VERMI COMPOSTING

Worms are recognized and valued as highly effective natural soil improvement agents. You can compost your kitchen scraps: coffee grounds and filters, fruit and vegetable peelings, egg shells, paper towels, tea bags, rotten fruit and vegetables, and moldy leftovers in a 5 gallon mini worm farm that you can keep under your kitchen sink, in your laundry room, garage, or basement. In one week, a mini worm farm with a half pound of red wigglers will turn one to two pounds of "garbage into the finest natural fertilizer available. Mixed with dirt from your garden, 
Vermi compost will produce miracles in your flowers and vegetables.

HOW: Red wigglers can reduce dead matter into a form that becomes living material again. Although they have no teeth, they do have a gizzard and a voracious appetite. They rely on Bacteria to help them break down "garbage." Although there are more than 3,000 different kinds of worms, red wigglers are the best composting worms; they, unlike other types of worms (i.e., earthworms in your garden), can survive on a diet of kitchen scraps. They multiply rapidly so be prepared to transfer your worm family to a larger location as their population grows. A large wooden box (about 3 feet high) or an old bathtub, both with a lid, will make an appropriate home. At that point, you'll be gifting them to friends as they'll multiply quickly as they eat their weight in garbage every day.

HOW TO BUILD A WORM FARM (WF); Whether you use a 5 gallon bucket, an old tub, a wooden box, or a plastic bin from one of the Marts, your WF needs air holes. Drill some along the top. Your WF will need a lid, and if you keep it outdoors, it will need to be weighted down as animals consider

orms to be a tasty meal. Drill some holes to filter out the worm juice that will collect at the bottom of your WF...a cork will stop up the hole ...and tip your WF a bit so the juice will run to one end. This liquid is a miracle liquid fertilizer your house plants will love. In the bottom of your WF, put in some shredded newspaper (no glossy) about'/4 of the WF height. Add a couple inches of dirt (they need tiny rocks to aid digestion in their gizzard), some aged sawdust (not walnut, red cedar, or eucalyptus), some sand, and about '/ of the WF height in kitchen "garbage." Add worms. If you have a larger than 5 gallon WF, you can add grass clippings, weeds, leaves, and animal manure (not dog, cat, or human as we ingest too many chemicals!). Cover everything with a few inches of dirt and a layer of wet newspapers. Keep what you've added about 6 inches below the air holes. Secure the lid and do not disturb for a week or so. Then add more kitchen scraps under the layer of newspapers. Add a little water if it looks dry ...but not too much! Worms need water but you don't want to drown them. I cover my outside WFs with layers of plastic so they don't get too hot or too cold (they prefer and thrive when the temperature is between 50°F  and 75°F). Two problems seem to be common. Worms are starved because folks don't realize how much they can eat and they fail to provide their worms with enough food. And the WF lid is not secure and wind or animals knock it off ...so WF fills with rain water and worms drown. Yikes!

HOW TO HARVEST YOUR WORM CASTINGS Red wigglers are, like all other worms, photosensitive ...they die in sunlight; they hate other types of light. They will disappear when you take off WF lid. Since worms usually live in the top layer of a WF, their castings are right there for you to scoop out when worms burrow down. Worm castings look like fine texture soil. For larger WFs, you can sift them through a screen ('/Z inch grid). Look for egg casing which look like grains of wheat so you can return them to your WF. Thin, thread sized worms should be returned too. after harvesting, add more shredded newspaper, kitchen scraps, dirt etc. Red wigglers can't live in our garden so try to save as many as you can that end up in your Vermi Compost Good Luck!

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