Worm Composting by PaulaWalla

Hmm there are now some tiny gnat-like flies – like fruit flies in / around my wormcomposting bin. Not sure what to do about them. I’ve been squashing them with my rubber gloves but it’s probably a losing battle.  Are the bin contents too wet?  Or maybe they like vermicast? I can’t imagine that’s it… [...]

The amount of kitchen waste and newspaper is decreasing as they are turned into compost (really vermicast). I took a look and you can see the good dark brown / black vermicast in the mix if you dig a little. See photos. I filled in with some more food – see the peas? – and [...]

Well, I took a better look in the worm bin today to see what’s going on under the layers and found some interesting things! Baby worms! I’m sure I saw some new tiny worms. If conditions are favorable enough for reproduction, it bodes well for good compost. Some great compost – looks just like rich, [...]

There seems to be quite a bit of moisture on the inside lid of the bin, and a small amount of fuzzy white stuff on the bottom of the bin, but since there’s a catch basin at the bottom I’m not too worried about it. Water is one of the natural bi-products of the worms [...]

I can confirm now that the worms seem to be doing their job!  More little bits of dirt-looking stuff is falling through the bin holes into the catch basin, and with the level of the damp paper and other contents of the bin starting to decrease, I am sure things are going well!  As the [...]

I rescued two worms from the top and four from the bottom today. Put them all back in where the food is. And then I buried one full container of chopped up celery. (I had a nice bunch of celery that I apparently left in the fridge too long – it all had to be [...]

Over the last few days I’ve been checking every so often for worms out of place.  They seem to like the bottom catch basin best for some reason, or they just fall down there and can’t get back up. Next time I’ll put more whole sheets of damp newspaper right across the bottom so this [...]

I took another look today under the lid – no worms, good; and in the bin underneath – five worms!  I got them all back into the bin with the food and stuff in it.  Not sure why they keep going through the little holes at the bottom of the bin… I guess they’re not [...]

I was just informed by someone in the know that onions are a no-no in a worm bin, so out they go to the outdoor compost pile. Weather be darned.

I added some more damp newspaper this morning to cover all that exrta saw dust (which I assume is really just like kitchen waste, it’s food rather than bedding, so should be covered over). I noticed a worm clinging to the cover, so I gently prodded him back into the bin. Then I thought, if [...]