Can I put composting worms in my garden?

No.  Red wiggler worms (Eisenia fetida) are not a soil worm.  They are epigeic, meaning they live on top of the soil.  They are specialists in breaking down rotting organic matter.  Composting worms can be added directly to the garden using a worm trench or a worm tower.

Can I put composting worms in a compost bin or pile? Yes, as long as you are not hot composting.  Red wiggler worms do a great job upping compost speed in home composting bins.  Make sure your composting bin or pile is in complete shade and stays moist, otherwise the worms will leave.  Composting worms are great for finishing off compost as well.  If you’ve hot composted, and the compost still needs time to finish, that’s the time to add composting worms.

Can I use a clear plastic bin to keep my worms in? No.  Worms need total darkness.  I have tried keeping worms in clear, plastic tubs with various methods to keep it dark.  It’s not worth the hassle and it doesn’t work.  It’s a lot easier to get an opaque tub or bin.

Does a worm composting bin smell? Absolutely not.  If it smells bad, then something is wrong.  Worm composting is aerobic composting,  just like a standard compost pile.  This means that oxygen loving organisms break down the organic matter, and these organisms do not smell bad.  When a bin or pile becomes anaerobic, meaning it is decomposing without oxygen, it smells because the bacteria are letting off sulfur.

If I get composting worms, will I be overrun by them at some point? Composting worms will reproduce in worm composting bins or in compost bins or piles.  However, when the worms become too crowded, they will stop reproducing.  So you won’t be over run by worms.  If you do want your worms to keep producing, split your bin so the worms have more room and they will continue to reproduce.

Can composting worms and other types of worms live together? No.  Composting worms require a specific set of conditions that are different than non-composting worms.  There are several commonly used species of composting worms, however.  From my understanding, mixing the different types will usually result in one type out competing the others.  I’ve never mixed different types of composting worms.

How much dirt do I need in my worm composting bin? None.  Composting worms do not require soil.  Worm bedding and worm food are added to a worm composting bin.  Worm bedding is the equivalent of the browns or carbon, and food is the green or nitrogen.  The most commonly used worm bedding is shredded paper and the most common worm food is kitchen scraps.  No meat, grease, or bones should be added to a worm composting bin.

How do I tell when my worm compost is “ready”? Finished worm compost is light brown to black in color, crumbly, and smells like earth or any other compost.  Be patient.  When starting a bin from scratch, it will take about 3 months to see any noticeable compost.  It may take another 3 months until you have enough to harvest any significant amount.

How do I harvest worm compost or worms? There are several different ways to harvest compost and/or worms.  The way I use most often is to use a screen combined with light harvesting.

How to screen worm compost:

• Just take a 1/4″ hardware cloth screen and press your worms and compost through it.
• You may be able to pick some worms off the top of the screen.  Many will fall through, and some will be stuck in the middle.
• Keep screening until you have a nice pile.
• Let the pile sit a few minutes.  Any worms in the pile will move down toward the bottom to escape the light.
• Begin taking compost off the top of the pile until you see worms.  When you see worms let it sit again.
• Eventually you will have a pile of compost and a pile of worms.
• If you want a finer material for the compost, then the compost can be screened through an 1/8″ screen and the larger clumps thrown back in the bin.

Other ways to harvest worm compost include mechanical harvesters, feeding one side, using some sort of bag with holes, and flipping the whole bin over.  But that’s for another post.

Still have questions?  Ask them in the comments below.

I just caught a piece of a news story on the radio stating that there was some coffee bean disease on the loose.

Great, there goes the price of coffee, I thought.

Worm Tea Fights Fungus

Then I quickly added to my train of thought, they should be using worm tea.

I think the disease that was mentioned was coffee berry disease.  I looked up coffee berry disease and it’s caused by a fungus.  Perfect target for worm tea.  Spraying worm tea on plants with fungal disease destroys the fungus by the sheer number of beneficial bacteria and fungi in the tea out competing the disease.

And then I remembered that I saw something a while back about an actual coffee plantation using composting worms in their operation.  I went back through my bookmarks and found the story.

Roger’s Family Coffee, Composting Worms, and Coffee

Evidently there’s a California based coffee operation using composting worms directly in coffee growing operations.  From reading this article, I gather that the coffee farmers use composting worms to break down coffee pulp that is a waste product of coffee production.  The resulting worm compost and castings are used to make worm tea which is in turn used on coffee seedlings.

There have been some awesome side effects of using composting worms including a reduction in water pollution, return of native species, and return of native springs.  There were some other management practices employed besides worms but worms definitely played their part.

I bet coffee on these farms will not be impacted by coffee berry disease.

But I already have worms in my garden!  Yes, but are they composting worms?

Here some benefits of adding composting worms to the garden:

1. Eliminate the need to water more than once a day.
2. Free up more time for you because you don’t have to make compost and then add it to the garden.
3. Healthy, vibrant plants.  Compost supports healthy soil and healthy soil grows healthy plants.

Composting worms can be added to the garden via a trench or worm tower.

Worms are able to live quite well in the garden during the growing season.  Be sure to mulch their feeding area well.  Adding mulch frequently will protect their food from drying out and from flies, as well as provide a haven for the worms in case conditions change.

Is your garden lagging?  Want to get a good jump on growth in the spring?  Do your plants peter out in the late summer?

Adding compost can help all the above gardening problems.  Any compost will do, but vermicompost has some distinct advantages.

Vermicompost is higher in nutrients than the standard compost pile compost which is decomposed by only bacteria and fungi.  Something about the worm adds more nutrients to the compost than standard composting.

Plus, if you have composting worms, you can make the compost yourself.  Or, if you have a large outdoor pile, you can add worms to finish off the compost.

Worm compost is great for starting seedlings.  Worm compost helps fight plant disease by providing good bacteria and other microorganisms.

If you want your garden to really flourish this year, think about starting a worm bin today.

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A worm tower is a feeding site that you set up for red wiggler worms in your garden. Use a large piece of PVC pipe with large holes drilled in the parts that go underground. Cover the top with screen and a rubber band to keep flies out.

Using a worm tower is an awesome way to continuously fertilize via vermicompost.  Red wiggler worms inhabit your garden, you feed them, they fertilize your plants.

For more details on building a worm tower see:

How to Build a Worm Tower at Suite 101

Worm Towers at my organic gardening site

I posted an update on my garden at You Tube.  In the video I show the worm towers and even take one out so you can see it.

In my opinion, the worm towers are doing their job of delivering nutrients right to my plants in the form of worm castings.   But, I don’t have a raised bed with no towers, so there’s nothing to compare.  Maybe next year.

Watch the Video

me and worm towers