10 Spring 2025 | edibleseattle.com The plans to make your own attractive worm bin like this one are available through Tilth Alliance. A worm bin will help you create this specialized type of compost. Whereas an open pile receives yard trimmings, pruned branches and fallen leaves, a closed worm bin is a kitchen scrap composter. When you lay the table for the worms, there’s no need for fancy plates and cutlery, just a layer of leaf or paper bedding in which to bury the food. These worms live in the bedding, not soil, so they won’t migrate out of a well-tended bin. So, how do you make a worm home for your home? CHOOSING A BIN If you have a yard, shed or garage to house it, a large wooden worm box might be for you. If you’re living more compactly or without a yard, a smaller, Rubbermaid-tub version just might be perfect. There are commercial bins too, in both tumbler and stacking types, but you can make your own. Tilth Alliance, the edible gardening educators, offer free building plans for the wood and tub versions on their website. Their large worm bin is 24 inches by 48 inches, with a snug lid, so you know there’s a small space investment. A wooden outdoor box takes a bit of carpentry skill, while an indoor bin is just two nested tubs with strategically drilled vents to drill excess moisture and provide air circulation for your new friends. PLACEMENT A few things to keep in mind as you decide on a future home for your worm bin. Firstly, larger wooden bins can be placed in a garage, shed or in a shady part of your yard. The smaller tub-style bins can live easily in a garage or utility room, or outside on your patio. No matter the bin type, avoid spots that would get too sunny and hot in the summer, as the heat could kill your worms. And finally, make sure to place your bin in a convenient place so you’ll actually use it! CARE AND FEEDING Set up your bin by filling it with bedding material like fallen leaves, but if you don’t have that, “shredded newspaper is awesome,” says Reingard Rieger, Tilth Alliance’s program manager for the Master Composter Sustainability Steward program, which trains 30 volunteers a year to spread the composting word. You can also shred uncoated office paper or cardboard. She cautions not to “grab leaves out of the curb” or use evergreen or oak leaves, as these take too long to break down, or can throw the pH of the compost off-balance with their higher acidity, making the finished product less useful. Finally, add your worms. Best to get them from a friend with an active bin—They multiply quickly under good conditions!—or you can purchase a starter batch. Add food (kitchen scraps) to the bedding by digging a hole, adding the scraps and raking the bedding back over the hole completely, and leave your new friends to their feast! You’ll know the bin is active and healthy if your worms are actively eating the scraps. As they work through your trimmings, they’ll migrate to where the food is, so you can see clearly when to add new food or fresh bedding, and when to remove finished vermicompost, which will be a rich black, with few worms left in it. When friends ask if we have a dog, I answer, “No, just worms.” Our only pets. Besides being low maintenance, they are a wriggling little mass of helpers for my garden.
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