Worm bins can be a great help when you are into organic gardening as you can get the nutrient rich organic fertilizer known as worm castings. Aside from the benefit of having your own organic fertilizer for your garden, a worm bin eats up little space making it practical and very convenient to have even in a small garden.
Making a worm bin also doesn't require any skill as long as you have the material. What you need is a plastic container which can be used as a worm bin. In case you are not much of a worker, you can always order a pre made worm bin at an affordable price.
Worms need air in order to breathe just like any living thing that's why the first thing you need to do on your plastic container is to drill holes all over it to give the bin a good ventilation system. A tightly sealed container with less air coming in will lead to worms crawling out before you even start with your composting.
On the bottom of your worm bin, set up a dampened layer of newspaper or brown cardboard before putting the layer of organic materials inside. This will add moisture to the environment inside and also controls the dampness of it. Remember not to over water the worm bin as you will drown your worms.
The best part of this is when you feed the worms. You will be amazed on how these little creatures can consume a large amount of their food. In general, anything that these worms can break down is good to go in the worm bin; however you should be careful on what you feed them as some foods are harmful to them. Avoid greasy foods as oil can suffocate the worms when covered. That's why it also helps if you do some research on what are the best and worst foods for our crawling friends. Here are some of their favorite foods:
Coffee grounds - These are common food wastes given to worms as they just love devouring these.
Fruit peelings - You will most likely see worms eating up these types of food first as they are soft and moist which makes it easy for them to break down.
Bread - The thing about bread is that when soaked can be easily broken down into tiny pieces as they become too soft. Worms can easily consume them without doing any effort in decomposing bread.
Although onions, potatoes and citrus fruits as well as their peelings are organic materials, worms tend to ignore them. Try not to add these to your worm bins as the worms have a tendency to search for other foods. Keep in mind also that meats and dairy products should be kept out of your bin in order to maintain a healthy bin. These types of foods tend to spoil making them smelly and attractive to pests such as rodents. You should also consider the fact that rats love eating worms. When meat spoils it will also attract flies and other microorganism that are dangerous to our health.
