Happy Earth Day! (A post about our worm bin)

I thought in light of this day dedicated to our lovely earth, I would do a quick post about our worm bin. A couple of people have asked me about our worm bin as I have mentioned it in previous posts about our garden.
I will keep it simple. We moved into our home last summer and there was already a functioning worm bin. In order to care for it properly I purchased a great book called "Worms Eat My Garbage" by Mary Appelhof Before we had a worm bin in our yard, I knew nothing about worm composting. We have really enjoyed it and our garden and the earth have benefited.
Doug built a new bin this year and we started from scratch. The book shows you how to build a bin and how to get one started. Once you get it started, which all you need is shredded newspaper, you save your organic food waste (veggie scraps, fruit scraps, unused pasta) and add it to the bin to feed the worms. You need red worms which can be ordered online. If you care for your bin properly, you only need to purchase worms one time. When you are ready to use the compost, there are techniques in which you can get the worms out and make them start all over, which is what we did. Once you start feeding the worms, they quickly move through the food scraps and turn it into beautiful compost! This keeps rotting waste out of land fills and gives you free compost for your garden.
Happy earth day! This is a great small step to improving our earth!!


This is what the bin looks like. It dubs as a bench too! Doug built it. I am lucky to have a wood working hubbie!




The news paper on the left is new bedding for the worms, the more black on the right looked like this just about 5 or 6 months ago. I shifted all the compost to one side to maximize the amount of compost made by the worms. Now, we only put food into the left side but the worms still work the compost on the right. In a few months the compost on the right should be all turned and look like this...