Composting With Red Wiggler Worms

-Luis Guerra-

Every spring, many of us rush out to our local garden centers in search of rich organic compost for amending our home gardens. We typically encounter many brands of bagged compost that are derived from different organic sources. Hopefully we find a local, regional, or even national organic copost brand that we can trust, depending on where we shop.

But what if you could make your own compost with just a few square feet of space in your home or garage? What if I told you that keeping Red Wiggler worms in your home is clean, doesn’t stink, and is so efficient that you can turn your everyday kitchen and garden scraps into ‘Black Gold’ with little effort? Well, all that is true. Vermicomposting is efficient, and fairly mess and stress-free once you know what you are doing.

Now there are many schools of thought on the subject of worm bin composting and countless videos on YouTube explaining how worms can compost your organic matter. I’m here to clear up that smokescreen of information and simplify the process for the everyday gardener.

Red Wigglers are the most aggressive composting worms available (no argument there), as they consume about half their body weight in food scraps per day. They typically live within the first three inches of their living space, which make it easy to feed them.

There are only a few simple ‘do not’ rules you need to remember to maintain a healthy environment within your worm bin composter:

1. Do not feed your worms meat or dairy scraps.
2. Do not add any alliums (onions or garlic) to your bin, as they will smell.
3. Do not add any pet manure (cat litter) to your worm bin.

Make sure to give your worms plenty of bedding (shredded newspaper, coco coir) and they will do the rest.

We currently have fresh, live Red Wiggler worms for sale at our Carrboro and Asheville locations. Worms are are available on a periodic basis, so please call your local Fifth Season location about ordering worms, or to see when the next batch may be coming in to your store.

As far as worm bins are concerned, we recommend either the Urban Worm Bag or the Vermihut Worm Composter System for beginning vermicomposters. They are both simple to use and work well.