Indoor Composting With Worms

Not everyone has the capability or desire to have an outdoor compost pile. What if you could compost indoors on a smaller scale? You can compost indoors using small quantities of material and there are at least two ways to do it.

A form of indoor composting that is gaining in popularity is worm composting, also called vermicomposting. Worm composting means exactly what it sounds: using earthworms to break down your unwanted organic matter. Worms will happily go to work on a combination of kitchen scraps and some sort of carbonaceous bedding material and turn the whole thing into vermicompost, which is a combination of worm castings and organic material in various stages of composting. You can get more worm castings by leaving your worms to work on the same material for longer. However the longer the worms have to live in their own poop, the less well they fare. Every worm composter has to strike the balance that works best for her situation.

Setting up a worm composting system is fairly simple. You need a box with ventilation holes around the top and through the bottom, and a lid. You can use almost any kind of wooden or plastic box. Styrofoam coolers, often used to ship materials on ice, work very well. You can screen the holes with a mesh material such as that used for window screens to keep material from falling through the holes on the bottom and to keep your worms from escaping, but you can usually get away without screening.

Once you have built your worm box, you need to fill it with bedding. Shredded newspaper is easy to obtain and works quite well. Other possibilities are peat moss, composted manure and coconut coir. The bedding needs to be moist like a wrung out sponge before adding the worms. You can fill a spray bottle with water and liberally spray the bedding as you layer it in. Add a handful of dirt or sand to the bedding to provide the worms with grit.

Next, you add the worms. If you are using composted manure, be sure to wait about three days from the time you wet the bedding before adding worms because wet manure has a tendency to heat up. This is not of concern for any of the other beddings. You can order worms from a supplier who caters to worm composters. You want the worms to be Eisenia foetida, commonly known as redworms or red wigglers. You can also purchase them from a bait shop, though that tends to be more expensive. One pound of worms will process around a half pound of kitchen scraps per day, so you want to order enough to meet your needs.

Once you have worms you can start to bury kitchen scraps in the bedding. You can bury your scraps in a different part of the box each time following a systematic plan. Your worm box should be big enough that you will not have to return to the same burial spot for a couple weeks or so. This will allow the scraps to begin decaying, at which point the worms will start eating them.
Worm composting can be fun and rewarding, especially when you get to start using the worm compost in your garden or potted plants. The easiest mistake to make is feeding the worms too many scraps. This can lead to the worm bin heating up to uncomfortable temperatures. So, make sure you order enough worms to process the load of scraps you plan to feed them.

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