How to Vermicompost

Learn all you need to know about worm composting, including constructing a vermicomposting bin, adding worms, compost bin maintenance, and vermicompost.

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Learn how to vermicompost, including constructing a vermicomposting bin, adding worms, compost bin maintenance, and vermicomposting.

My kitchen trash used to smell awful! Coffee grounds, banana peels, lettuce leaves, onion trimmings, orange peels, and plate scrapings all joined with an accumulation of papers, cans, plastic wraps, jars, and bottle caps to produce an unpleasant–and unusable–collection of refuse. Although I emptied the trash can frequently to reduce the odor in the kitchen, I had to hold my breath when I did!

But no longer! I’ve now solved my problem entirely with the help of Eisenia foetida, the common red wiggler (or brandling) worm. That’s right, worms eat my garbage! What’s more, they convert it to black, earthy-smelling, nutrient-rich humus that I use to grow delicious garden vegetables and beautiful houseplants. Operating an indoor worm-powered waste converter is easy, convenient, environmentally sound, and inexpensive. It’s fun, too. Anyone can do it, and here’s how.

Basics of Vermicomposting

The essential components of a home vermicomposting unit (“vermi” = worm) are an aerated container, some moist bedding, and a few thousand red worms. Because you’ll be working with a dynamic process, you’ll need to carry out certain maintenance procedures both to keep the worm population healthy and to obtain and utilize the end product. These tasks are scarcely demanding: Set your vegetable waste aside in a small container when preparing meals or cleaning up afterward, feed it to the worms once or twice a week, and every few months or so, remove the vermicompost and put the worms in fresh bedding.

  • Updated on Jun 10, 2022
  • Originally Published on Jul 1, 1983
Tagged with: compost, DIY vermicomposter, houseplants, humus, oragnic gardening, red worms, red wrigglers, vermicompost
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