and they seem to have warmed right up. They shy away from the light when I lift up the damp cardboard. My family seems slightly weirded out by the worms in the kitchen, but it's too cold in the cellar. They'll get used to it.