Indoor Composting

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greenwood46 Milwaukee, WI Oct 09, 2013

I have an ice cream pail 3/4 full of dirt which is home
to 3 dz red worms. I put all my veggie wastes into the
pail for the worms to eat. My questions is will these
worms grow and multiply or do they stay the same
small size? Any help or suggestions on my indoor
composting would be greatly appreciated. thanks

Post #9682247
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WeeNel Ayrshire Scotland, United Kingdom Oct 09, 2013

I'm not an expert by any means on wormery composting, I have seen the very well made results and understand you need to feed the wormery with waste food from kitchen etc,
All I can tell you is that there is a special type of worm used for this, there is also certain conditions for the health and safety of the worms and also as the wormery matures you can syphon off the liquid from the bottom of the wormery and dilute this and it acts as a liquid feed for ALL plants.
these worms I assume must be like lots of other different worms we find anywhere, they bread, will multiply and of-course this must I also assume mean you have to expand upwards the size of the container you have the worms in.
I would imagine there must be a site / forum here on Dave's that will have positive instructions for you if you can do a search for it. I hope you find it because it is very popular here especially in smaller plots where a larger compost heap would not be possible.
Lets hope someone who actually does this type of composting can help you out much better than I can.
Good luck and kindest Regards.

Post #9682264
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dragonfly53 Bedford, VA(Zone 7a) Oct 09, 2013

If the worms have enough food and space, they will multiply. Red wigglers, eisenia Foetida, are the ones usually used for indoor vermicomposting. As WeeNel says you have to siphon off the liquid which will form at the bottom of the container or you will have worm soup and it will smell bad.

I have an indoor worm bin, the manufactured kind and have run it for about 7 years. I have 2 trays full of worms and I get about 16 ounces of worm tea per week, just from the worms and their food, no water is added, so the liquid can add up pretty fast!
The bedding needs to be kept airy and damp but not soggy, as the worms need air to live. I use a mixture of soaked coir and shredded newspaper for their bedding but I have also used all newspaper and sometimes added shredded junk mail and printer paper.

I also have a home made bin which is a low plastic tub with a cover that I drilled holes in and added worms, bedding and food. I keep it inside another container to catch the leachate so my floors don't get soaked and I keep a few damp whole sheets of newspaper on top of the bin to keep fruit flies from getting in and out.
At the end of the process I have vermicompost

Post #9682309
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Diana_K Contra Costa County, CA(Zone 9b) Oct 09, 2013

There is a worm, or vermicomposting forum here at DG.

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/f/wrigglers/all/

Post #9682421
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