Worm Bin Care Instructions

Worm Bin Care Instruction Sheet

There are three main things to keeping your worms happy and healthy.

  • Temperature

Keep your bin in a cool place outdoors or in. They need the temperature between 45 - 90 degrees. If it gets too hot you can put some ice cubes on top to cool it off or freeze a water bottle and lay it on top of the plastic barrier. They are light sensitive so no sunshine at all. Adding too much food scraps can heat up the bin. If having trouble keeping it cool, don’t add any food scraps until temp is under control.

  • Moisture

Ideal is 60% moisture. If you can squeeze one drop from a handful of the bedding that is good. The nice thing about the fabric bins is you can’t over water them, but they will dry quicker. You can drench them once a week, or if you prefer, spay with hand sprayer once a day. Keep plastic barrier on top to keep moisture in bin.

  • PH

Keep PH at neutral 7 as much as possible. 6.5 to 7.5 is ok, but try to get it back to 7. Too many food scraps can change the PH. If PH is out of range and food is present, simply remove food. You can sprinkle a tiny bit of dolomite lime, make sure its dolomite lime, to lower PH. It does take a while to work.

Bedding

Add about 1 inch of new bedding when previous bedding is consumed. Will look very fine and flat and you will know that its time to add more. Bedding is the carbon based stuff that they live in and also consume. It can be anything like finished compost, chopped up leaves, even cardboard or newspaper. If using cardboard or paper be sure to remove tape and labels and don’t use shinny printed paper or board. You can play and make your own bedding recipe and mix items together. Also make sure you keep the bedding moist, see moisture above.

Food

Part of the fun and being sustainable is giving your worms food scraps from your daily routine. What you can give them is raw fruits and vegetables that you’re not eating. There are some dos and don’ts to this though!

Do:

  • Chop up the fruit and vegetables to make it easier for the worms to eat. The finer it is, the faster they will eat it.
  • Save some in a freezer to feed later, this also can be used to cool down a bin instead of ice.
  • Play with what they like. Melon is a favorite of theirs. They do have a sweet tooth, but they don’t have teeth.
  • To keep smell and pests to a minimum, only feed them what they can consume in a couple of days. You will have to play with this. If the food is still unconsumed after two days, feel free to remove it if getting smelly. Just give them less the next time. Also cover the food a little bit with the bedding.
  • Coffee grounds can be added as well. Keep it small at first.

Don’t:

  • For a brand new bin don’t feed right away, let them get used to the bedding and make themselves at home first. Give them a month before giving food scraps.
  • Don’t over feed. They are actually happy with just the bedding, food scraps are an extra. Too much food scraps will increase PH, make it too moist. The usual mistake people make is feeding too much. Less is more until you have a mature bin.
  • Give them cooked or saucy food scraps. The salt and fats in most of our meals is not good for the worms and will draw other critters.
  • Avoid citrus since this can lower the PH and make it too acidic. A little is not a disaster. Just be careful.

Grit

They need grit in their diet to help digest the food. You can use various things for this. Eggs shells is very common. Just grind the dried shells to a very fine powder typically done in a coffee grinder, but you can also do it by hand, its just more work. Bake the shells for 20 minutes at 250 degrees to kill any bad bacteria. Tip: You can throw them in right after using the oven for something else to save energy.

You can also buy ground oyster shells, or event sand.

They don’t need much, just a teaspoon when new bedding is added.

Critters

Yes this is a LIVING eco system and you will get other critters living in your bin that love the moist warm conditions of a worm bin. In most cases they are beneficial to help break down the bedding just like worms do. Millipeds, white mites, pill / sow bugs are natural and normal. Things you don’t want, ants, centipedes, these are predators and can eat the baby worms called wisps and cocoons. Organic Diatomaceous Earth will take care of them. Make sure it for gardens and not pools though.

Harvesting

Once the bin is full you can harvest the Castings for use on your plants and garden. All you need to do is separate the worms from the casting. To do this get a 1/8 screen and sift the casting from the worms. Its best to let the casting dry a little before doing this. The other way is to bait the worms out by using water melon at the top of the bin and every day look under the melon and remove the worms, but this takes a longer time.

Once you have your worms separated, just start your bin over with new bedding.

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact me.

David@Waxhawwormfarm.com